| Possible Points: 30 After completing and reflecting on the Listening Exercise quiz, describe your experience to classmates. Include your assessment of the significance of listening as it relates to leadership dealing with students, faculty, and staff; make connections with listening as you identify other important leadership traits. Include an explanation of what makes leaders remarkable and why effective leadership is critical for change. 5-1 Discussion: Diffusion of Change | Possible Points: 30 As a higher education administrator, there will be times when you will lead change. For success, it is vital that you have an implementation plan. Explore and experiment with the Diffusion Simulation Game at least three times; on occasion, you may not have as much time to plan as you would like (the COVID-19 pandemic is an example of this). Be careful—this simulation can be addictive! You must complete this activity prior to participating in the discussion. After completing the simulation, share your strategies that were successful, reflect on those that were not, and identify at least two lessons learned that help you be better prepared as a change agent. Reflect on ideas offered from Spencer Johnson's "Who Moved My Cheese" video or from one of the course case studies that you are not using for the final project to support your conclusions about diffusion, resistance, and negotiation. |
6-1 Discussion: Creativity and Innovation | Possible Points: 30 Innovation Versus a Good Idea What is innovation? How is it different from simply having a good idea? Analyze the role of innovation with regard to change and reflect on how leadership characteristics and communication strategies influence the success of the adoption of the innovation. Conformity and Influential Factors Provide evidence for your initial conclusions about innovation by considering the resources provided in the module Reading and Resources area. Identify one example to predict what influence conformity and internal and external factors have on innovation. Reflect on which is better, internal or external forces, for initiating the change. Why? Predict what influence internal forces versus external forces have on the speed at which the change is adopted. |
7-1 Discussion: Data to Support Change | Possible Points: 30 Complete this How Good Are Your Change Management Skills? activity, designed to evaluate your thinking style. It may serve as a change readiness tool for use with a team to determine how willing team members may be to change. Based on what you learned about your thinking style, what can you predict about your readiness to change? As a higher education administrator, how can you apply the Thinking Style tool to building teams that work effectively together to implement a change successfully, such as building a campus climate and culture that is supportive of LGBTQ populations? What would a successful team look like and why? How can you encourage collaboration by incorporating information gained from data? |
8-1 Discussion: Mistakes Made and Successes Achieved | Possible Points: 30 Change is essential for the success of higher education today; however, most change efforts fail. How will common mistakes be addressed in your final project? If the mistakes are common, why are they continually repeated? Assess why leaders and change agents sometimes fail and sometimes succeed and consider how external challenges influence outcomes. |
10-1 Discussion: Predicting Change for Higher Education | Possible Points: 30 Average American University is struggling. You are in a middle management role at Average American University, and you have been challenged by the president to predict the biggest, most important change in HEA in the next five years. Describe what change you recommend to the president and why, supporting your conclusions with ideas learned through class, case studies, and other outside sources. Offer reflections on how Average American University can successfully implement that change to improve student success, retention, and persistence at its institution. |
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