Unit 8
How Amanda Clarke teaches Unit 8
Navigating Barriers and Driving Digital Reforms - Lesson Plan
What is this page?
This is a breakdown of how Amanda Clarke, an Associate Professor at Carleton University, teaches a class as part of Unit 8 of the open access syllabus developed by Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age.
Amanda teaches this as the final class of a 12-week elective course on digital government as part of the MA Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University.
We believe presenting diverse ways to teach the syllabus will help others adopt and teach the material in various contexts. See here how Konstanz University's Prof Ines Mergel teaches Unit 8 and here how Prof David Eaves teaches it at UCL.
Who is this page for?
This page was developed for university faculty who teach public administrators or master's levels students in public policy and public administration. This material may also be suitable for teaching to upper year undergraduates.
Class format
In person (but she has taught this online as well)
Class size: 15-25 students
2.5 hour seminar
This Class' Learning Objectives
By the end of this class students should be able to:
Have a good overview of the key concepts covered throughout the TPSDA syllabus
Have a realistic sense of what they can achieve in their early careers in government
Have fostered a sense of humility as innovators advocating for change and empathy for the people/institutions that they are attempting to change
Leave with a sense of hope
Develop a concrete and personal plan for driving change in government throughout their careers
How this class relates to the Digital Era Competencies
💡 This class has a specific focus on Competencies:
Competency 5 - Barriers
Competency 3 - Multidisciplinary
Competency 6 - Openness
See all eight digital era competencies here.
Assigned Reading
A Bleak Outlook for Public Sector Tech (2021) Sean Boots
Year End Reflections on Digital Government (2021) Honey Dacanay
A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide (2020) Chapters 6 and 12, Cyd Harrell Fernandez, S., & Rainey, H. G. (2006). Managing successful organizational change in the public sector. Public Administration Review, 66(2), 168-176.
Enabling Conditions, Not Heroics (2020) Honey Dacanay
How to Re-Shape Projects (without antagonising people) [video] Kate Tarling
Detailed Class Breakdown
Class plan: 150 minutes
Segment 1 - Welcome and warm up, 10 minutes
Reminder of final logistics for course (finals are this date, your marks arrive on this date, etc.)
Turn to the person next to you: What is your major takeaway from the readings? What still doesn’t make sense/keeps you asking for more information?
Segment 2 - Talk back, 10 minutes
Select a 2-3 groups of two to share their warm up reflections back to the class
Discuss amongst the group and give students a chance to answer other students’ questions
Segment 3 - Mini lecture, 20 minutes
Historic review of reform movements in government and review of the key dimensions of digital government reform and their connection to these reform movements
Classic barriers to change in public sector bureaucracies
Merits of resistance to change, and costs of resistance to change
Segment 4 - Student reflection, 10 minutes
The purpose of this is for student to practice independent writing and reflect on the following two questions:
Why have government institutions struggled to implement change historically?
What drives successful changes in government?
Segment 5 - Group activity, 20 minutes
The purpose of this segment is for students to reflect on Amanda’s whole 12 week course on digital government. She asks students to:
In small groups, write up the key barriers to digital government reform that arose in this week’s readings and in previous classes
Share back with the class and create one master list on the class Google Doc
Explain to the class how these barriers prevent digital government reform in practice
Segment 6 - Exercise: Advocating for open working practices in government, 15 minute prep, 30 minutes for presentations
Amanda ask students to prepare a 5-minute presentation based on the following:
You and your team need to work to persuade your manager to let you incorporate any number of open working practices (you choose) into your team’s latest project: developing a new form of Canadian Student Loan that targets entrepreneurs in need of retraining and upskilling (the federal Future Business Leader Student Loan Program).
You have an ‘old school’ manager who generally errs on the side of caution, has little technological knowledge, and is unacquainted with the tactics and benefits of ‘working in the open’.
Segment 7 - Feedback on presentations (student-led), 20 minutes
Amanda then asks students to feed back and reflect on the following questions:
What characteristics of a successful digital government innovator were on display in the presentations?
How could the students better engage with the key barriers to digital government reform in their presentations?
Segment 8 - Closing group discussion and final activity, 15 minutes
First Amanda provides the following opening reminder: You are, for the most part, new to government. Your levers for change are limited.
She then prompts the students to relection on the following**:** What can you do at this stage of your career to support digital government reform?
Activity: schedule an email to yourself for 5 years from now. What are the key things you want to do to support digital government reform when you are in a position of influence?
How can you get support teaching this unit?
We're dedicated to helping make sure people feel comfortable teaching with these materials.
Send a message to mailbox@teachingpublicservice.digital if you want to book in a call or have any questions.
You can also connect with David on LinkedIn.
What are your rights to use this material?
We have developed these materials as open access teaching materials. We welcome and encourage your re-use of them, and we do not ask for payment. The materials are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
If you are using any of our syllabus materials, please credit us on your course website using the following text:
We are proud to use the Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age syllabus in our curriculum and teaching. Developed by an international community of more than 20 professors and practitioners, the syllabus is available open-source and free at www.teachingpublicservice.digital
Why was this page created?
This teaching material forms part of the Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age project. Read more about it here.
Acknowledgements
David Eaves would like to note that this material was made possible by numerous practitioners and other faculty who have generously shared stories, pedagogy and their practices. David is also grateful to the students of DPI 662 at the Harvard Kennedy School for enriching the course and providing consent to have the material and questions shared. Finally, an enormous thank you must be given to Beatriz Vasconcellos, who helped assemble and organize the content on this page.