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Home CompetenciesWestwood
College
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Problem | Analysis
| Rationale | Results
| Evidence of Value | Reflections
| Responsibilities |
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| PROBLEM |
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Currently new instructors at Westwood College are required
to take part in a national faculty development effort. This
includes a number of face-to-face training sessions (e.g.
learning styles, selecting instructional strategies, classroom
management, tolerance for ambiguity, multiple intelligence's,
etc.). This is a requirement because new college faculty,
at a technical school, tend to be content matter experts
(e.g., a graphic designer) with very little teaching and
instructional design experience. The frequency of the training
is based on need. Instructors occasionally wait months before
taking part in this training and possibly teach a course
or two without any formal teaching and/or instructional
design experience. Therefore, the problem Westwood College
faces is, how can they offer just-in-time training to new
faculty.
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| ANALYSIS |
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Faced with this problem, Westwood College hoped that we
(i.e., a development team in which I was a member) would
develop one or more training modules as an online or a hybrid
course. They specifically hoped that we would design the
Learning Styles module in hopes that it could serve faculty
and students as well. Despite our clients certainty of the
solution, we began by completing a thorough front-end analysis
to investigate the problem for ourselves.
We discovered that Westwood began this national faculty
development effort in an attempt to offer new employees
a basic foundation of education. However, increasing accreditation
standards were pressuring them to become more consistent
with their training. This training consisted of seven modules
that were offered throughout the year at different campuses
based on the number of new hires. However, often new faculty
could find themselves teaching a number of courses before
ever receiving an ounce of training.
We found that all of the learners were Westwood faculty;
50% were full-time and 50% were adjunct. They all had professional
experience in their field. The average age was 35. They
had at least a bachelors degree, with many having a masters
or higher. While 20% did not have formal online class experience,
80% were internet users. The learners worked on both PC's
and Mac's and their internet access varied from a 28.8 modem
to a T1 connection.
The following are the outcomes of the ground based Learning
Styles module:
- Faculty will be able to identify their own learning
style
- Faculty will be able to complete a learning style inventory
- Faculty will be able to identify other learning styles
- Faculty will be able to describe the four different
learning styles
- Faculty will be able to identify ways to adapt their
teaching to meet the needs of students with different
learning styles.
- Faculty will be able to create a single lesson incorporating
different learning styles.
As a result of this problem, we hoped to redesign the Learning
Styles module in a format to address the aforementioned
outcomes but at the same time offering the learner more
flexibility as to when and how they complete this training.
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| RATIONALE |
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Based on the problem, our
clients wishes, and the front-end analysis, we decided to
develop an asynchronous online module on "Learning Styles"
for new faculty. We decided to design an online module instead
of a hybrid model to address the problem of time and place.
A hybrid course would still require a face-to-face component
which would end up recreating the very problem we were trying
to solve--that is, to be able to offer training at any time
or place. We also decided to narrow our audience by focusing
solely on the faculty; we believed we could not develop
a quality product if we were forced to accommodate two very
different audiences. Instruction should never be designed
in a one size fits all model.
Our client informed us that she wanted
the module to be less than an hour long. With this in mind,
we decided to break the content down into three sections:
1. Introduction of the subject. 2. A chance to learn one’s
own style by taking an inventory or learning styles questionnaire.
3. A section focusing on how to use this information. Then,
within each section, we tried to design the course to enable
the learner to come and go and complete one section at a
time.
Click here
for a high level graphical representation of our instructional
approach to the content.
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| RESULTS |
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In many ways this product is still a work in progress. However during the development
phase, an evaluation team regularly evaluated the site and
provided feedback. The site seemed to change from week to
week as a result of this feedback. But some beta testing
needs to take place to be able to fully assess the results.
Regardless, the client continually expressed that she is
extremely satisfied with the product.
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| EVIDENCE OF VALUE |
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This module was developed for faculty
development; however, at this time, Westwood has not begun
to utilize this module. Therefore, it is difficult to assess
the value of this site. However, once the site is launched
it would be helpful to receive a summative evaluation; information
about not only the usability of the site but also about
the instructional activities. Finally, it would be helpful
to do a follow up survey three months later to see if the
module changed the way the faculty instruct.
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| REFLECTIONS |
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| This was a great learning
experience. The number one thing I learned was how long an
entire development process can take. Originally I suggested
to our client that we could complete 3, if not all 7 modules.
I am very grateful that my development team decided to concentrate
on only one module. This allowed our team time to concentrate
on the little things. Along the same lines, I have a greater
appreciation for project managers and the skill-set it takes
to manage not only the client but also your designers/developers
throughout a project cycle. |
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| RESPONSIBILITIES |
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Responsibility #2: Design instruction
of human performance strategy to meet the needs of learners.
This online module was a direct result
of our initial front-end analysis (FEA). For instance, our
client had originally entertained the possibility of developing
a hybrid module for both faculty and students. However,
after careful analysis, we discovered that this would not
only fail to solve Westwood's problems but that it could
possibly add to them. Our FEA also directed us away from
including video or any other high bandwidth multimedia.
Instead, we relied on simple still shots and audio to simulate
an interactive experience. Finally, we developed a module
that could serve as a model of instruction that incorporates
varying learning styles.
Responsibility #3: Uses a variety of media
to deliver instruction to students and to engage student
in learning.
We learned in our front-end analysis that
we would be inhibited due to bandwidth concerns, regarding
the variety of media we would use to engage our learners.
Despite our strong belief that a module on learning styles
should serve as a model that actually addresses different
learners needs by using such things as sound, interactivity
and supporting graphics, we had to use a static medium with
Flash media inserted to add some interactivity as opposed
to an entire site built in Flash.
Responsibility #4: Understands how to capitalize
on the capacities and abilities of each learner.
In many ways this responsibility was the
focus of our entire module--that is, varying instruction
to meet learners needs. However, we did not want to simple
talk about varying instruction, we actually provided different
instructional strategies to address different types of learners.
For instance, we provided print versions on certain screens
with a place for notes for the read/write learners; we provided
an online assessment, an interactive quiz and a field experience
opportunity for the kinesthetic learner; we offered audio
clips for the auditory learner; and finally we included
images and a graphic organizer for the visual learner. We
felt strongly about modeling what we were trying to teach.
Responsibility #6: Uses incisive and relevant
assessment and evaluation techniques.
A traditional level two assessment was
included in this online module. However, we also encouraged/recommended
that the learner get some real-world experience and evaluation
by doing some field work and reflection.
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Last Updated: July 18, 2003 |
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