The NonThreatening Approach to Affinity Diagrams

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The Non-Threatening Approach to Affinity
Diagrams
When Fear and Hope Collide

• Patricia Griffin and Caroline Fox
• Fort Hays State University
• 2006 NACADA Conference
• Concurrent Session 163

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When Fear and Hope Collide

• The Affinity Diagram is a tool used to group
  complex, apparently unrelated data into natural
  and meaningful groups of data.

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When Fear and Hope Collide

• Why use an affinity diagram?
• To allow a team to creatively generate a large
  number of ideas/issues and then organize and
  summarize natural groupings among them to
  understand the essence of a problem and
  breakthrough solutions.
• The Memory Jogger (1994)

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Benefits of an Affinity Diagram
When Fear and Hope Collide

• It also
• allows groups to quickly collect and organize
  hundreds of ideas
• gather input from everyone working on the problem
  
• gives all ideas equal weight
• ideas are grouped according to their natural
  relationships
• a very creative brainstorming process
• are spatial and interactive
• can be constructed with post-it notes or note
  cards on a wall or table
• helps to identify purpose, vision, problems

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Materials Required
When Fear and Hope Collide

• Mission Statement
• Values Statement (optional)
• Strategic Plan
• Unit Goals
• Assessment Information
• Annual Report
• Stats Collected
• Instruments
• Satisfaction Survey
• Noel Levitz
• LASSI
• NSE
• Academic Advising Evaluation

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COST to Create
When Fear and Hope Collide

• FREE!!!
• FREE!!!
• FREE!!!

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When Fear and Hope Collide
Affinity Diagram for lt Academic Advising
Programgt ltINSERT MISSION STATEMENTgt
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Unit Goals
When Fear and Hope Collide

• Question to Answer
• What are your outcomes/goals for academic
  advising?
• EXAMPLE

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Desired Outcomes
When Fear and Hope Collide

• Questions to Answer
• What do you expect advisees to know as a result
  of participating in academic advising?
• What do you want students to demonstrate they
  know as a result of participating in academic
  advising?
• EXAMPLE

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Strategies to Achieve Outcomes/Goals
When Fear and Hope Collide

• Questions to Answer
• Where in the advising process will students learn
  the desired outcomes?
• How will we know when they have learned them?
• EXAMPLE

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Assessment Approach and Methods
When Fear and Hope Collide

• Questions to Answer
• How will assessment evidence be obtained?
• Who, when and how often will evidence be
  gathered?
• How will you gather the evidence?

• EXAMPLE

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Results
When Fear and Hope Collide

• Questions to Answer
• Why was the assessment done?
• Who gets the results?
• What will be shared?
• How should the results be presented?
• EXAMPLE

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Action Taken
When Fear and Hope Collide

• Questions to Answer
• What needs to occur now that we have our results?
• What processes need to be adjusted?
• EXAMPLE

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When Fear and Hope Collide

• Thank you for your participation!
• Patricia Griffin Caroline Fox
• pgriffin_at_fhsu.edu cfox_at_fhsu.edu
• Please complete your session evaluation.
• Session number is C163.