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Information technology can be the
excuse and the means to make almost any kinds of change in education and
elsewhere. As you think about the kinds of
change that might happen, try to
answer each of these Fundamental Questions for your students, your colleagues, your
institution, and yourself:
What do you most want to gain?
What do you most cherish and want
not to lose?
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Transform or Preserve?
In other words, what do you and
your colleagues, friends, and family care most about
transforming? about preserving? These two
simple, powerful questions are the heart of the TLT Group's
Fundamental Questions activities.
Participants identify their most important shared
goals and commitments as well as significant differences in their hopes and
fears (e.g., boundaries between personal, professional,
academic lives; student/faculty ratio; for more
examples, see: "Dangerous
Discussions" ).
When are the Fundamental
Questions most useful?
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When significant change
is unavoidably imminent (i.e., almost always).
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When it is time to
review, reconfirm or revise plans for improving teaching
and learning with technology.
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When it is time to
identify newly emerging, converging or diverging goals.
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When convening a group of
diverse stakeholders.
These suggested activities
provide a good foundation for
setting priorities, especially during an initial planning
meeting of representatives of several important
constituencies, offices, or departments within the same
institution (for guidelines for establishing and
supporting such a group, see:
TLT Roundtable).
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Answers - Individual Recordings
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Contents of this Web Page |
Introduction & Background |
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Fundamental Questions
Steven W. Gilbert
President, The TLT Group
Shared Goals and Significant Differences
Hopes and Fears
Issues and Priorities
Since 1994, the
Fundamental Questions have been providing the most frequently used and powerful
activity within
the TLT Roundtable Program.
The suggested activities can
provide a good foundation for further discussion, for setting priorities, and
the work of a TLT Roundtable or other group.
Shared Goals and Significant Differences
These questions help members of a group to identify their most important shared
goals and any significant differences in their hopes and fears. The
activity usually demonstrates a reassuring convergence of underlying values. Alternatively, the results may indicate significant disagreement on fundamental issues;
if so, it is important for the group members to know about these
differences sooner rather than later.
Transform vs. Preserve
One of the greatest challenges in any discussion of important change is to distinguish between those elements that
need to be transformed and those that need to be preserved. The
Fundamental Questions activity reminds participants that information technology
can be used appropriately and effectively both for transformation of what needs
to be changed and for preservation of what is most cherished in teaching and
learning.
Diverse Groups - Dangerous Discussions
The questions can easily be adapted for many purposes. They have proven
especially effective as the basis for focusing discussion among people from many different parts of the same
institution. Consequently, a diverse group that is beginning to work on a "Dangerous Discussion" topic
together should consider adapting the Fundamental Questions for their own use. To
visit the Dangerous Discussions home page,
click
here.
Annual, Frequent Use
The most general form of these
questions can and should be asked and discussed by each local TLT Roundtable - or
similar group - at least once each year.
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Pre-Requisites &
Directions
Pre-Requisites:
Time and space suitable for reflective thinking
and candid exchange of ideas.
Directions
If necessary, revise the
wording of the warm-up and main questions to fit your purpose
- to match the
topic, issue, or focus of your work.
Select and work on one or more of
the warm-up questions.
Work
individually (2 to 4 minutes), and in then in small groups (5-15 minutes).
Select and work on two or more of
the main questions. Always include the first two!
Work on questions
individually (10 to 30 minutes), in small groups (15-30 minutes),
and then try
as a full group to reach consensus on them (15 to 90 minutes).
Consider first working through the entire process with questions
1 to 3 only.
Then begin work on questions 4 and beyond.
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Worksheets
I. Fundamental Questions Activity
Full 11-page version
[Revised 10/27/98; Compiled & Updated 6/19/2005]
Click here for
downloadable Microsoft Word version (easy to edit or to respond to questions via
a computer)
Click here
for downloadable, printable PDF version
(easy to print in intended format).
II. List of Fundamental Questions
Condensed, 2-page, 7-question version
Click here for
downloadable Microsoft Word version (easy to edit or to respond to questions via
a computer)
Click here
for downloadable, printable PDF version
(easy to print in intended format).
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Warm-up
Questions for "Fundamental Questions" Activity
[Revised 10/27/98; Compiled & Updated 5/30/2005]
Learning and Teaching
i. Recall one of your own most valuable
learning experiences. Describe it
briefly. [It might have happened
in a classroom -- or not. It might have involved the use of technology -- or
not.]
ii. Recall one of your own most satisfying
teaching experiences. Describe it
briefly. [It might have happened
in a classroom -- or not. It might have involved the use of technology -- or
not.]
Past and Present
Most likely, important changes have already resulted from educational
uses of information technology at your institution.
iii. What are 1 or 2 important gains that have already resulted from
educational uses of information technology at your institution?
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For your students?
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For your colleagues?
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For your institution?
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For yourself?
iv. What are 1 or 2 important losses that have already resulted from
educational uses of information technology at your institution?
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For your students?
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For your colleagues?
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For your institution?
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For yourself?
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Fundamental
Questions
[Revised 10/27/98; Compiled & Updated
6/19/2005]
First four are most essential!
Information technology can be the
excuse and the means to make almost any kinds of change in education and
elsewhere. As you think about the kinds of
change that might happen, try to
answer each of these questions for your students, your colleagues, your
institution, and yourself.
1. What do you most want to gain? [Regain?]
What, who do you care about? What are 1 or 2 important results that you most
want to gain in the future from educational uses of information technology?
[If it is easier, ask yourself “What do I most want to
regain?]
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For your students?
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For your colleagues?
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For your institution?
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For yourself?
2. What do you most cherish and want
not to lose?
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For your students?
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For your colleagues?
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For your institution?
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For yourself?
3. What do you most want to avoid?
Which aspects of the more likely futures do you fear?
4. What are you willing (eager?) to give up or cut back?
What are you
willing to sacrifice in order in order to gain or keep something you identified
in questions 1 or 2 above? To avoid something you identified in 3?
5. What “Dangerous Discussion” issues do you most
want to address civilly and constructively within your college/university?
These issues should have the following characteristics:
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There is a realistic possibility that
holding some respectful, inclusive, constructive discussions might
influence decisions about this issue that will have a significant impact
on many people.
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There are several different categories of
stakeholders who believe this issue is important to them, but some of
them avoid talking with others about this issue - except those likely to
agree with them.
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There are ways in which some applications
of information technology and communications media could help this
process, and some applications may already be getting in the way.
This issue is important to
you, and fits well with your
answers to 1-4 above!
6.
What do you have to offer?
How can you help?
What have you already accomplished or mastered? What are you proud of and willing to share?
[What skills, knowledge, and insights can you
share with others?
Your success in teaching in a
traditional environment – or with whatever your professional role might be --
surely reflects some lessons you could pass along to others. If you have already begun to use some
technology – as simple as word-processing and email or as complex as
interactive multimedia – you have probably learned some lessons from your own
mistakes and found some nuggets of advice in your own moments of success worth
passing along.]
7. What are 2 or 3 of the most important remaining obstacles?
What do you need?
[What is missing? What are the
barriers impeding your beginning or making more rapid progress toward your
goals? Toward the goals suggested in
your answers to #1, 2 above?]
8. Whom could you help?
Is there at least one person whom you would be comfortable helping to make
progress in an area of shared interest, concern, or need?
[Not necessarily the most needy or
challenging person – perhaps the easiest and most comfortable.]
9. Who could help you?
Is there at least one person whom you would be comfortable asking for help
with an effort in an area of shared interest, concern, or need?
[Not necessarily the most adept or
universally recognized expert – rather,
the person from whom you would be most comfortable accepting advice or
assistance. Is there a person you
could list in your answers to both #8 and #9? Perhaps you and this person could form an ongoing “TLT Coaching
Partnership.”]
10.
Whom can you thank?
Who has been providing help to you or
to some of your colleagues – above and beyond what would be expected solely
based on that person’s professional responsibilities?
[Who has been a “compassionate
pioneer” at least once? Whom would you like to thank
publicly for being helpful or simply for trying hard to surpass his/her own
previous achievements? Whom would you like to thank for their contributions
as teachers, helpers, or learners?] See:
http://www.tltgroup.org/CommunityConnectedness.htm
11. Obstacles and Next Steps
What obstacles, if any, have prevented you from satisfactorily
completing this worksheet and task?
What steps can be taken to eliminate or work around those obstacles?
What steps should be taken to continue to move forward?
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Related Resources
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*Composite version of
TLT Roundtable classic activity
- revised 6/2005, 4/2007
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