E-Learning Corgi focuses on distance training and education, from instructional design to e-learning and mobile solutions, and pays attention to psychological, social, and cultural factors. The edublog emphasizes real-world e-learning issues and appropriate uses of emerging technologies. Susan Smith Nash is the Corgi's assistant.
One of the
best methods for building revenue and sales for technical products and services
is to provide education and training. However, it’s not always easy to organize
the training, or to know what to offer. There are advantages and disadvantages
for each form of education. They can be standalone, and they can also be
bundled to create online units that can be place in sequences to help master a
topic, or to provide review for those that require complementary skills or
content.
Assuring the Best Granularity / Building Block approach
--Training and professional development content
--Identify purposes
--White Papers
--Podcasts / Audio
--Webinars
--Training manuals
--Stand-alone assessments (test your knowledge, etc.)
--Stages and sequences – tie to individual’s career development
--Types of content and how to match to products
sketch by susan smith nash
Steps for Selecting
the Best Speakers/Instructors and Subject Matter Experts for Your Program
· --Identify what you want to accomplish
·--Is this a one-off or part of a series?
·--How advanced are your learners?
·--How technical is your instructor?
·--
Match-making: your instructor, the style, the assessment,
the materials
_Use a Guru!
·--
How will your SME perform?How will the “face” deliver the content?
·--
It is a lot more than content: sequence, style,
clarity, charisma, chunking, scaffolding, assessment, mastery learning, and
more
How do you plan to market your course? The best of the best?
·--Guide on the side? Self-Directed? Independent
“Discovery” learning?
·--Fail-safe your experts: Backup texts and
assessments
How to Select
the Best LMS or VLE for your Organization
·--
What’s the difference between an LMS and a VLE?
·--What are you using your e-learning for? What are
your goals and overall purpose?
·--
How many people will be using the training?Students?
·--How much input will the internal administrators,
SMEs, etc. have?
·--
What do you have to show credentialing or
regulatory bodies in order to achieve compliance?
Concluding Thoughts
Course and curriculum needs change. Careers, jobs, and skills paths change. The person who was learning to program Ruby on Rails and Java yesterday for a shopping cart application could be cryptocurrency mining for Bitcoin tomorrow. Make sure that your approach is flexible.
There are a number of "one stop shopping" cloud solutions, but they can be expensive or limited. You can build your own solution if you use low-cost tools.
The members of associations and professional societies share common goals and interests; the most important of these tends to be professional advancement, enhanced knowledge, and networking.
At the center of achieving professional development is often formal training taught by experts, with credits officially awarded at the end, and records maintained by the organization.
Because the organizations represent the profession, they are under an ethical as well as a practical obligation to maintain high quality. However, it’s not always easy to develop a course template or set of criteria.
For convenience, here is a quick checklist of content and quality attributes to be sure to include in your courses. Keep in mind that this is simply a quick checklist. If you would like a more detailed description, and an explanation of how to build the course itself for online, on-site, or hybrid delivery, there are a number of in-depth guides which I refer to at the end of this post.
Checklist of Content and Quality Attributes
Here are the essential elements that you need to include in your courses. You may wish to formalize the list, format, fonts, etc in what is commonly referred to as a Course Design Document (CDD), which also includes instructional design guidelines.
At the same time, you may wish to create a template.
• Title of the course and the reason for its relevance
• Learning objectives: What will the measurable outcomes be? What should the learner be able to do or demonstrate at the end of the course? What are the criteria for success?
• Overview / brief description of the course
• Bullet point of topics covered
• Course materials: Map them to the learning objectives
* Main content
* Engagers
* Check your knowledge / interactive activities
• Collaborative and individual activities: Map them to the learning objectives
• Assessment strategy:
Activities in course – do they count? How much? Why?
Class participation and collaborations – How do they count?
Final projects or exams
Rubric
Minimum passing score
Practice for multiple choice
Checklist of Instructor Qualifications
In order to satisfy quality standards, it is important that your instructor and main subject matter expert(s) and that they have pertinent experience.
• Relevant Experience
• Educational qualifications
• Experience in instruction
Checklist for Utilizing Learning Analytics and Effective Evaluations to Ensure High Quality Training:
As you review your course and the way you anticipate that the students will interact and engage with it, take a moment to develop a profile of your learners, their attributes, and learning goals. What are their needs? Understanding the audience will help shape the following:
Learning Outcomes
Course outcomes
Course Design Document to tie LOs to content and assessment
Types of analytics that are available
Mastery learning
Time on task
Collaborations
Discussion
Formative evaluations
Engaging analytics (Did You Know?)
Summative evaluations
Assessments tying to learning outcomes
As you plan the courses, be sure to make sure that they are up to date, relevant, and they address current and emerging needs and trends.
References (please contact Susan for a free pdf of each).
In some institutions it’s called “concurrent enrollment.” In others, it’s “dual.” In both cases, the goal is the same: take courses that count toward both high school graduation and a college degree (usually a two-year associate’s degree.) Under ideal circumstances, it's a "win" for everyone -- students get a head start toward their degrees, parents save money and time, professors get to work with motivated students, colleges boost enrollment, and high schools can offer courses they could not ordinarily afford. But, like every utopian scenario, there's a dark side here. Promising honor students -- sophomores, perhaps even freshmen in high school, run the risk of developing a college transcript that is pock-marked by scholarship-killing C's and D's. If you're considering getting involved in dual-enrollment on any level, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the pro's, con's, and strategies for success for dual enrollment courses.
What is “dual enrollment”?
In the past, students could get a head start on college credit by taking Advanced Placement courses (AP) and by taking credit by exam tests (CLEP, etc.). But, with high school budget crises, being able to offer the courses and the prep courses became too onerous. So, many colleges and universities have decided to offer “dual enrollment” courses, which are offered to high school students, who can take them online.
What are the main benefits of “dual enrollment”?
The great benefit of dual enrollment is that after taking the courses, the students will graduate with a two-year associate’s degree as well as their high school diploma. Plus, they will have completed their general education requirements.
How old is the average student?
I’ve been surprised to find that students in the dual enrollment courses are as young as 15. They are bright and eager, but I often wonder if their parents realize how high the stakes are if they are not able to retake courses and replace the grades in their transcripts.
College Courses: Until now, the courses have focused on the adult learner
Also, the courses that are developed for universities are often developed with adult learners in mind. In doing so, they utilized Malcolm Knowles’s notions of androgogy (as opposed to pedagogy), and rely a great deal upon scaffolding and building on experience and prior knowledge. Not many 15 year olds have the life experience and prior knowledge of an adult who is returning to school. And yet, many community colleges have as their primary mission to reach the adult students who are returning to school many years after high school. The result is that the instructional materials, instructional strategy, and assessment strategies may be out of sync.
What is the student expected to do?
The student is expected to be prepared to take online courses offered by the college provider. They have been developed in accordance with best practices and accreditation requirements.
Is the young high school student REALLY ready for dual enrollment courses originally designed for returning-to-school adults?
The short answer is “hardly ever.” The average high school student will often have a steep learning curve as well as serious time management problems, not to mention feelings of frustration with a format that is very unlike that of high school.
What is the situation and how can a dual enrollment student succeed?
I recommend that the student work with a qualified coach and mentor, ideally one with a master’s or Ph.D. with experience in both online programs and working with adults, at-risk, and high school students.
A Personal Perspective
I have worked with dual-enrollment students over the last two years at two different institutions. I have come to the conclusion that a significant percentage will fail under ordinary circumstances.
And, if they do not fail, they will fall far short of their actual potential, primarily because of
a) technical difficulties;
b) communication issues;
c) failure to self-regulate;
d) frustration;
e) poor understanding of the way to prepare yourself for today’s online courses;
and, above all,
f) the need for a guide and/or mentor who will coach them through it.
In conclusion, here are a few pointers for dual enrollment students and the instructors who work with them:
1. Remember how students can get off to a bad start: They often check in late, and do not review the entire course to familiarize themselves. They do not make a calendar for themselves, or create a checklist of requirements.
2. Avoid misunderstanding the role of the discussion board: Students often do not realize that the purpose of the discussion board is interaction, and they do not write substantive responses, nor do they read the posts of other students.
3. Avoid procedural errors – back up and building blocks: Students often write their answers directly into the empty answer box in the learning management system, rather than writing it into a Word document, which can then be copied and pasted into the answer block.
4. Remember to communicate with your professor in more than one way.
5. Plan. Don’t miss deadlines. Remember that some professors will lock down the discussions and dropboxes.
6. Keep in mind that your fellow students can help you. Peers mean help, support, and a learning community.
7. Avoid reading, re-reading, and still not understanding – Develop a good note-taking approach.
8. Practice for great test resuls – Develop test-taking strategies
9. Focus on good writing skills – Remember that neglecting the small things will add up to big problems
10. Don't forget to read the texts – Learn how to read them and not get lost.
11. Employ active reading, probing and outlining – Develop frameworks for your brain.
Young writers are doing great things. Welcome to an interview with Melissa Shang who wrote Wheeling Through Middle School when she was 8th grade. It explores the impact of bullying on a girl in a wheelchair while it introduces a mystery. The book draws from Melissa's own experiences.
1. What is your name and the name of your book?
My name is Melissa Shang and the name of my book is Mia Lee Is Wheeling Through Middle School.
Melissa Shang, author of Mia Lee Is Wheeling Through Middle School
2. What is your book about? Mia LeeIs Wheeling Through Middle School is about a sixth grade stop-motion filmmaker in a wheelchair called Mia Lee and her experiences during her first year of middle school. In this book, Mia makes new friends, runs for Video Production Club president, and has to deal with a middle school mean girl. When Mia’s campaign posters get stolen, Mia and her friends are on a mission to figure out who stole them, and get themselves into exciting adventures along the way.
Cover for the book, Mia Lee Is Wheeling Through Middle School
3. How did you get interested in writing? Why did you choose to write about a middle school girl who uses a wheelchair for mobility?
I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I remember going to the library every week to get new books. I love how reading gives people of all ages the ability to go into a new world and experience different things while physically never having to leave the house. Through reading so much, I started gaining an appreciation for the art of writing. However, out of all the books I’ve read, I’ve never read a story starring a girl with a disability. So many people don’t know anything about disabilities and what it’s really like to have a disability because they don’t see them represented in stories. And I wanted to change that. So I wrote Mia, the main character, as someone who used a wheelchair like myself. Instead of seeing the wheelchair from the outside, readers actually get to understand Mia’s perspective from the inside.
4. Is your book drawn from personal experience? How much? Why?
Most of the book was drawn from personal experience starting middle school. For example, Mia’s friends Caroline, Rory, and Daniela were based off of my friends in middle school. Caroline is based off of my best friend Cassie, who I’ve also known since first grade. Also, like Mia, I love to film stop-motion videos of my dolls and post them on Youtube, and obviously, I also have a disability. While I wanted to keep the book as true to my life as possible, I also wanted it to be interesting and entertaining. I don’t normally solve that many mysteries!
5. What are some of the most challenging aspects of middle school? Have you observed bullying? What kind? Is there anything that can be done?
While I didn’t have direct experiences of bullying in middle school, the biggest challenge in middle school is making friends while being yourself. A lot of kids in middle school get really caught up with fitting in and being popular that they forget to be true to themselves. My main advice for middle school is to be open to new experiences while not forgetting to stay true to themselves. You see this with Mia and Caroline when on the first day, Mia just wants to move on and forget all their old traditions, but Caroline isn’t willing to try new things. Having a balance of both is the way to go.
6. Do you think that Mia Lee Is Wheeling Through Middle School is just about kids with disabilities, or is it about something else as well? What might those things be? Mia Lee is Wheeling Through Middle School is definitely not only about kids with disabilities. A big part of Mia Lee is Wheeling Through Middle School is actually about friendship and the way friendship can change as you grow up. Mia and Caroline started off as best friends forever, and Caroline was really afraid of losing that. However, by the end of the book, Caroline and Mia are part of this great new group of friends and their friendship has reached this new level. I think this is something that a lot of kids go through, with or without a disability. It was just important to me to show that kids with disabilities go through it as well.
7. Are you working on anything now?
Right now, I’m in ninth grade, and I just started high school in a completely new school district after my family moved. I’m currently focusing on adjusting to high school, making new friends, and getting good grades, but I’m always looking for ways to stand up for people with disabilities and make my voice heard.
