best of bbworld 09: ensuring high quality online professional development
DESCRIPTION
Learn from the Schultz Center, a non-profit organization supporting the professional development needs of 5 Northeast Florida Districts including Duval County, about the challenges, successes and lessons learned when moving face to face professional learning to an online environment. Learn how they have managed to transition high quality professional learning activities into the online environment while keeping them aligned with national standards, and maintaining fidelity, rigor and relevance. With looming budget cuts, online professional learning for teachers and administrators has become indispensible. In school districts and institutions that implement online professional learning, teachers do not sacrifice valuable instructional time with their students, nor do they have to shoulder the costs of hiring substitutes or travel expenses related to professional learning. From the daily administration of Blackboard, to designing rigorous, relevant, current and engaging online courses for adults, there are many issues that should be anticipated and planned for. This deck will provide practical advice and solutions for surviving the journey of transitioning traditional professional learning to the online environment.TRANSCRIPT
Paty SavageInstructional Technology Director
The Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership
Paty SavageInstructional Technology Director
The Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership
Ensuring High Quality Online Professional Development
Ensuring High Quality Online Professional Development
• Yes– Some practical strategies you can immediately apply in your
online professional development implementation– Tips and lessons learned– Standard procedures for moving F2F PD to online– Review process– Deployment tips
• No– Blackboard training– Our institutions' specific outcomes and goals
What will you learn in this session?
• Professional Development facility in NE Florida• Our Theory Of Action• Duval County Public Schools• Our “students” are teachers and administrators• Expansion - Blackboard Academic Suite• “Army of one”
The Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership
Topics for Today
• Planning• Development• Review Process• Deployment• Administration• Business • Ideas
The Planning Stage
• IT Department Support and Stakeholder Buy-in• Blackboard Training• Standard Operating Procedure for Online Course
Development• Identify Blackboard experts/course designers• Identify Subject Matter Experts (SME)• Over-communicate
– Online course review rubric– Planning tools– Examples of exemplary online courses
Planning Stage – “Gotcha’s”
• Ownership – information silos• Importance of scaffolding• Gathering of appropriate materials• Copyright considerations• Digital Immigrants vs. Digital Natives• No variety of content planned for
The Development Stage
• Online Course Review Training• Distribution of rubric• Develop course template based on rubric
– Identify what cannot be deleted– Provide training in using the template– Course shell
• Identify the teams and get them writing• Regularly “check in” – look for opportunities for
interaction, appropriate discussion board prompts, and materials.
Development Stage – “Gotcha’s”
• Too many assignments, quizzes, and readings• Busy work• Copyrighted materials – intellectual property• Low level thinking skills• Low level prompts in the Discussion Board• Lack of grading criteria/rubrics• Technical Issues
– Low level recordings– HUGE PowerPoint files– Large files– Video issues
The Review Stage
• Online course review training• Form review teams
– SME, instructional designers, outside member
• Review Process– Meet– Complete review and rubric– Discuss if needed– Ask writers for explanation– Submit results and rubrics to SA– Writers make revisions (if needed)– SA re-review
Review Stage “Gotcha’s”
• Evaluation of the instructor• Personal bias• Veering away from the rubric• Not enough feedback or vague feedback• Incomplete review
Deployment Stage
• Indentify the “course master”• Establish naming conventions• Establish course ID conventions• Establish a process for user registration and enrollment• Orientation Meeting• Truth in advertising – Expectations and time commitment• Timeline for course • Closing/archiving
Deployment “Gotcha’s”
• Facilitator doesn’t meet expectations• Technical problems will happen
– Safety nets– Technical support
• Low completion rates– Time requirements not made clear
• No differentiation
System Administrator
• Monitor facilitators – provide reports• Monitor participants – performance dashboard• Report completion rates• Identify completers• Copying, handling enrollment, closing and archiving
Ideas for Success
• Start with a hybrid course• Online professional book study• Online collaboration on lesson plans• Online professional learning communities • Online school PLC’s – principals going “green”
• Who wants to print out a handout? Instead, check out my posts on the BbWorld ’09 Discussion Board at Blackboard Connections (http://connections.blackboard.com).
• I’ve posted:– My PPT– Online course rubric– SOP for online course development
Want more? Be green!
Contact Info
• [email protected]• http://www.schultzcenter.org• http://twitter.com/patysavage