NERCOMP: Educational Technology in Professional and Executive Education: Afternoon Speakers

Extending the Student Experience: Alternate Delivery of Student Services, Using Course Platforms, Digital Content and Multimedia

Allison Harrington, Instructional Technology Designer, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Valerie Sutton, Director, Career Services Office, Harvard Graduate School of Education

The Challenge: One year master’s program, 42% of students entering have less than two years of work experience, students overwhelmed with decisions once they arrive on campus, career conversations need to start earlier so students can identify appropriate resources and courses for their professional path.

The Opportunity: Online workshop for incoming master’s students to help early identification of career interests/goals. The project goals are to facilitate curricular planning, classify and narrow extracurricular activities, identify Harvard resources to assist in curricular and career planning, smooth the progress of a one-year master’s program to full-time position within three months of graduation

Tiered approach: Facilitated workshop that is online at the beginning of August, prior to arrival on campus that is highly facilitate by Career Services staff. There is also a Self-pace workshop that is online, accessible anytime that is launched after the facilitated workshop to leverage facilitated workshop design and assets.

Roles: Project Lead/Stakeholder, Project Manager, Instructional Designer, Instructional Technologist, Subject Matter Expert(s) (SME), Course Facilitator(s), Technical Trainer, Technical Support (*one person may play multiple roles!)

Development Process:

1. Internal kick-off meeting: bi-weekly meetings scheduled for duration of project and tentative development schedule with milestone dates determined (which is refined after instructional design phase to account for asset development specifics)
2. Instructional design phase: completed a high-level design document including workshop objectives, breakdown of sessions, session objectives, and instructional activities and assignment. There is close collaboration between the SME, project lead and instructional designer.
3. Asset development phase: identification of digital assets based on instructional design (e.g., development of digital asset list; scope and mini project plan for each digital asset), content creations working in collaboration with SME’s, production of assets, quality assurance testing. There is close collaboration between project manager, instructional designer, instructional technologist, and SME’s. Things are both internally developed and outsourced.
4. Communication plan: Targeted communication sent to incoming master’s students with less than 2 years working experience. Students completed online registration form to express interest. First 25 participants selected to participate in pilot workshop. Follow-up communications sent to all integrated respondents alerting them to self-paced offering. Instructions sent to the registrants for the facilitated workshop
5. Course site creation/population/quality assurance testing: Leveraged instructional design to set up the architecture for the site, populated content on the site; added assets as completed, set up discussion boards and blogs, added instsructions for web conferencing sessions, proofread content, checked links, enrolled students. There is close collaboration between the project manager, project lead, instructional designer and instructional technologist.
6. Facilitator preparation: Creation of instructor and student guide. Facilitator training on delivery tools (e.g., discussion boards, blogs, web conferencing)
7. Launch!: Facilitated launched in August (28 students). Self-paced launched in mid-September (55 registrants to date)

Lessons Learned: Facilitated Module- Introductions (Web conferences for real-time relationship-building at the start), Timing (synchronous components with geographically dispersed students; planning for potential move/arrival on campus), Workload, Drop-out Rate, Content creation (Realistic expectations for quantity of content that can be developed in timeframe.)

Next Steps: Evaluation, focus group and longitudinal assessment; Additional content development for version 2; Next up: Virtual Career Days!

Example: Career Services Online Workshop

Filed under: Educational Technology, Instructional Technology , Educational Technology, executive education, NERCOMP

NERCOMP: Educational Technology in Professional and Executive Education: Panel Discussion

Best practices and lessons learned regarding the use of educational technology in professional and executive education

Carla Tishler, Director, Program Innovation, Harvard Business School

Twenty-four person department, part of larger IT organization. 900 students each year with 12 required courses for first-year students. There are 80 electives for second-year students. Executive education has four long programs, 70 + open enrollment courses annually. There are 60 custom programs for Fortune 500 companies. They have action learning resources, games and simulations, assessment tools, tutorials, delivery/support tools, web-based multi-media and learning networks.

Carla demos a case study of Threadless: The Business of Community.

Ken Martin, Manager, Instructional Technology Services, Harvard Law School

There are 1950 students , 460 staff and 170 faculty. There are 1650 JDs, 250 LL.M.s and 50 SJDs. There is a manager of Instructional Technology Services, a Legal Practice Management Systems Analyst, an Instructional Technologist and PITFs. They (we) strive to

• increase the appropriate adoption of learning technologies,
• support faculty in their adoption to their degree,
• fulfill needs with systemic solutions when possible,
• encourage broad use of best practices,
• sustainability, stability and trusted resource.

Challenges:

• raising awareness
• assessment
• developing competence and comfort
• time
• thinking about teaching
• “making the case” to lawyers

Core services: PITF program, MyHLS (course management, clinical program support, R&D, custom solutions, consulting and training and documentation.

Clinical programs: There are 15 faculty run programs, 6 student run programs and the number of student placements is approximately 800. They use case management software (time matters) and course sites. HLS students graduate with knowledge of law practice technologies.

HLS library – InfoAdvantage: to help faculty and students connect quickly with key information sources and collaborative effort between instructional technology and HLS reference librarians.

Tova Garcia Duby, Operations and ePlatform Manager, Babson College

They have a group of about 8 people on their team. 3-4 of those 8 are instructional designers. Most of the time is spent on what might be possible with teaching and how they can take it to the next level with technology. They support both the undergraduate and graduate level community. The fast track MBA program is blended meaning partially in the classroom and online.

Mike Krikonis, Academic Technologist, Clark University

There are three members on his team. They partner with the Publishing Consulting Group (PCG). The partnership is a blended MBS program offered by the Graduate School of Management. The curriculum focuses on “applied” skill building. One of the things they think about is ‘how do you get faculty to think about the transition to blended instruction’?

The supported technologies are:

• learning management systems
• web conference
• audio conference
• video conference
• streaming media

He reviews two projects:

1. “Video Vignettes: chapter based tutorials”: small scale video production, tablet PC with camtasia studio, windows streaming services, embedded links in Blackboard
   • didn’t want a talking head so the faculty member used a tablet pc and the lecture was recorded and then the video was edited with annotations of statistical concepts.
2. “PowerPoint Slides with audio annotations”: publisher provided slideshows, record narration tool
   • faculty could take their PowerPoint slides and record narration right within PPT.

Lessons Learned:

• faculty find it difficult to transition to online teaching
• students prefer the use of Webex and Raindance
• students prefer compressed course structure
• quantitative courses required more flexibility
• further growth of blended programs require more technical infrastructure

Gina Siesing, Associate Director for Educational Technology, Tufts University

Educational technology is within the Academic Technology Department within the main IT group (12 members in group). Their mission addresses educational and research needs within the schools. There are three campuses: Boston (medical, dental, science and policy and biomedical sciences), Grafton (veterinary medicine) and Medford/Somerville (engineering, fletcher school of law and diplomacy, arts & sciences and Tisch college for citizenship and public policy).

Core Services:

• Instructional Design
• Faculty Development
• Curriculum/ Program Design and Review
• Communication / Collaboration Tools
• VUE Concept & Content Mapping Tool
• Audience Response System
• Emerging Technologies R&D
• Rapid Solution Design & Development

Trends: Programs are conducting strategic planning (matching goals with curricula, and redesigning where needed [with technology where appropriate]), curriculum design and review processes, learning goals and outcomes assessment focus, scholarship of teaching and learning models and audience response systems.

Questions for Panel?

1. • Does any group have a governance body?
     • Tova Duby: get their strategic goals from Dean and faculty.
     • Carla Tishler: work directly with faculty and starting to develop a faculty advisory group
   • Metrics? Measurements?
     • Gina: in faculty development programs, speakers bring in tools so faculty can articulate “what is my hypothesis?” and how to conduct research and share with peers.
     • Tova Duby: Fast track is used for alot of cultural changes. After every course is taught, faculty come back and debrief with her team. There are also student surveys around usability and meeting expectations. Then work with managers of instructional design team to make real time changes to continue to enhance programs.

Filed under: Educational Technology, Instructional Technology , Educational Technology, executive education, NERCOMP

NERCOMP: Educational Technology in Professional and Executive Education: Second presenter

Understanding Adult Learners: The Implications of Adult Development Theory for Adult Learning:

Deborah Helsing, Ed.D. Change Leadership Group, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Needs of Adult Learners:

• constructivism: we actively make meaning of raw experience. We immediately find meaning in everything. They are interpretations, not necessarily the truth.
• development: general or regular growth patterns.
• an instrumental mind (stage 2): capacity for concrete thought, orients to explicit cause and effect (from experience) and is dualistic
• a socializing mind (stage 3): capacity for abstract thoughts, authority is external (living up to others expectations) and orients to inner states (reflect on inner feelings)
• a self-authoring mind (stage 4): authority is internal, conflict and critque as productive and responsible for and can regulate inner states.
• a inter-institutional mind (stage 5): orientation toward dialectical, paradoxical, underlying morals and values that precede social institutions and the sel as incomplete, in process, evolving.

The one thing we can count on is you can expect students within the entire range of stages. There are some differences between when comparing a full socio-economic spectrum versus those that are highly educated, but there is no way to determine that someone will be with a particular stage. Age is one of the least predictable indicators.

You need to confirm where the student is and then engage the growing edge for that person by asking the appropriate questions. Where are they in terms of the kind of support and challenge they need in order to grow.

Implications: an awareness of differences in developmental capacity allows us to:

• understand an important form of adult diversity
• help meet (and help others meet) adults’ different learning needs
• encourage adults’ continued growth

Filed under: Educational Technology, Instructional Technology , Adult Learning Theory, Instructional Technology, NERCOMP

NERCOMP: Educational Technology in Professional and Executive Education

The Evolution of Learning Technologies Thoughts Over the Horizon, Stephen Laster, CIO Harvard Business School

Where have we been, what is happening now, how do we move forward?

In the past technology has been driving this effort. Today the world has changed and the nature of how we are teaching in executive education has changed. Why? Time. Can’t afford to send 100 employees out to receive the education desired.

What the experts say: The Horizon Report-2007 Educause Learning Initiative:

• Higher education is changing rapidly
• Globalization is changing the nature of collaboration
• Collective intelligence is pushing the boundaries of scholarship-creating environments where we can all contribute and vet, so they are stronger (e.g., wikipedia)
• Assessment of new forms of learning is challenging
• Issues of intellectual property raise challenges-who owns it?
• Device proliferation creates complications and costs-how we are communicating is changing and is different (e.g., iPhone)

We are doing okay with the early adopters but that is about it. How can we get this into the mainstream? We struggle with the “Boredom” issue (historically the issue was in the classroom and is now online). We continue to believe that if we build it they will come (it always seems just a generation away…). Maybe we don’t get it?

So what are successful models.

I. Think about the learner experience. Ask would you take this? If not, think about the boredom factor.

• need instructional technologists and educators working together
• is there a need for it
• build a community around the experience
• clear andragogy/pedagogy, teaching methods and curriculum (e.g., websites need consistent naming and navigation)
• timely, relevant, learning materials
• support services: how do we support (technology, mentoring, being able to get materials)
• feedback and analysis (need to understand what is working)
• technology platform stable, fast, up all the time. If not there it becomes annoying, if it is, it becomes transparent.

Successful Approaches in Place Today in Business Education

• UMASS (Dr. James Theroux), The Real Time Case Study
• Yale, The Simulated Case: construct an overload of information (primary materials) and have them find the relevant information. Students love it.
• HBS Executive Education, Learning Nexus: blending online community with face-to-face. They are figuring out how to add value during intercession. They are forming tighter bonds and richer experiences. Communities aren’t spontaneous events.
• Babson College, Fast Track MBA: how to reach the adult learner who can get an MBA in 2 years and not leave work. It is a blended format with 60% online (primarily asynchronous). Turns out to be about 20 hours worth of work a week.

Measuring Success: The Sloan-C Pillars

• Learning Effectiveness
• Cost Effectiveness
• Student (Learner) Satisfaction
• Faculty (Teacher) Satisfaction
• Access

Is the future Facebook and iPods, Second Life or Game Based? The future may be some of this AND the classroom. It is a mix of the Sloan Pillars and the diagram of successful e-learning.

The one thing we can always count on is that change is imminent.

Filed under: Educational Technology, Instructional Technology , Educational Technology, executive education, NERCOMP

NERCOMP: Educational Technology in Professional and Executive Education:

Yesterday, I attended a NERCOMP event on Educational Technology in Professional and Executive Education in Norwood, MA. I live blogged the event and the following are notes on each speaker.

Filed under: Educational Technology, Instructional Technology , Educational Technology, executive education, NERCOMP