"Do You Trust Me...?!?"
There are times in life when certain messages seem to converge and I see the same ideas or themes over and over again. Things that you rarely have the opportunity to think about appear again and again, so that you can't help but begin to contemplate their significance. Lately, everywhere I turn there seems to be something that relates to the issue of trust...
One of the great things about having a four-year-old niece is that this gives me a solid reason for watching tons of Disney cartoons. We were recently watching Aladdin. One of the scenes that I vividly recall involves Aladdin asking the princess "Do you trust me?", while holding out his hand as he tries to convince her to take a leap from a great height. One of the wonders the Disney folks accomplish is to make this episode seem so easy - the princess takes hold of Aladdin's hand and they both jump, without much of a thought or sense of doubt. When you think about this scene, I can't help but be amazed at how difficult a decision it would be to trust someone I barely know and to also put my life in their hands...but I guess that's what action-packed animation is all about.
I recently experienced trust-shock personally. A few weeks earlier, I decided to fight off a bit of boredom by mischieviously trying to reset one or two of the setting's on a friend's PDA. Rebel that I am, I thought they might enjoy having their clock set to Papua New Guinea standard time. They were looking a little pale, and I figured they could use the exposure to the tropics (...yeah, that's it... :-) ). Of course, I was caught in the act. I figured that while I was being a bit of a pain, it was not a big issue in the whole scheme of things, since this was a harmless prank there was no chance of anything embarrassing resulting from this. At worst, I was being a minor nuisance (which I excel at, on occassion). Last week, I was sitting in front of the same friend's computer and, being bored, I opened up a web page they were working on and started to read through it. I was stunned when they told me to close the file for fear of me making potentially embarassing changes. Now this is a person that I've known for years. We've shared a ton of personal information with each other - ideas, dreams, shortcomings, disappointments...very personal stuff. I was really surprised that this person could believe that I could even contemplate embarrassing them publicly; that there were threads of trust in our relationship that were so short and brittle, when in my mind I believed we were at the point of weaving ropes of trust.
Trust is also rearing its head in the form of articles that have popped into my e-mailbox. These relate mainly to issues of trust in schools and businesses, where trust or a lack of it can impact people significantly. Do e-educators need to concern themselves with these kinds of details? Despite the faceless nature of the virtual classroom, trust is still something that needs to be cultivated in online courses. If we are to structure these courses around a community of learners, trust is of the utmost importance. Yes, this online environment can remove some of the inhibitions people feel about putting forward thoughts, comments, ideas in public, but does this mean that people automatically feel comfortable being honest with each other, despite the fact that they are not sitting face-to-face with other learners in the class? In order for people to be honest, they need to feel that they will not be vulnerable as a result of those actions. In online courses trust is needed to create an environment where people are willing to put forward their honest thoughts and their experiences in order for the discussions to have any meaning. Since so much of many online courses revolve around discussions between learners, a lack of trust could reduce the learning that occurs to superficiality, irrelevance or silence.
Will these articles help you figure out how to create a trustful environment in your online course? They might contain a few helpful ideas, but I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath. It is more likely that they just might stimulate your thoughts enough to get you started in that direction...to be perfectly honest, that's my hope, at least.
I trust that we'll see you back again next week. Until then, happy reading!
Steve
'Trusting' School Community Linked to Student Gains
Quote: "Should anyone view their research as a plea for a warm-and-fuzzy approach to student learning at a time when data-driven proof of learning gains is so avidly sought, Mr. Bryk and Ms. Schneider take pains to note that it is in such times that trusting relationships in schools are needed most. Trust reduces the sense of vulnerability that comes with the risk of change and facilitates the collective decisionmaking necessary to such change, they write. It helps staff perform well without intensive monitoring and it sustains their ethical imperative to advance children's best interests."
Comment: Newsflash - a trust-filled environment improves student learning and helps teachers do their job better. I'm surprised that they required a study for this! One of the thoughts I had when reading this articles was whether it was the collection of good teachers that created the environment of trust, or whether a school's environment of trust helped to attract a group of good teachers...
Quote: "If trust is established at the core of an organisation, it is likely to spread, as trust begats trust. Two people who have established trust can create more value in their relationship as each has more access to the other's resources. One can compensate for the other's weaknesses and each is more free to focus on the things they are personally best at. Two people who work together well will be more able to connect with a third person, and so on. Contagious trust can build fantastic creative communities. (Similarly, once distrust is established between two people, their energy gets channelled into defensiveness. Which reduces openness, and further diminishes trust, in what can be a vicious circle.)"
Comment: While this article focusses on the value of trust in the business organization, I think many of the ideas presented can also apply to the online classroom - after all, these concepts look at strengthening trust in a community. In addition to the author's thoughts, this article also has a record of all the discussion that it has spawned - and the trail is a lengthy one!
Karen Stephenson's Quantum Theory of Trust
Quote: "For example, one easy way to improve the level of trust, anytime and anywhere, ist simply to increase the speed with which people respond to communication. When people return our calls and e-mails quickly, it sends a signal that we can rely on them because our connection, however distant, is important enough to claim some of their attention. 'Human beings always keep an internal accounting system of who owes what to whom.' says Steve Haeckel, director of strategic studies at IBM's Advanced Business Institute, who has collaborated with Professor Stephenson for 10 years on some of the trust-related research she's done. 'Response time is one indicator of the degree of trustworthiness of the other individual.'"
Comment: The quote above provides one potentially useful way to build trust in online courses. The majority of this article will probably not provide such helpful tips, however, it does provide a very interesting look at how trust impacts the workings of organizations. A worthwhile read. You will probably have to register to get access to this article, but it is a quick and painless process.
Posted by gsiemens at January 20, 2003 8:32 PM