The Challenges of Facilitation and Ethics

In our last class, we simulated our book club and went through numerous discussions on our assigned texts. One of my biggest takeaways was that it is immensely different being a participant in a book club versus being a facilitator in a book club. I remember writing down in my notebook during our first discussion (when I was a participant) that facilitators should intrude less and leave time for silence. Yet, when it was my time to facilitate, I found it incredibly difficult not to interrupt and micromanage the conversation! There were times where I felt nervous about the trajectory of the conversation. I wanted the participants to focus more on the text at times than their personal experiences, which was made difficult because our participants did not really like our text! What I gathered from that experience was that you can do a little nudging in a certain direction, but it is ultimately up to the participants to guide the discussion the way they want to. This might mean that you do not cover all of the themes you had planned out, but that is not really the point. Fundamentally, book club is about encouraging participants to find their voice and be more comfortable having conversations where opinions might vary significantly. With that instructional goal in mind, it became easier to let go of my preconceptions and allow the discussion to take its course.

            Our readings this week focused on professional ethics, which I have always found to be an important topic, especially at UMSI. I have had multiple HCI students in the school talk to me about how ethics are not really talked about in a substantial way in their classes and they always seem astonished when I tell them of the robust conversations on ethics I have had in LIS and ARM classes. It is for this reason why I chose to pair the Silicon Valley ethics reading with the ALA Code of Ethics, which I find to be very interesting. The conflicts between following the law and following moralistic values found in the ACM document can be tricky because morality is subjective. The first principle in the ALA code of ethics is to provide service for appropriate resources. Who defines what is “appropriate”? And how does that conflict with the second principle, to defend against censorship and uphold intellectual freedom? What I like about the ACM document is that it admits that different values can conflict and that you need to apply thoughtful consideration in your ethical decisions.

One thing that strikes is the timing of how both professions started considering ethics. The ALA first adopted their code of ethics in 1939 and have revised them three separate times since then. The folks in Silicon Valley have either just now started thinking about ethics, since the election of Donald Trump, or last thought of ethics back when the Internet had just started. While I understand that the professions in Silicon Valley are young, and that librarians did not start thinking about ethics until the some 60 years after the founding of ALA, I found it astounding that no serious considerations of ethics have been made with all of the power and influence that Silicon Valley has been able to accrue the past two decades. I think dedication to values and ethics really defines a profession (it’s why I chose this one). The  people that develop technology need to start crafting their identity around those values and ethics just like the people who assist and serve communities that access technologies do.

First Rule of Book Club...

Our class last week was focused on how to lead a productive book club session. We discussed some do’s and don’ts of book clubs and then we simulated a book club experience by having a chosen few of the class participate in a discussion of Marc Prensky’s “In the 21st Century University, Let’s Ban (Paper) Books” published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. As I watched the simulation, I saw some of the values that Kristin explained to us. For example, when one of the participants was getting off track by talking about the overall absurdity of the piece or talking too much about their personal experience, the facilitator (Kristin) was able to reign it back in and gently guide people through a productive discussion.

At one point, I remember I was itching to get into the discussion because the opinion was being formed that Prensky was simply too naive, so I aggressively tapped Evan out in order to put my two cents into the conversation. While it is generally good to have participants be passionate about the book club subject matter, I felt like also should have toed a line of sharing the discussion space with everyone else while making sure my opinion is heard, but not dominant. The most important job of the facilitator in those moments is to recognize any imbalance of expression and address it in gentle and objective ways to make the conversation smoother.

One of the biggest takeaways from the class was that book club discussions are for the benefit of the participants not the facilitators. It really is not about imparting our wisdom or pushing people toward a certain conclusion. It is more about giving people the tools to reach their own interpretations, while being mindful that those interpretations are grounded in the text being discussed. I hope that our own book clubs that we participate in this week remember this philosophy, as we all want to lead discussions where our participants feel empowered to express themselves and not feel like they have to conform to a paradigm that the facilitators have established.

Redemption, Unfortunate Genres, and Communities of Practice

Our in-class discussions last week were once again shaped by LEOs, which for some reason needed a redemption. I was given the LEO of a lawyer, a role which entailed thinking of the arguments and counterarguments for claims made in a New York Times opinion article. This particular article, “AI and Big Data Could Power a New War on Poverty,” was quite easy to contest. Besides belonging to the unfortunate genre of “Tech will save education” (which seems to be a repeating theme in this class), the author was quite astute in her incorrect opinion that AI has no biases and therefore could provide an evaluation-free analysis of public assistance programs. The author also proposed a dramatic restructuring of modern American life that was definitely not that big a deal! Everyone will be matched with their corresponding job at the other end of the country maybe and all children will be tutored in isolation based on their strengths and weaknesses. Cool! (*ok, ending obnoxious sarcasm*)

            Fortunately, my other classmates that also had the lawyer LEO were also not having her arguments, and dissected them point by point. I realized midway through out discussion that another point of this exercise was to come up with reasons why her arguments were appealing, but we did not focus on that at all. I thought of how influential the author's credentials were, a researcher at Stanford University, and the visibility of The New York Times opinion column. Her argument was likely to have influence somewhere. I then appreciated it when Kristin suggested that her audience might be people who would fund and support the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality (where the authors works) because it ties in with our information and news literacy discussions. Ultimately, information has value and it’s important that we think of these considerations when presented with an opinion we might disagree with: what are the author’s motives in making this argument?

            We later jigsawed into a different group, where we had a much more robust conversation on all of the learning theories and strategies we have learned thus far. One particular discussion that stood out was our rehashing of what really happened at orientation and whether any of that knowledge transferred. When I recited some of the activities that we had done (all of us were second-years), Nicco pointed out that a lot of these activities were lectures where everyone was sitting around and listening to UMSI’s amalgamation of policies. He believed our time would have been better spent in cohorts, beyond the Information Challenge, where we would discuss the implications of these policies within consistent small groups. This idea resonated with me a lot as I considered the challenges inherent in a school like UMSI that was trying to bring together disciplines and build communities.

            Nicco’s idea also translated well with this week’s readings, as we considered how book clubs or “literature circles” help sustain communities of practice. The idea that learning becomes more engaging and productive when discussing a common element as a group is the central ethos of a book club and explains its popularity. I was struck by the comparisons between the “kid” book club and the “adult” book club in the Daniels and da Rosa dos Santos readings respectively, as they each seemed to have the effect of creating community in addition to creating learning opportunities. I think the major difference I saw was the latitude that was given to the kids in the choice of books they were going to read. The adult book club was much more goal-oriented (how can we learn about design principles so we have a better contextual awareness for our research?), while the kids were more unconstrained, as literacy by any book necessary was the ultimate objective. Reading about the learning practices in these book clubs, I couldn’t help but think of the book club that I attended as a teen in my small-town library. Not only was I able to read boundary-pushing books I couldn't read in school, I also met people who I am still friends with today. That book club now happens online, but is more logistically challenging with our complex adult lives always getting in the way. A strong, shared purpose, as well as a regular schedule, is necessary to have an effective book club experience. In establishing communities of practice, navigating these logistical challenges and communicating these norms and expectations are absolutely paramount, whether or not they use a book club as their scaffolding.