best of bbworld 09: ensuring high quality online professional development

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

• savagep@schultzcenter.org• http://www.schultzcenter.org• http://twitter.com/patysavage