ETUG Ditching training workshops: Building learning capacities in new ways
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This document summarizes a presentation about building learning capacities through self-paced online training instead of workshops. It discusses the shortcomings of traditional workshops, including being ineffective uses of staff time and not accommodating distance learners. The presentation outlines Vancouver Island University's transition to self-paced online training for both faculty and students. For faculty, an online training course led to fewer support tickets and staff work hours. For students, self-paced online orientation courses saw increased participation rates compared to traditional workshops. The presentation concludes by discussing plans to refine existing online courses and develop additional content and supports.
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ETUG Ditching training workshops: Building learning capacities in new ways
- 1. Ditching Training Workshops: Building Learning Capacities in New Ways Presented by Stephanie Boychuk and Melissa Robertson Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning Vancouver Island University
- 2. Meet Your Presenters! Melissa Robertson Learning Technologies Support Specialist Melissa.Robertson@viu.ca Stephanie Boychuk Learning Technologies Support Specialist Stephanie.Boychuk@viu.ca
- 3. Presentation Outline • Our Background • What’s Wrong with Workshops? • Faculty Training • The Operations and Functions of VIULearn for Faculty • Student Training • VIULearn (D2L) Student Orientation 2015 • OOOC – University Transition Support • Conclusions – Where To Next • Questions?
- 4. Our Background 550 Permanent Faculty 200 Sessional Faculty 2 campuses 3 sites 17, 000 students
- 6. What’s Wrong with Workshops? Ineffective investment in staff time Lee Haywood. “Clock”. https://flic.kr/p/7iSnfi. CC BY-SA 2.0 Smlp.co.uk. “Milk or Cream”. https://flic.kr/p/6szYP1. CC BY 2.0 E Pluribus Anthony. “Map of Canada”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_Canada#/media/File:Political_map_of_Canada.png. Public Domain. Delivers single-serving skills Inadequate Support Distance Faculty and Learners
- 7. What’s Wrong with Workshops? Kevin Dooley. “Large lecture college classes”. https://flic.kr/p/nbPPKB. CC BY 2.0 • Assume a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and learning • Don’t encourage deep learning • Not a good model for faculty members
- 8. Faculty Training 0 200 400 600 800 Jan-Mar 2014 Apr-Jun 2014 Jul-Sept 2014 Oct-Dec 2014 Jan-Mar 2015 Apr-Jun 2015 Number of Tickets Submitted and Staff Work Time Recorded January 2014 - May 2015 Tickets Hours
- 9. The Operations and Functions of VIULearn for Faculty • Self-Paced • Fully-Online • Asynchronous • Flexible • Processed-Based Topics • Manual Enrollment
- 10. Student Training Fall 2013 73 orientations 1800 students Fall 2014 77 orientations 1960 students
- 11. Student Training 20 30 40 50 60 70 Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Fall 2014 PercentageofTotalStudents Participation Rate and Completion % for Self-Paced Course
- 12. VIULearn (D2L) Student Orientation 2015 • Self-Paced • Fully-Online • Asynchronous • Flexible • Task-Based Topics • Internal Self-Registering • 170 students • Advertised in December and January only 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Dec Jan Feb March April May Number of Students Self-Registering Each Month
- 13. VIULearn (D2L) Student Orientation 2015 • Self-Paced • Fully-Online • Asynchronous • Flexible • Task-Based Topics • Internal Self-Registering
- 14. OOOC – University Transition Support • Open Online Onboarding Course • Self-Paced • Fully-Online • Timed Content Release • Task-Based Topics • External Self-Registering • 260 students
- 15. Conclusions – Where To Next • Continue to refine self-paced courses • Better advertisement of current offerings • Developing course design and teaching online supports • Continue to develop OOOC content for first cohort of students • Possibility of offering mandatory staff training in the future • Piloting WHMIS for students and faculty in the Fall 2015
- 16. Questions? Feedback? Stephanie Boychuk – Stephanie.Boychuk@viu.ca Melissa Robertson – Melissa.Robertson@viu.ca
Editor's Notes
- Melissa Robertson – Melissa.Robertson@viu.ca Stephanie Boychuk – Stephanie.Boychuk@viu.ca We have both been members of the Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning since 2012 and work with faculty and students to support the use of learning technologies at Vancouver Island University
- Our campus has a diverse group of faculty – 550 permanent and 200 sessional We have to have onboarding activities for our sessional instructors twice a year in order to help them be successful We have about 17, 000 students, roughly 11% International students, 9% Aboriginal students and roughly 8% of learners over 40 There is a lot of diversity in experience with technology, and even more diversity in experience using technology for learning We have 2 campuses and 3 sites across Vancouver Island and the mainland Issues of distance and travel we can’t travel everywhere for all our offerings Some faculty are teaching online out of province as well (either for periods of the year or for a whole course) – some as far as the Yukon, Ontario, and even overseas
- While we manage, support and train instructors to use learning technologies, we are a Teaching and Learning Centre that focuses on curriculum and pedagogy development and support Our IT deparment supports hardware and software across campus We need to be mindful of this when introducing new technologies to faculty and students Moved to VIULearn – powered by Brighspace/D2L – from Moodle in 2012 The first year all online course components were in VIULearn was 2013 We have been primary support for faculty and student use of the system since then Word cloud is from our website
- Challenging for staff to run (time needed, ect) We are a teaching-focused Centre, extensive technical training isn’t really our role When we are bogged down running technical workshops, we are less able to support and/or deliver more high-impact offerings for pedagogy and teaching support Give faculty/students single-serve skills Workshops tend to promote completing a series of steps, not an understanding of how something works or why those steps need to done This leads to faculty feeling the system is unintuitive, and leaves them unable to troubleshoot or problem-solve effectively This increases the amount of staff support time required Inadequate Support Distance Faculty and Learners Need to be more flexible and responsive to the needs of our distance programs Should be able to offer the same support on campus and Canada-wide
- Assume a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and learning Most workshops are offered as small group sessions where information is delivered and practiced briefly Very little time to practice and problem-solve Only offered a certain times of year – demands faculty learn when it is convenient to our office, not to them Don’t encourage deep learning Encourages faculty to memorize steps (surface learning) instead of taking time to understand the process and system (deep learning) Not a good model for faculty members We need to lead by example and develop more dynamic, high-impact faculty training, which they can use as a model for their classrooms (Huun & Hughes, 2014)
- Chart is the number of tickets in each quarter of 2014 and beginning of 2015 Number of total tickets and total work hours are on the same chart for ease of display In Fall 2013 we ran 65 workshops between August and December focused on learning technology (average attendees per workshop = 2) We still saw a huge number of tickets (over 600) at the beginning of 2014, as well as in July-September months of 2014 (~730) The workshops did not ease the amount of support faculty needed In Fall 2014 we ran 28 workshops between August and December, focused on teaching and learning with some technology-focused offerings (average attendees per workshop = 5) We saw about 50 fewer tickets at the beginning of 2015, despite over 100 more courses being “active” in the system So How Did We Do It Without Workshops? The numbers (just in case) Fall 2013 – first year all online course offerings were through D2L 38 sessions – average 2 attendees Dec 2013 27 sessions – average 2 attendees Plus drop-ins Fall 2014 19 sessions – average 6 attendees Dec 2014 9 sessions – average 4 attendees Ineffective No data for 2013 , ticket system came into common use in Dec. 2013 Jan-Mar 2014 tickets - 641 hours - 188 Apr-Jun 2014 tickets - 301 hours - 129 Jul-Sept 2014 tickets - 726 hours - 268 Oct-Dec 2014 tickets - 494 hours - 323 Jan-Mar 2015 tickets - 609 hours - 191 Apr-Jun 2015 tickets - 298 hours - 83
- The Operations and Functions of VIULearn for Faculty course is designed to be self-paced, fully-online and asynchronous so it provides faculty with: Flexibility for distance and part-time faculty, as well as for instructional designers who only need to know certain aspects of the system Just-in-time support – they can access whatever material they need when they need it – instead of waiting for a workshop Encourages understanding and deep learning through process-based topics - instead of “how to create a quiz” “understanding the quiz tool” Additionally, provides multiple checks of understanding through pre and post assessments Encourages faculty to practice skills on their own throughout the course – helps to contextualize learning As more faculty members go through this, they can read what others’ have shared in discussions to see more applications directly to their own practice Provides a model for fully-online courses (Bell & Morris, 2009) Melissa – Guided Tour through course Badging to encourage movement through Levels Distinct levels organized by Tool Pre-assessments and Post-assessment to allow experienced faculty to move through materials more quickly and assess their understanding Follows specific structure for all levels and activities Allows faculty to choose specific topics or run through materials as a “course” Walled garden – enrollment currently managed by our department to ensure no student access Multiple means of representation for almost all topics Most faculty are picking and choosing what topics they are interested in, so our “completion” stats are low Developed by two staff members using some existing resources, but developing many resources from scratch Approximately 1 year in development, currently being updated, soft launch summer 2014, active enrollment fall 2014
- Ran F2F and webinars for all of the campuses – student feedback (clouds) shows common issues: Challenges included Staff time (full time work for two month for 1 person), Format (too slow for some too fast for others; presentation vs. lab time), Dependence on faculty for bookings (some students see us a lot, others don’t see us), Shifted calendars (many programs start outside of regular academic calendar), Locations (v. difficult to deliver to remote locations) The numbers (just in case we get asked) Fall 2013 73 orientations approx. 1800 students Spring 2014 27 orientations approx. 444 students Fall 2014 77 orientations approx. 1960 students Spring 2015 – FORMAT CHANGE 20 orientations approx. 178 students
- Also provided self-paced help at instructor request Participation Rate indicates % of students who completed >0% of the course Some participation was incentivize by instructors with grade (F2013 and S2014) Huge decrease in participation in Fall 2014, but students represented over 20% of total tickets in September (~14% total work time) So how are we better serving our students? The numbers (just in case we get asked) Self-Paced Fall 2013 50 % participation rate 49% complete half or more of the course Spring 2014 64% participation rate 33% completed half or more of the course Fall 2014 35% participation rate 37% completed half or more of the course Spring 2015 – FORMAT CHANGE 62% participation rate 31% completed half or more of the course
- VIULearn (D2L) Student Orientation 2015 course is designed to be self-paced, fully-online and asynchronous so it provides students with: Supports for distance students and students in off-calendar programs Choice – students can self-register as they want Just-in-time access – we find many students access material as needed (which includes the course itself) Average completion 22% (35% with 0’s removed) No incentives offered for course participation (Graph) Student are registering as they need the course – spikes in March and May (some programs starting, midterms for others) with no advertising Official Launch of Self-Registration in December 2014 – advertised to current VIU students through email, blog posts; advertised to faculty to encourage students to register Allows distance faculty to offer supports for their students
- Has gone through various permutations from 2012 to now – began as a companion piece to F2F orientation sessions and is now stand-alone fully-online Distinct levels organized by Task – navigation, communication, completing assignments Follows clear standard online delivery model - “Read”, “Watch”, “Do” Most content tailored to our instance in-house Used mix of own videos and D2L videos Provide “safe space” for students to practice with system Multiple means of representation for almost all topics Latest iteration focused on accessibility – captioning on videos, alt tags on images, accessible template, ect Built in skill stages to encourage linear progression, but students may skip around if desired Task-Based Topics – “this is how you ….” Allows students to choose specific topics or run through materials as a “course”
- OOOC is our Open, Online Onboarding Course for students new to university (either from high school or from the workforce) Developed in partnership with various campus stakeholders (advising, registration, student affairs, library, IT services, ect) with volunteer students and student ambassadors Initial materials developed over 4 month period, materials still being developed for future release Official Launch of Self-Registration in April 2015 – advertised directly to new incoming students through email and on Learning Matters Website Distinct levels organized by Task – pre-registration, web registration, planning your first semester Task-Based Topics – “this is how you ….” Allows students to choose specific topics or run through materials as a “course” Content release is timed so students do not see an overwhelming amount of information at one time and can focus on what is most important to them Average completion 17% (26% with 0’s removed) Initial survey reports are strongly positive
- Continue to refine self-paced courses Faculty – based on changes to LMS, staff feedback, ect Students – based on changes to LMS, student feedback Better advertisement of current offerings Developing course design and teaching online supports Continue to develop OOOC content for first cohort of students Possibility of offering mandatory staff training in the future