Executive Summary

According to the Magic 8-Ball, the Executive Summary will be posted here, but for now

Try Again Later

Our Presentation
The North Star Presentation

Meeting Tonight?

We don't have project time built into the schedule today. Can we meet tonight to work on the project? Hopefully we wouldn't need more than 2 hours.....

Another Step: Work Breakdown

I think our posts have demonstrated that our group has an excellent conceptual understanding for setting up our case. Everyone has offered questions, issues, and many details needed for approaching this project. In my own mind, I would like to narrow a few things down so that we can start identifying the top few things we want to present in our 15 minutes.

For example, there are 7 domains that we need to cover in our presentation. In 15 minutes, that is less than 2 minutes to address each issue (we need an intro, too). So, we should pick perhaps 3 of the domains that are the most important for our case and concentrate on forming our presentation around those.

If that's not possible, perhaps we can choose a handful of concrete activities we want to be proposing? These will have to be the higher-level activities so that we avoid too much information for 15 minutes.

For example, I would like to propose establishing a new support model: Learning Technology Team Model. I could present this idea and provide information about what this program will change and why, how we know it is successful, the kind of budget it needs, etc (addressing all the 7 domains of this activity).

A Way To Breakdown The Work
Perhaps 2 other group members could do the same for 2 other activities? Then another group member could work on the one-page web page (that could go into more detail than the presentation material), and another person can work on getting some of the basic presentation started? Then on Wednesday we can work as a group to put the final presentation materials together and do some practice run-throughs of our presentation.

Imagine

We ask the "provosts" to whom we are pitching our case to imagine that they are each a beanie baby at Beanie U. We give them pictures of particular beanies, in fact, and ask them to assume those identities -- identities as administrators at Beanie U, a medium-sized institution that values teaching. Beanie U has recently had the largest entering freshman class in its history (all of those "retired" beanies have now found the time to attend university!).

The Board of Trustees -- all of those valuable Limited Edition beanies -- want to see Beanie U approach the cutting edge in technology on the campus. Typically, it has been difficult for Beanie U to incorporate alot of technology because many of its students have special needs -- special keyboards since they don't have moveable digits, for example.

University Administration wants to connect all of the pockets of technology already on campus, foster communication among current technology users, among support staff, and strengthen faculty development programs that help faculty to adopt and use technologies. They also want to hear from the student body to gain a better understanding of the direction the university should be considering.

Beanie U administration tend to have very short attention spans. Most of them would rather be chasing other animals, or eating, or grooming themselves than be listening to a pitch to give money to new, expensive initiatives. It sets up a challenge, for sure.

Setting The Context

Our University could be called "Beanie U". A group of 5 campus representatives are trying to devise an institutional plan for engaging more faculty, administrators and students across the campus in educational technologies and garnering buy-in for new initiatives and better communication across stakeholders.

The 5 campus reps are: Professor A, IT Director, Instructional Designer, Technology Expert, and Provost or Student. In order to illustrate points, we cut to the Beanie group or to pairs so they can "act out" the issue and present the solution. For example, we could make small video clips or have their digital pictures in our presentation. In other words, we use a picture of the otter when we are talking from the instructional designer perspective in the presentation, the penguin for the faculty issues, etc....

If we present from the perspective of the animals....they could talk about the problem of the "Wild Dog", which could actually be a pseudonym for our case (campus buy-in of technology development). So we could fit some humerous euphemisms into the serious nature of the case study.

I may be getting ahead of myself here, but hey, it's after 5 PM, so I am allowed to be a little goofy (-ier).

Taming the Wild Dog

Bear with me as I brainstorm some more.....

Title: Taming The Wild Dog -- Fostering campus-wide buy-in for instructional technology engagement

Goal: Present a spectrum of programs/activities/opportunities that contribute to building partnerships and fostering communication leading to innovative faculty development opportunities, improved collaboration between support units, and sharpened understanding of the benefits of educational technologies by administrators.

Questions

• Overarching Question: From the perspective of the campus leadership, why and where would a campus need to invest people, time, and money to accomplish the goals?

• What programs are contributing to positive faculty development right now?
• Where do faculty want to learn about instr. technology?
• How do you penetrate the faculty "interior" and gain acceptance?
• How do you become partners with groups "different" from your own?
• How do you share resources to benefit the greater good?
• How do we pay for new initiatives?
• How will this improve our institution?
  

Assessment (My weakness)

• Is there improved communication between groups? [evidence of new collaborations?]
  
• Is there a development of programs with diverse participation (taking the ed. tech. development out of the silo and including diverse groups in the design, development and implementation of transformative practice)?
• Are faculty happier with the new initiatives? [focus groups, surveys]
• Are there more courses online (are the campus supported technologies being utilized more)?
• Are students reporting that they are learning more or better due to incorporation of instructional technologies? [Senior Surveys, Student Advisory Boards, focus groups, course evaluations]
• 
  

Now submitting this for group feedback..... Please feel free to make changes to any or all of this!

New Twist on our Topic

I have to admit, I am not too crazy about learning objects, but we should keep that option open. How about this twist on #10:

Integrating faculty development programs into the campus culture: engaging faculty, support professionals, and the administration in faculty development in educational technologies. This case study will explore how instructional technology programs can create synergy in teaching and learning with technologies leading to innovative, effective uses of campus technologies.

The North Stars Case Study

Here's a brainstorm for our group project. It's an early, early draft version and we may decide to take a totally different direction. I tried to start forming an Executive Summary for us to get started.

Faculty support center for fostering research and development with new technologies and processes for implementing innovative applications to the teaching and learning process

Executive Summary

Without regard to institution size, mission, and software supported, teaching and learning support centers, especially technology-oriented ones, are seen as utilitarian resources by the majority of faculty, staff and students on campuses. Support staff spend the majority of their time providing support for “mechanical” aspects of educational technologies, approached by most faculty and instructors to answer ‘point-and-click’ questions and never broaching the topic of pedagogical frameworks for teaching with technologies. The campus community and faculty are not recognizing them as credible resources in pedagogy and teaching methodology.

Strategies for Change

The units supporting technologies for teaching and learning want to see a transformation of the central educational technologies support providers into pedagogical centers for designing effective methods for incorporating technology into teaching. In order for this to happen, campus community members must change their perceptions of the support providers. This cultural shift may be accomplished by implementing programs designed to address both the ‘point-and-click’ needs of the population and introduce pedagogical frameworks for working with the technology systems. This is best done by involving faculty, local support in departments, and the central support organizations, as well as by garnering support of the Deans, Department Heads, Provost, Academic Officers.

Important Characteristics for Success

• Administrative buy-in
• Faculty Incentives (cash grants, in-kind grants, release time, tenure credit)
• Faculty buy-in (participation in curriculum development for faculty development programs, faculty mentors, faculty advisory roles, value perceived at the discipline-level)
• Adequate amount of support staff (learning technology team model: instructional designer(s), content expert, library/literacy, center for teaching excellence staff, technical expert, local support) (coordination of resources; stop competing for faculty time; make it easier for faculty to learn and implement changes)
• Sense of community
• Becomes part of campus culture

Some Models

SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning)
Developing community
Classroom Research-based
Encourage publishing results
"SoTL, which is a scholarly inquiry into the relationship of teaching and learning, is defined as seeking to "render teaching public, subject to critical evaluation, and usable to others in the field" (Lee Shulman, President of the Carnegie Foundation). It involves a rigorous approach to research (as in one's own discipline) and uses appropriate measures and design."

Online resources:
The Research University Consortium for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (RUCASTL)
http://www.oir.uiuc.edu/Did/SOTL/RUCASTL.htm

Journal Related to SoTL
http://www.oir.uiuc.edu/Did/Resources/Journals.htm


PITA (Provost Initiative on Teaching Advancement)
*This program at University of Illinois (others too?)
Grant-based
"Implementation of Instructional Enhancements: the PITA Program will provide support for the modification of existing courses to incorporate techniques or materials intended specifically to enhance learning. Preference will be given to departmental initiatives to redesign core courses in a major, general education offerings, or groups of related courses."

Using undergraduate students for faculty project support

Learning Technology Teams Support Model