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From: Jerome Johnston <jerej@umich.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1240] Fwd: Online PD
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Hi. I'm the director of the Project IDEAL Support Center at the
University of Michigan. IDEAL stands for Improving Distance
Education for Adult Learners. Project IDEAL is a consortium of 14
states working together to develop (and evaluate) distance education
as an option to reach adult learners for whom time or distance make
classroom learning an unworkable option (http://projectideal.org).
>First, please tell us more about your work:
>
>Why did you/your organization become involved in online professional
>development? What need(s) were you addressing? How did you decide to address
>those needs?
Offering a new program in distance education for adult learners is
different than adding a new course to a literacy center's classroom
offerings; it's akin to re-inventing the school. There is no way
that teachers and administrators can attend a 1 to 2 day workshop and
digest all the things they need to know, and then develop an
effective plan for offering instruction at a distance. They need to
spread their learning over many weeks, developing and refining the
various elements of their plan (recruitment, orientation, teaching,
and assessment). Online PD was the only way we could see to
accomplish this goal.
>
>Describe the online PD you/your organization offer. How is the online PD you
>offer (or have offered) similar or different from more familiar forms of
>online delivery (i.e. course platforms)?
The Support Center provides each member state with everything they
need to offer online professional development to their teachers: a PD
website, a curriculum, a "textbook", a study guide, and a guide for
those who will facilitate the PD. The Center provides ongoing
support to each state's trainer, ranging from training in the use of
the website to mentoring each trainer while they facilitate the
course. Every summer there is a workshop for trainers from all the
member states where they can refine their techniques for building a
virtual community of distance teachers.
DISTANCE LEARNING 101 is a 6-8 week "course" in planning to teach at
a distance. Participants spend about two hours per week working on
exercises designed to guide their planning for this new activity.
The state's trainer/facilitator reads and reacts to each exercise and
facilitates an asynchronous discussion of each week's topic among all
the participants.
Example: one exercise asks each participant to develop a curriculum
for a face-to-face orientation for prospective distance learners.
After viewing all the exercises the trainer might post a discussion
topic like this: "will you accept anyone that applies for your
distance program or will you be selective and take only those
students with the highest likelihood of succeeding? What indicators
would you use to identify those most likely to succeed?" Staff from
the same literacy center are encouraged to work on the exercises
together.
The website looks different from Blackboard or WebCT which are built
on an expert-novice model of instruction. The Project IDEAL PD model
is one of community-building. We want teachers to feel they are
professionals exploring a new area of skill development and getting
assistance from fellow professionals, not guidance from a "sage on
the stage." All the exercises ask participants to develop a
plan--for recruitment, orientation, teaching and assessment of
distance learners. The trainer's role is to get all of the
participants in the course to provide constructive criticism of each
other's plan. The textbook (Handbook of Distance Education for Adult
Learners) is a handbook with the collected wisdom of teachers in many
states on these very topics.
The handbook is revised each year with new tips from participating teachers.
DISTANCE LEARNING 102: STUDY GROUPS. This second PD course is for
teachers with one year experience teaching at a distance. Having
mastered the mechanics of distance, teachers are ready to think in a
more focused way about pedagogy. Each participant develops a case
study of a difficult pedagogical problem. The essence of the study
group is having the study group members examine the cases one at a
time, practicing the art of asking questions that further probe the
nature of the problem and developing strategies to deal with the
learner's difficulties. Essence of a sample case study: "I have a
student who is having a difficult time in ratios and wants to
practice at home, and I'm having a hard time "talking" to him online
to explain the procedures."
>
>What have you found to be particularly important for making online PD
>successful for teachers?
Facilitation, facilitation, facilitation. The trainer needs to "work
the group" intervening in the ongoing electronic discussion in ways
that question contributors about their meaning and redirects
discussion as needed to keep the discussion alive.
>What changes have you/your organization experienced
>in the development and delivery of online PD, perhaps even as a result of
>this?
Facilitating discussions with Socratic dialogue is hard work, and a
skill that facilitators frequently need to practice. We have changed
our support strategy to provide more opportunities for facilitators
to practice these skills.
Online is fine, but there is a need to balance virtual activities
with telephone and face-to-face to keep the sense of community alive.
--
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J E R O M E J O H N S T O N
Institute for Social Research - University of Michigan
Program on Teaching, Learning and Technology
734/763-3079 (734) 615-6638 (fax) jerej@umich.edu
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