We canceled my Monday meeting today.
Class was interesting tonight. Instead of just discussing the two articles we were to have read, we broke into groups and were charged with devising a study to test a question resulting from a real study that was done. The real study showed that people who receive feedback on their written communication from a manager (in the workplace) get very different feedback then people who get feedback on their written communication in academia (while in college, from their professors).
In general, the managers tend to “correct” the writing, often going as far as totally re-writing the work for the employee, while, in general, in college, the professors make comments like, “This could be clearer here,” or “Consider doing this type of thing here,” etc.
We were charged with designing a study that would investigate as to whether one kind of (those two) feedback is better than another; that is, does the student or employee learn more from one type of feedback or the other.
We broke into groups, and I worked with Courtney and Amelia, who are both a delight. We ended up with a decent proposal, which was different from the other three groups. Ours used a “within-subjects” design, while the other three groups came up with “between-subjects” designs. Though, I really wasn’t in the mood for “teaming” tonight, it ended up being kind of fun, and was a good “hands-on” way to review (and employ) some of the things we’d read about, such as the difference between “within-subjects” and “between-subjects” experimental designs.
I went to the library after class, and studied, amid the noise, until about 11:30. When I got home, there was an e-mail from Joe about Atlanta for the weekend. We’re booked for the Wyndham Hotel downtown.