Virtual Situated Learning Environments - Information Communication Technologies for Human Services Education and Delivery - page 82

include inter-disciplinary disputes and reflection
on personal and group preferred behavioural
styles.

identification of value judgements made by or-
ganisations and employees, developing research
skills, and using reflection to develop strategies
(Jones, 2007a; Jones 2007b; Jones 2007cJones &
McCann 2005; 2004). Students engage in on-line
role play, on-line negotiations and on-line group
discussions according to a variety of scenarios,
designed as ill-defined, open-ended and complex
tasks. Issues that form the basis of student interac-
tions relate to employment issues such as wage
payments, training, equity, sexual harassment,
diversity policies and practices, occupational
health and safety as well as general business issues
such as developing risk management procedures
and takeover strategies.

a publicly-owned, internationally
located, complex Hotel and
restaurant organisation (fibco)

The third VSLE is designed as a global hotel
and restaurant chain which originated in France
as a private company, was floated on the stock
exchange as a public company and bought out
by an American company. It has expanded into
Asia and developed a complex supply-chain from
production of raw food inputs to the transporta-
tion of products. Each participant-learner is either
a local or expatriate manager, an employee in a
hotel or restaurant, raw food producer or engaged
in transportation.
Scenarios of inter-professional challenges in
which learners engage have included:

StuDent engagement in vSle

In each case the level and intensity of student en-
gagement in, and feedback on, their participation
in the activities has been positive, indeed more
positive than expected. There has been ample
evidence of employability skills developed by
students. Even in this asynchronous environment
students exhibited improved “communication”
skills, particularly in developing appropriate
protocols for communicating in the online en-
vironment and the effects on relationships when
these are followed. “Team-work skills ” developed
significantly over the period of on-line group
engagement. This was particularly evident in
international students who reflected that the on-
line environment provided them with the time to
develop their thinking and perfect the English
level in their written contributions and analyse
the contribution of other team members that as-
sisted them to develop new levels of confidence
to contribute to discussion. “Problem-solving”
skills developed with students often referencing
earlier written discussions to find “innovative”
solutions by combining ideas from earlier discus-
sions that, in the face-to-face environment, may
have been lost. “Planning and organising” skills

• Development of knowledge strategies,

including social networks, to link the or-
ganisation and numerous discipline-based
personnel;
Exploration of disciplinary and inter-disci- •

plinary frames through which the organisa-
tion is viewed; and
Design of professional development pro- •

grams to link the cross-cultural and cross-
disciplinary workforce.

Activities in which participant-learners en-
gage are designed to develop participant-learners
abilities to analyse different styles of leadership
and management required for inter-disciplinary
cross-cultural engagement and reflect on personal
behavioural styles.
In summary, activities and scenarios in which
participant-learners engage cover a broad gamut
of factors that engages them in identifying salient
issues of changing work in a complex environ-
ment, framing judgements and making decisions,