Author Archives: squidcoach

Over the years I’ve seen my share of student project teams perform well, and my share of those that don’t perform well (even a few that have totally imploded to the point of physical and/or emotional violence). If I had to sum up what led to the good, the bad and the ugly outcomes inContinue reading “Project Team Leadership”

ATTITUDE is one of my favourite things to talk about, whether it’s in relation to individual or collaborative performance and achievement. In fact, I think it’s so important that I refer to it all in capitals – it deserves that level of emphasis. Let me explain to you how I’ve experienced and observed its importance.Continue reading “ATTITUDE”

Think about a conventional Business/Management or IT qualification – lots of discrete components, all contributing towards an overall Graduate Profile when their learning is aggregated, with a capstone project that allows the theory to be applied to a problem that’s a bit more wicked than the average assignment question or task. That project is typicallyContinue reading “Holistic projects – what they might look like in practice”

The value of an acronym comes from it accurately representing the meaning of its component words when they are joined together and then expanded in context. There’s an old saying about the need for “truth in advertising.” For some time now there’s one I’ve thought is not as accurate as it could be, and that’sContinue reading “Redefining VET for Business/Management/Leadership learning in the Te Pūkenga context”

Experiential learning, together with reflective learning, are two of the critical foundations underpinning the Doctor of Professional Practice. Our journey in practice as doctoral learners may differ significantly from what we expected before the journey really got under way. From the practical and pragmatic through to the existential, we are challenged in ways that generateContinue reading “Horns of dilemmas: Doctoral learners share their work-arounds”

In this follow-on from the Part 1 blog, I want to pick up on the value proposition idea from the viewpoint of the project/course facilitator. If that’s you, what are the potential benefits of being involved with collaboratively worked and collaboratively assessed projects tackling wicked problems? I’m going to share what I think are threeContinue reading “The real power and value of the collaborative project experience (Part 2)“

This morning marked The Great New Zealand ShakeOut 2022. Promoted by NZ Civil Defence, it’s our National Earthquake Drill and Tsunami Hikoi. If an earthquake happens, the drill is to drop, cover and hold until the shaking stops – as I’m doing here in this video. I’m sure the cat wondered what I was doingContinue reading “Public Service Announcement”

Collaborative projects, often known as capstone or “applied” projects, typically occur as one of the last parts of a learner’s qualification. What I’m not talking about here is answering some set questions with entirely predictable outcomes over a few days or a couple of weeks where there’s no real requirement to work collaboratively or evenContinue reading “The real power and value of the collaborative project experience (Part 1)”

In my previous blog, I identified two Tacit Assumption Traps (TATs) that we fall into as facilitators, particularly for team-based, collaborative projects, which I promised we would come back to: That the soft skills have been positioned by facilitators, at the time they were being taught and examined, as an important precursor to managing an effectiveContinue reading “Me-Time – The importance of self-care as part of working and learning – Part 2”

Across more than 20 years’ involvement with collaborative Project-Based Learning, especially capstone courses, something that’s always interested me is the way in which it’s expected that learners will develop and utilise interpersonal (soft) skills to a reasonably high level. While this might be a Graduate Profile item for whatever qualification the course lies inside, theirContinue reading “Me-time – The importance of self-care as part of working and learning (Part 1)”