sowing seeds

For the past 18 months, I have been working closely with faculty offering individual, just-in-time consulting on all kinds of topics related to course development, student learning, teaching techniques for active learning, student assessment and how best to incorporate the use of an LMS (learning management system) into face to face course delivery. I’ve been busy supporting a growing number of faculty in this new group (there are close to 20) as they navigate the perils of setting up a new faculty with entirely new programs and new students and staff. It’s been a busy place and my hunch is that faculty have been learning a lot as they have worked together to create their new programs and dept.

Sadly, I have not taken then time to maintain this blog and I have lots of stories to tell so will begin documenting how I have built relationships with faculty, provided consultation on teaching and learning and likely overall strengthened the capacity of individuals as well as groups on a few fronts.Things are moving quickly and I have seen over the past 18 months some excellent examples of teaching and people who are incorporating technologies into their teaching.

One thing I have learned is that the “work” of faculty is changing and evolving to serve the needs of modern students and to address issues that are challenging in the academy of the future (technologies, new ways of teaching, accreditation, quality assurance and the like). I will continue to develop this theme in the coming weeks along with my strategies and thoughts and new materials I have been reading.

Within weeks of being assigned to work with the new Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) I realized that I would have to locate myself closer to the group in order to get to know them and to be able to build the working relationships necessary for successful collaboration. So, I’ve moved and am now physically close to faculty this makes it easy to say hello and to build the informal relationships that will be the foundation of our work in the future. My role as a Program Director from the Learning and Instructional Development Centre at the university is not known to them. The question is really “How do I go about assisting this new faculty in designing, developing and delivering learning environments for undergraduates and graduates? An analysis that maps the history and goals of the programs as well as the accomplishments sets the stage for determining what’s needed and how best to move forward. An analysis then is really the first step in the process of supporting FHS.

As a learning designer I continue to ask the age old questions: Who’s the learner? How are learners benefitting from teaching? How do we bring about learning? How do we know what to bring about? and How do we create learning envirnoments that will bring about learning? As a designer I have been focused on “instruction” and designing instruction for a long time (like everyone else). But, reading the “University of Learning” has got me thinking about a “learning rather than a teaching focus”. Well, I have been thinking of learning for a long time but this material has helped me to reflect upon the subtle differences. It seems to me that learners and teachers (faculty) must work together somehow to bring about learning that is relevant and that will support learners to function in a range of contexts. But what does this process entail?

I am exploring the “The University of Learning” by John Bowden and Ference Marton who in 1998 wrote an enlightened vision of a modern university that attends to research and learning. There are many important ideas in this book but for now I will focus on their notion that the goal of teaching must transform from one of transferring the teacher’s conceptualizations to the student to one of enabling the student to “go beyond” the knowledge constructs of the teacher. They speak of the learning context, the value of outcomes such as the student’s ability to deal with the real world, to make comparisions, to problem solve and distinguish phenomenon. These views and others have dramatic implications for the design of learning environments that are flexible and that effectively support the learner’s and teacher’s interdependence in learning. For example the instructional designer is called to work with teachers to identify a framework enabling teachers to support students to develop their own way of seeing and judging a phenomenon, to differentiate key concepts, and to integrate research results in varying contexts. Critical reflection of my own design practice must somehow consider the implications of the shift from teaching content to learning process and spaces where this can occur. How will I as a designer proceed with the Faculty of Health Sciences if I am to apply the same principles offered by Bowden and Marton? Stay tuned….

As part of my role in LIDC, I will be working with the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) to design, develop and launch their new graduate and undergraduate programs. My hope is to establish, in consultation with faculty and students, a process that will support the evolution and sustainability of their programs. Stay tuned for more on this new development in my portfolio. This is a great opportunity to work with faculty in bringing about their vision and to create new programs that will be the hallmark for the preparation of health sciences professionals and researchers. I look forward to the opportunites that lie ahead as I consider how to work with this faculty as a team and as individuals. I will start by getting to know them, by exploring with them their vision for health sciences research and how this links to teaching, learning and the design of their program. I can imagine we will begin by articulating principles and philosophies undergirding their research and their teaching and learning. Stay tuned for more as the process unfolds.

It’s been two weeks since I started my blog and already I am behind! Staying on top of it and publishing something of value is no small feat and yet it is easy to just type away. I’m now wondering “what’s the intention of my blog?”, “how do I want to use it?”, “who do I want to participate?”, “how can I engage others in a dialogue?” etc. I am starting to think about blogs in education and of course how these can be incorporated into learning designs for graduate students. I like the idea of using a blog as a process tool where a team might stay on top of a project or a research project.

I recently participated in a web-based discussion called the “Dance of the Instructional Designer” hosted by the SCOPE community and facilitated by one of my colleages here in ESI. It was an interesting few weeks of both participating and watching the online postings about the role and dance of the instructional designer. By participating I found myself to be “full circle” in touch with theories and fields of practice I thought I’d left behind….but no, it doesn’t seem so. The conversations that sparked my interest had to do with community building and the work of John McKnight and asset-based planning and development.

Two weeks ago I was asked to plan an SFU elearning institute for the spring of 2006. Hmmmmm, where to start? I started with a short proposal that laid out some basic planning steps (essentially the ADDIE framework). With a nod of approval from my boss, I launched into the front end analysis. I gathered and reviewed documents from previous elearning institutes, I talked to staff about their experiences as participants and instructors in previous years and analyzed evaluation results to get a sense of what people got out of the former institutes. The results of a focus group with staff indicates that we must identify a primary audience then we need to understand their interests, knowledge and skill gaps and we need to work with them to design and implement a learning event that will make a difference to their work. None of this is news….I always start my projects by answering my favourite questions: Who is the primary audience? What do they need? What’s the best way to help them to get what they need? What else is happening? I have found over the years that short-circuiting analysis is not the best practice and can lead to unsatisfying results.

My blog is new and it’s my first! Hold on tight, there’s bound to be controversial ideas here ; )