Title: Beyond events: online professional development for part time staff
1Beyond eventsonline professional development
for part time staff
- Janet Macdonald
- OU in Scotland
- SHED Annual meeting Jun 2007
2Advantages of events
3Learning to be a teacher..
- If you train staff, students learn better (Gibbs
Coffey, 2004) - Most staff learn to be an HE teacher on the job
- remembering own experience as students
- and shared social practices (Knight, Tait Yorke
2006) - But events still important for introducing new
ideas, policy and practice
4Eraut says..
- Learning depends on the intention of the learner
- implicit taken for granted
- reactive in response to need for information
- deliberative when time deliberately set aside
- (Eraut, 2000)
5OU in Scotland part time tutors
- 550 in all parts of Scotland
- Work from home
- Mark assignments
- Provide tuition
- Professionally isolated!
6(No Transcript)
7Library resources
- 14,000 electronic journal titles
- 7,500 e-books
- 255 databases
- 93 courses integrating e-resources
8Startrek to Shakespeare...
Star Trek to Shakespeare
9Lyceum/flashmeeting
10Electronic assignment submission
student
Staff tutor
tutor
monitor
11Researching online professional development
- Tutor Moderators formal provision
- Online communities supporting non formal learning
12Tutor Moderators the extended event
13What does the course do?
- Three week training in online facilitation which
covers
- social skills
- technical skills
- pedagogical aspects
Developed by OU in Scotland Run for the benefit
of the whole OU community
14Exit questionnaire
- 130 respondents over 9 presentations Nov 2005-Oct
2006 - evaluation forum
- experience
- confidence/competence
- successes
- ideas for enhancement
15Winning features
- Collaborative and experiential approach, working
across faculties and regions - Its good to see the range of approaches and
solutions and carefully consider the pros and
cons. - Its been a great opportunity to be a
participant in a conference where all the other
contributors are sharing experiences and
practical tips.
16Winning features
- The online student experience
- It has helped me to see things from the
students perspective and this will be
particularly important when designing activities
for my own students. - to get the sense of what it is like to be a new
student in a group hopefully I can hold on to
that feeling if I do go on to moderate.
17Winning features
- restricted flexibility
- learning contract activity list
- certificate of completion
18But participants want
- Content to take away
- Space to come back..
19Online communities at the OU
20Methodology
- Transcripts from 8 presentations Tutor Moderators
course Jan 06-Jan 07 - 94 responses to Activity 1E
- Iterative reading, emergent themes
21Activity 1E
- Explore the forums on your desktop.
- What forums did you visit?
- What purposes did you think they had?
- Share your observations and experiences in the
Reflections forum with your fellow participants. - Now have a look at the attached file to this
message and see what we think. To what extent do
you agree with these ideas?
22Categories online staff room
23Course discussion
- - they are active and a reply to an urgent
question usually takes only a few hours. ..We
recently were questioning our own understanding
of a particular assignment question. I guess
it takes a brave tutor to say I dont get this-
but once someone did it was huge relief and more
added their concerns.. (Tutor 10, Jan 06)
24Sharing resources
- One of the very experienced tutors has posted
his tutorial handouts on his own website and I
discovered that fact from the forum. The
materials he has produced are outstanding and
have saved many of his fellow tutors hours of
work. (Tutor 5, Jan06)
25Peer support..
- a great way to get in touch with other
tutors, to keep in touch with the course team
about things that we need advice about, or for us
to give our own views and feedback. Its also a
great way to share a smile and a joke
occasionally..many of us work in far flung
placesso its good to feel part of a body of
people from time to time. (Tutor 68, Jun06)
26Plenary, interdisciplinary.
- ..there seems to be an intense discussion about
politics and education provision. A debate is
good, but in some opinions are quite forceful and
may put someone off joining the forum. I would
feel uncomfortable sending a message to this
forum... (Tutor 65, Jun06)
27To join or not?
- Centrality to role
- Issues which matter
- Size of message base
- Clarity of purpose
- Wenger, 1998
- Preece, 2000
28- Learning Development Team
- OU in Scotland
- www.open.ac.uk/scotland
- OU Knowledge Network
- http//kn.open.ac.uk