Agnes Helen Bellel, Ph.D.

Professor, Coordinator of Library Education Media & Technology,

Director of Off-Campus Sites and Distance EducationAlabama State University

July 12, 2011

This session will address "best practices and strategies" for mentor/mentee faculty who are willing to make changes in their delivery of instructions using MERLOT Learning Objects to improve teaching and learning.

This poster session will address some strategies to implement with faculty and staff who are willing to make a change in their delivery of instructions. This project was initiated at Alabama State University (ASU) in Montgomery Alabama. It is an HBCU. Student population is approximately 5,700.

Mission Statement Alabama State University is a student-centered, nurturing, comprehensive and diverse public historically black University committed to achieving excellence in teaching, research and public service. The University fulfills its mission through fostering critical thought, artistic creativity, professional competence and responsible citizenship in its students; by adding to the body of knowledge to enhance the quality of life through research and discovery; and by helping to advance the state and nation through thoughtful public service. Offering baccalaureate through doctorate degrees, the University maintains a scholarly and creative faculty, state-of-the-art facilities, and a living atmosphere in which all members of the campus community can work and learn in pleasant and rewarding surroundings.

Higher Education environments are now recognizing mentoring as an effective program to develop their eLearning environments as intellectual capital to remain competitive and address the shortage of faculty and staff for training. There is also a need to address the web 2.0 students and faculty accommodations.

Faculty needs to learn to use learning objects to enhance learning. Mentoring faculty to discover MERLOT Learning Objects is one form of providing support. Faculty with more advanced experience and knowledge (mentors) will be matched with lesser experienced and knowledgeable faculty (mentees) in the field of eLearning and other technologies.

One of the main best practices of mentoring is the relationship between the mentor and mentees involved in the learning process. The focus of the learning process comes from the understanding and the quality of this relationship. Faculty sometimes needs encouragement and supportive technological practices to feel confident in teaching and instructing their "tech savvy"/web 2.0 learners.

When a faculty member lacks motivation to learn about the use of online technology in their classroom and learning environment, perhaps due to technological fears, (under-utilization of their skills) or a need for a new challenge, there should be a process to assist the faculty members to take their instruction to the next level.

A faculty mentor can provide encouragement to the faculty mentee to demonstrate how to register for MERLOT and all of the online learning resources that may be used in an online learning environment, the following strategies are a few best practices to enhance the faculty's outlook on her/his teaching

Support them by sponsoring and exposing them to new MERLOT technologies. Encourage them in seeking fresh opportunities in their professional learning and teaching with using MERLOT learning objects. Provide a broader perspective and understanding and the future of the trends in technological to improve learning .Provide "Best Practices Strategies" for faculty to design and develop their learning objects to share and submit to the MERLOT web page.

Strategies Mentor -to-Mentee Support: The eLearning should be clear of the objectives and plan of action in building the mentor-mentee relationship. Set a focus/action plan to include such things as: dialogue, observation, role-plays or brainstorming.

The mentor should discuss "quality matters", design and development, addressing ALL learners, and universal design for the mentee to see her/his own operating assumptions and beliefs. Their actions and resulting consequences should adhere to "best practices" for students and learning.

The mentor faculty should enable the mentee faculty to select the right MERLOT Learning Object-activity for the desired outcome.

One of ASU objective is ensure a teaching-learning process that reflects new realities of assessing and assimilating information and varied learning styles of students.

ASU does support the faculty in developing new instructional modes (MERLOT Learning Objects) to respond to changing learning context, ensuring that appropriate information technologies support new teaching-learning partnerships and global education.

ASU -Continues to establish technologically advanced classrooms to replace traditional blackboard venues and implement contemporary electronic academic platforms to support the commitment to a new teaching and learning environment, including various distance learning media (MERLOT Learning Objects)

ASU does support a program to assist the faculty in developing instructional strategies and methods, including expertise in the use of information technologies (MERLOT Learning Objects)

It is so important for senior faculty and junior faculty to understand higher education institutions have more and more Web 2.0 students (digital immigrants) and faculty who are not aware of the need to change to address and accommodate the needs of the Web 2.0 student.

- Systematically measure and improve the achievements of students’ educational outcomes at the course and curricular levels

-Develop co-curricular and out-of-class activities that strengthen students’ learning beyond the classroom by participation in service- learning, internships, co-op programs, workshops and seminars

Step 1 Introduction to MERLOT- Faculty was asked to participate by view some of MERLOT videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J3IM2MnDOM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/user/MERLOTPlace?blend=4&ob=5

Step 2. Faculty and staff were asked to participate in a needs assessment.

Free instructional resources for faculty and adjunct faculty

Please register, explore and share your thoughts with me:

1)      What subject area was useful to assist you in your teaching and enhance student learning?

2)      Would you be interested in submitting your scholarly work for a Peer Review?

3)      Do you think Alabama State University should become an institutional partner with MERLOT?

Technology Faculty …”this is a great professional learning network that you can use to identify resources and tools in any discipline area.  For example, in instructional technology, there is a resource by Bernie Dodge on the webquests.  I am able to review the comments made by other professional in my area to see what they think of the resource.  This saves me time by helping me decide if I want to invest the effort in learning more about and using the resource.  I am also able to see other resources provided by this person (Bernie Dodge) if i like his materials.  With so many different tools online now, this helps me to identify and select the best tool for my particular needs.”

Technology Faculty-Wordle-teacher- visual overview of unit or lesson, vocabulary; student-poetry, summarizing, synonym/antonym, analyzing speeches and other texts ...... Glogster-visual and interactive reports, demos learning Teachers use to create interactive set of resources for lessons

Technology Faculty- Sci-research resources for indiv and group

projects- Tox Town (nat lib of med) Hist-Case studies like The Valley of the Shadow. Students examine primary docs to draw conclusions about past events and understand life at that time

Technology Faculty Teacher-these sites provide examples and

ideas for creating material specifically for their students or adapting ideas

Associate Vice President of Information Technology-Academic Computing- Faculty

“The MERLOT materials are very usable ---The Webquest page “

Director of Field and Clinical Experience- “This website on online teaching will be an invaluable resource for ASU university supervisors to assist their current student interns in fulfilling their objectives for completing their numerous reports required for student teaching—and ultimately fulfilling their role as beginning teachers.” 

http://www.merlot.org/merlot/join.htm;jsessionid=633A2FAD42D680471B45790695CDCB82

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlGIu9yKZb4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/user/MERLOTPlace?blend=4&ob=5#p/c/801DE0EDFF6EBDE5/11/b6f8HRS3FD8

http://www.youtube.com/user/MERLOTPlace?blend=4&ob=5#p/c/663C030D20D380D5/4/dHp6WNJdod8

Phase I – Faculty and staff were selected based on their interest to participate. They were interviewed in person, telephone and email.

Phase II- Faculty will be given support one-on-one and as a collective group in Fall 2011.

Examples: a. Supervising Instructors of Interns b. College of Education faculty and staff c. Campus-Wide Distance Education

Committee -Health Science etc.

For those of you who are interested in mobilization and apps, please visit http://www.tbrelearning.org/  .

Peer Recommended Apps for PreK-12/Higher Education/Workforce

-Participants (Digital Immigrant) will learn new technologies to use in the classroom.-Participants (Digital Immigrant) will learn strategies to be successful with the digital native in the classroom-Participants (Digital Immigrant) will learn how to self assess technological needs to address content delivery to the Digital Native.

Today most of our students are born with digital technology and live, eat and breath with technology as an important part of their lives. The “digital natives” have grown up with this new technology. They are surrounded by computers, Internet, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, iPods, iPads, iPhones, and other mobile device. Most of these devices have fast responsive and interactive tools of the digital age.

Some“digital native” college students have spent considerable amount of time reading digitally, but far more hours playing video games and watching TV, Gaming, email, the Internet, cell phones, social networking and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives.

Are these students thinking and processing information faster and differently than when their teachers were students? There appears to be a new learning environment that has surfaced a new dilemma much further and deeper than most faculty/instructor are prepared to handle.

The "digital students’ mode of learning" is at a multiple level of accepting information –as a result of how they learn and are instructed. Their thinking patterns and method of learning have changed. So how will their mode of learning interact with the instructor/faculty mode of teaching? Will Learning Objects help to bridge the gap in teaching and learning?

So how will their instructors/faculty meet their needs for learning if they are not a "digital native"? What mode of delivery will be used to keep the students engaged? The following survey was conducted to assess the need of technology in teaching and learning at ASU.

Mentoring faculty and staff is an important phase to ensure success in teaching and learning in distance education, face-to-face and blended settings. The mentor must always be positive and knowledgeable on the topics of the latest processes, products, learning objects and other venues of teaching modalities (such as MERLOT Learning Objects) to teach and learn.

Agnes Helen Bellel, Ph.D Alabama State University ahbellel@gmail.com abellel@alasu.edu 334-229-8801

Ruth Bell, Vivian DeShields, Necoal Driver, Dothan Edwards, Ronald Grace, Linda Harris, Betty Howard, Shawndra Johnson, Gwen King, Averil Loague, Kenley Obas, Allen Stewart, Melvin Robinson, and Lytoya Tolbert-Jackson in participating in Phase I of the Alabama State University MERLOT Project.