Subscribers Questions - Online/Blended PD
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- Back to Going the Distance
- Back to Adult Literacy Professional Development
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Participation, Engagement, and Completion
- Getting teachers to sign on even for the best designed training and opportunities -- Leecy Wise
- I've been perplexed at my inability to "sell" either the online courses or Moodle or the PP courses via TESOL. -- Holly Dilatush-Gothrie
- How can you promote and sustain professional development among those who need it most, e.g., a population of part-time ESL adult ed. teachers who are "freeway flyers" and have limited resources and time for PD? What are some examples of successful efforts? -- Catherine Green
- Techniques for teacher retention – Wendy
- A couple of the issues that I find most interesting are those dealing with teacher involvement in online professional development:
- What gets the teachers to use online learning?
- How can we best identify those who will be most successful using this approach? How can we keep teachers motivated in a distance learning environment?
- And, how can we improve the completion rate for those participating in online professional development? -- Noreen Lopez
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Perceptions of Online and Blended PD
- What is the perception of both online and blended PD? I have heard that online learning is often viewed as "less than" or a replacement for face to face, implying that its second tier to f2f. Do people on the list view it as just something that can be done when other options are not available or practical? Are there times when it has value on its own? How about blended learning, what is the perception there?
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Accountability
- Accountability for those who attend/participate and present at a distance. -- Crystal Hack
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Design/Development
- The nuts-and-bolts questions about online PD -- the trade-off between length of course and volume of work, for example. Wendy
- Will allowing learners to create their own "Course content" increase the number of teachers who participate in online PD? I know that Wisconsin used to have something similar...learning chunks.. do you still offer these? Has anyone else experimented with this concept? -- Deb Hargrove
- What alternative delivery forms have been used successfully, in "smaller chunks of learning" as someone here said, to create an "a la carte" menu of PD choices for adult educators, including delicious, nutritious and affordable selections? -- Catherine Green
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Facilitated, Non-facilitated, and Self-Paced Courses
- “Can self-paced professional development that is not facilitated really have the same impact as facilitated PD” I would really like to hear from others that have at-a-distance self-paced, non-facilitated, or facilitated PD.
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Quality
- What do we mean by quality online professional development? -- Jackie Taylor
- Quality of the distance learning training presented -- Crystal Hack
- Quality of facilitation – Leslie Petty
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Effectiveness
- Effectiveness of the delivery method -- Crystal Hack
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Teacher Change
- Looking at the topic from another way-the bottom-line-lately I've been thinking about how professional developers, trainers, teachers, and others can know that a "professional development" activity or course or session has been successful. How is change or growth captured and evaluated? Is a person a better teacher because she fulfilled the requirements of an online course (or a 3-day workshop, or an internship)? If so, how do we know? Delivery doesn't automatically mean receipt, understanding, and effective and appropriate use. -- Lynda Terrill
- The impact of online courses on adult educators – Leslie Petty
- Applying what's learned in online courses to professional experience – Leslie Petty
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Evaluation
- What is the impact of on-line learning and how do we track that?
- How can we track learning to application?
- How can we best obtain follow-up and gather feedback?
- How can we find out if the folks we interact with on line and using what they learned? -- Marie Cora
- For F2F learning and online learning or any blend of these two, how can you use Guskey's five levels of evaluation to effectively measure systemic change and impact on student learning? How can you be sure that the changes you see are the direct result of PD delivered? -- Catherine Green
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Distance Teaching, Online Facilitation, and Recruiting Distance Teacher/Facilitators
- How do states recruit and train teachers to be on-line teachers/facilitators? How do they wean teachers away from face-to-face instruction to becoming on-line instructors? -- Jane Miller
- What are some tips for shifting from classroom teacher to on-line facilitator?
- Figuring out how to set up learning environments in which all the supports possible are present. This goes with the first point: developing the content is the 'easy part'; but then preparing and organizing that content so that it can be effectively delivered without a physically present teacher is the next learning curve in the leap from classroom teacher to on-line facilitator.
- Time-consuming for quality facilitation: in my experience, much of that "present-teacher-feedback" is replaced with written feedback and this can be an incredible amount of work. What are some strategies for handling this type of workload?
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Models of Successful Online and Blended PD
- I look forward to participating in discussions concerning successful distance and blended programs for both PD and ABE/ESL students. – Melody
- I am interested in ways to better incorporate and coordinate the blended method in our county's ESOL distance education program…
- I look forward to learning more about the educational benefits and the techniques of blending…
- I also look forward to discussing blending as part of professional development. Having taken some purely online professional development courses as well as some traditional, live courses, I would like to learn how the blended model compares and contrasts with other models. -- Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt
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Learning Online
- The biggest question on my mind is how do adult literacy teachers learn online? … that raises the question of a mentor, study buddy, peer coach. We have a lot of different models for it, don't we? -- Marian Thacher
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Time Considerations
- My biggest question and problem is how to advise our students to make best use of their time. My biggest challenge with the IT people at the university is not to change the interface too much as students do not want to relearn all the time..... Kathryn James
- How much time does it take?
- How much time are teachers willing to give, and under what conditions?
- How much time does it take to design an online course (and all considerations)
- How much time does it take to facilitate? (online courses or DE with students?)
- How much time does it take for tech support?
- What do you need to do first, next, and when?
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Technology Considerations
- Comparisons of course management systems
- How do you get participants up to speed with the required technology?
- The true cost of Open Source (free) software. I support several Moodle installations and am currently looking at Sakai. These products are very appealing due to the quality, flexibility and of course not having to pay for the initial product and licenses. However, there are still costs associated with them, such as server space, system administration, database maintenance etc. Leecy mentioned some of these costs in one of her posts, and I am always curious to see if people have placed a specific value on the resources needed to offer online PD beyond purchasing a commercial product. This would include both using a management system and other formats.
- Creating reusable and flexible content. Especially to those developing at a state or national level, do you address developing content in a consistent format, so that it could be reused or easily shared? Are there specifications in place, for instance to minimize the need for users to download tools and plug-ins? (Videos in a consistent format, content is consistent in appearance and behavior across platforms etc). Is anyone developing with either SCORM or other standards in mind?
- What is being done in the field to address Accessibility and related issues, both as a consideration to users and in situations requiring strict section 508 compliance?
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How Online PD “Counts” (Both CEUs, fulfilling PD requirements)
- Who puts the stamp of approval on the PD?
- What quality criteria, if any, do they use to grant approval?
- What documentation or evidence does a teacher need to get their online PD approved?
- Is there a certification for on-line courses to be acceptable to fulfill PD requirements? Are the providers NIFL, CALPRO, NCSALL, etc and/or universities and colleges?
- Can districts and individuals offer PD on line that would fulfill requirements/need for PD?
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Small Programs that Use Online PD
- I'd like to hear from those who have used online PD at the smallish program level, say 50 staff.
