OEB 2015 - The Agile Approach to Learning Design - Denise Gaspard-Richards
-
0:00 - 0:04(Denise Gaspard-Richards) Thank you
and good afternoon, everyone. -
0:04 - 0:08It's a long title and there's just
two things I need to say before I begin. -
0:08 - 0:11The wrap-around model
of content development: -
0:11 - 0:14I know today a number of instructional
designers, learning, business -
0:14 - 0:17who are involved in working
with design and courses. -
0:17 - 0:20This is not like the ADDIE model
-
0:20 - 0:22or anything that we use
for instructional design. -
0:23 - 0:27This is really a model that
allows us to design course materials -
0:27 - 0:31wrapped around open education resources.
-
0:31 - 0:34So it reduces the need for students
to purchase textbooks -
0:34 - 0:42and also reduces their cost,
because in the Caribbean, which I have -
0:42 - 0:47-- does this work? Yeah?
No, I'm pointing. -
0:47 - 0:50Okay, how do I go forward,
how do I go forward to the slide again? -
0:51 - 0:53(Off voice, inaudible)
-
0:53 - 0:57(DGR) Oh it's there now, okay, great.
Great, alright thank you -- -
0:58 - 1:01So you'll see a map, it's easier for me
to look down than to look up. -
1:02 - 1:05You'll see a map here of the Caribbean
and you will note -
1:05 - 1:08that I have tried to identify
where we are located: -
1:08 - 1:12there is a little block on the map,
to the right. -
1:13 - 1:17That shows you where we are
in relation to the rest of the world. -
1:17 - 1:24So, North America would be up to the left
and Europe will be over to the right. -
1:24 - 1:28Okay, so these are the islands
where we have the orange lines. -
1:29 - 1:32Those are the islands that comprise
the Open Campus, -
1:32 - 1:33I just need to tell you that.
-
1:34 - 1:36So you'll see that they're small,
we're scattered. -
1:37 - 1:40Our economies are fledgling economies,
we're developing countries, -
1:40 - 1:45we're developing islands,
so cost is a very important element for us -
1:45 - 1:48when we are looking at students and
getting them into our campus. -
1:49 - 1:53Our campus also is not funded by
governments, because, of course -
1:53 - 1:55they are also dealing with challenges.
-
1:55 - 1:58So we're very much dependent on
student fee income. -
1:58 - 2:02We can't charge a very high fee
to come into our courses, -
2:02 - 2:04so we have to keep costs down.
-
2:04 - 2:07So hence, open educational resources
and our wrap-around concept. -
2:07 - 2:13So, if we can just go to the next slide--
I'm not comfortable with -
2:13 - 2:15using this at all.
I'm sorry, can you help me -
2:15 - 2:17moving to the slides?
-
2:17 - 2:18Thank you very much.
-
2:20 - 2:22Okay, so the project, wrap-around,
-
2:22 - 2:24which is content and support.
-
2:24 - 2:27Content and support is really where
we were before 2014. -
2:27 - 2:31Content and support really looks at us
designing course materials, -
2:31 - 2:35working with course developers who
are subject matter experts, -
2:35 - 2:37so we work with them independently.
-
2:37 - 2:41So an instructional designer,
if that person is assigned to -
2:41 - 2:43work on developing courses in
the program, -
2:43 - 2:46if you take a Bachelor's program,
that's about 30 courses, and -
2:46 - 2:50they would be working with
30 subject matter specialists. -
2:50 - 2:53We try to break it up,
look at the courses by levels, -
2:53 - 2:56so they're maybe working with 5 to 10
courses at any one time. -
2:56 - 3:02They were working individually with
these persons, so the benefits -
3:02 - 3:06of all of the training and all of the
experience was just going one to one. -
3:06 - 3:09Then of course,
you have multimedia designers -
3:09 - 3:12who would be working with our content,
and again that would be one to one. -
3:12 - 3:15So you're not getting the benefit of a
team kind of effort. -
3:15 - 3:19So we realize that there were issues that
we needed to look at. -
3:19 - 3:22One of the things that reversed
was the strategy for -
3:22 - 3:23the academic division.
-
3:23 - 3:27We were no longer able to sustain
such a model, -
3:27 - 3:30we had to produce content very rapidly
and we had to find a way -
3:30 - 3:31to make this work.
-
3:32 - 3:36So what we did there
is we looked at process, using -
3:37 - 3:40a project management process,
and we by chance, we happened upon -
3:40 - 3:42the agile design model.
-
3:42 - 3:46That allowed us now to bring our
teams together. -
3:46 - 3:50So all of our content experts who are
working in a particular program, -
3:50 - 3:52if we are working on, let's say,
on courses, -
3:52 - 3:56they can all be together in an online
environment working collaboratively, -
3:56 - 3:59so that they're sharing,
they're knowing what each other's doing. -
3:59 - 4:03So that you find that the courses can be
sequential, there's no overlapping -
4:03 - 4:06because everybody knows what everybody
else is doing and we are following -
4:06 - 4:08a particular plan.
-
4:08 - 4:13So we recognized that that needed
to happen and we started that process of -
4:14 - 4:15moving and transitioning.
-
4:16 - 4:19Of course, there are implications there
for the departmental operations, -
4:20 - 4:22we are looking at working differently
with content persons, -
4:23 - 4:27we are looking at our instructional
designers, working differently to support -
4:27 - 4:28these individuals.
-
4:28 - 4:33And of course, there is an impact on our
production teams to produce materials. -
4:34 - 4:39So we found that it was easier now
to design our learning activities -
4:39 - 4:44around that content because we
had everybody collaboratively together. -
4:44 - 4:49We thought it would be a good idea
to move lessons into that way of thinking. -
4:50 - 4:54So if I can go quickly to the
agile learning design slide, please. -
4:54 - 4:57Thank you.
-
4:57 - 5:02So, Jasmine was just talking about
some of the characteristics when you -
5:02 - 5:06look at agile learning and particularly
with recognizing that there's an -
5:06 - 5:07opportunity to be collaborative.
-
5:08 - 5:12There was also an opportunity for us to
work in an iterative manner. -
5:12 - 5:16We also recognize that we could
be flexible with the model, -
5:16 - 5:21we could be very creative in what we did
in terms of helping our subject matter -
5:21 - 5:23experts to design authentic learning
activities. -
5:24 - 5:26We could be very responsive
because if we are working -
5:27 - 5:29in a project management kind of
environment, -
5:29 - 5:33we can respond very quickly
to things that need to be changed. -
5:33 - 5:38And of course, we had to be very lean
because we are talking about developing -
5:38 - 5:41a number of courses in a short space
of time and we need to do things -
5:41 - 5:45in a very clean and clinical manner,
so that we can move ahead very, very -
5:45 - 5:46quickly.
-
5:47 - 5:51Some of these support strategies
that we had to use was of course, -
5:51 - 5:53we had to have an emphasis on
cross-functionality. -
5:54 - 5:57We could not just operate
one on one, so we had to look at -
5:57 - 5:59bringing all the members of a particular
team together. -
5:59 - 6:02We had to have an emphasis on
interactions, -
6:02 - 6:05people had to be able, they had to feel
very comfortable. -
6:05 - 6:09We are in an online environment,
as I showed you in a map, -
6:09 - 6:12we are scattered, so your content
expert could be in Germany, -
6:12 - 6:15your content expert could be
in Canada, anywhere. -
6:15 - 6:19And I am leading the team, I am based
in Trinidad. -
6:19 - 6:23Some of my instructional designers are in
another island in Jamaica, in another -
6:23 - 6:27island in Barbados, so we all over
the place. -
6:27 - 6:31So we really needed to be able to
interact in a way that brought meaning -
6:31 - 6:33to what we were doing.
-
6:34 - 6:37Also, we want to have usable
deliverables. we don't want to just -
6:37 - 6:41design content and when it goes into the
learning environment it's not meaningful -
6:42 - 6:46to the students, it's not meaningful to
the persons who are leading the courses. -
6:47 - 6:53We also looked at emphasis on rapid
and decisive response to change intiatives. -
6:54 - 6:58People are very, you know, change is
very difficult for most of us, -
6:59 - 7:00for all of us.
-
7:00 - 7:03And you had people who were working in
a particular way over a period -
7:03 - 7:08of many years, and now you're asking,
"Listen, we are in a change environment, -
7:08 - 7:10this is how we are going to be looking at
design and content," -
7:11 - 7:15and you found that there are persons who just
could just not step up to the plate. -
7:15 - 7:19But, we were already in that situation,
so the head honcho had to hold their -
7:19 - 7:23hands and pull people along,
it was very, very painful. -
7:24 - 7:27And the head honcho had to actually do
some of the work in the end -
7:28 - 7:32so that when the time came for the course
to be delivered, there was something that -
7:32 - 7:34was available to go into our
learning environment. -
7:35 - 7:39So we had to keep, you know,
a kind of process going that was -
7:39 - 7:41very, very, very, very quick.
-
7:41 - 7:45We depended on a lot on templates
because there was no other way to get -
7:45 - 7:49it done and to ensure that we could do it
in the time frame that we needed to -
7:49 - 7:54because we looked at a four month period
for design, development, and review -
7:54 - 7:58of an entire course, and you're talking
about more than 30 courses. -
7:59 - 8:04And in our first phase of development,
we were doing something like 57 courses, -
8:04 - 8:07so it was a bit crazy if you could
think of it like that. -
8:08 - 8:12So let's look at some views from the
literature very quickly with regard to agile. -
8:13 - 8:20The key features for our department staff:
rapid, responsive, targeted approaches, -
8:20 - 8:23and lean, so very much a project
management approach to what -
8:24 - 8:24we needed to do.
-
8:25 - 8:29And we found that persons were not,
they were not really prepared for -
8:29 - 8:30that change.
-
8:31 - 8:33They wanted to stay in the old
environment and do what they were doing -
8:34 - 8:35because they were comfortable,
-
8:35 - 8:37and now you had somebody looking
over their shoulder. -
8:37 - 8:40One of the other things was that,
as the head of department, I could not -
8:40 - 8:43see everything because everybody was doing
it in their little corner. -
8:44 - 8:47So I could not actually see what was
happening. -
8:47 - 8:49Now, we are in the online environment,
we are collaborative, -
8:49 - 8:53I am in there and I am looking
at everything, and I can -
8:53 - 8:56comment on everything, and I can say,
"No, this is not working the way -
8:56 - 8:59it should be.
Look back at these learning objectives, -
8:59 - 9:00how are you going to measure that?
-
9:00 - 9:03You know, that does not go together,
you need to re-look this." -
9:04 - 9:05That wasn't happening before because
-
9:05 - 9:06I couldn't see it.
-
9:06 - 9:10So suddenly, there they had somebody in
their face all the time in the online -
9:10 - 9:13environment managing that process and
trying to bring it to where we needed it -
9:14 - 9:14to be.
-
9:14 - 9:20So this is one of the things that we learn
from Miles, that "Agile learning: living with -
9:20 - 9:26the speed of change," that's in an
international journal, -
9:26 - 9:36that the key finding that Miles found when
they looked at this view from the literature -
9:36 - 9:40in a management setting, is that
a majority of employees see their -
9:40 - 9:45colleagues as a more valuable resource
for acquiring new skills or knowledge than -
9:45 - 9:47their internal learning management systems,
-
9:48 - 9:52and I wanted to be able to apply that
to what was happening in our environment. -
9:52 - 9:55In terms of a learner-centric view,
-
9:55 - 10:01the key features for learners, because
ultimately we're developing courses for -
10:01 - 10:03use by our learners, so we had to
factor that in, -
10:03 - 10:05we had to ensure that our courses
-
10:05 - 10:08had some real-world relevance,
that there would be some flexibility, -
10:08 - 10:12both in terms of the learning styles that
the students would be able to use and in -
10:12 - 10:16terms of the types of resources
that we're able to provide for them and -
10:16 - 10:21also that they can go look for for
themselves using the kinds of guidelines -
10:21 - 10:22that are there in the materials.
-
10:23 - 10:24We also had to be very nimble
-
10:25 - 10:28in terms of preparing our courses
for the students and, of course, -
10:28 - 10:29twenty-first century skills.
-
10:30 - 10:31Those were just so critical,
-
10:31 - 10:34and it's something that we hadn't
concentrated on before, -
10:35 - 10:41so this was an opportunity to bring in,
you know, go digital, look at the kinds -
10:41 - 10:44of multimedia communication skills that
we wanted to develop in our students, -
10:44 - 10:48critical thinking skills, innovative-ness,
all of these things we had to ensure -
10:48 - 10:50would have been included
-
10:50 - 10:53in the courses we were designing.
-
10:53 - 10:57So if we move now to project center--
-
10:57 - 11:00how am I doing for time? I'm okay?
-
11:01 - 11:02Yes? Great.
-
11:02 - 11:06All right, so the key elements that we
thought that we needed to have for -
11:06 - 11:12the success of our project and moving
our course development into this flexible -
11:12 - 11:17and dynamic kind of environment is,
of course, that we wanted to be iterative, -
11:17 - 11:18that we wanted to be collaborative,
-
11:19 - 11:23we wanted to have creative opportunities
available because if you're talking about -
11:23 - 11:27project management, you're talking about
being very rigid and moving things along -
11:27 - 11:29in a particular way, but we recognized
that we had to do differently. -
11:29 - 11:32So in terms of what was happening in
the courses, -
11:33 - 11:36while we had the courses development
cycles structured in such a way where -
11:37 - 11:40they would have to develop
a course outline, then they would have to -
11:40 - 11:42do a course plan that would give all of
-
11:42 - 11:44the elements of what we were going to
include in the course materials, -
11:44 - 11:47and then of course, the design, the course
-
11:47 - 11:49materials using the wrap-around concept.
-
11:49 - 11:53We realized that it, it could not be a
linear thing, it could not be just -
11:53 - 11:55move from one directly into the other,
-
11:56 - 11:59so while we had a course outline
and they worked on the course plan, -
11:59 - 12:00when they were working on the course plan,
-
12:01 - 12:04we would realize that there were things
needed to change, go back, look at your -
12:05 - 12:07course outline, then you move on,
-
12:07 - 12:08you continue on with your materials,
-
12:08 - 12:11as you're doing your materials,
you realize that there are some resources -
12:11 - 12:14that you really need to include,
so you have to keep going back. -
12:14 - 12:15So that meant that we had to be meeting
constantly, so we were working through -
12:20 - 12:22weekly meetings trying to figure out
-
12:23 - 12:23what were the problems,
-
12:24 - 12:25if there were any,
what we needed to change, -
12:25 - 12:28what we needed to do
and continue on in that type of process. -
12:29 - 12:30Of course, working together in the
-
12:30 - 12:31online environment.
-
12:31 - 12:34Why, there's another slide here,
I'm not going to go into it. -
12:35 - 12:39What I want to do is go into the
next slide which really shows, you know -
12:40 - 12:43for the student this is why we were
doing what we were doing. -
12:43 - 12:47We wanted students to be able to move
from a point where they could filter -
12:47 - 12:49information, they could select
-
12:49 - 12:53information, so they could know
what they would be practicing when they -
12:53 - 12:54get into the real world.
-
12:54 - 12:58They would have to be able to
integrate information because of course -
12:58 - 12:59we want them to be able to use
-
12:59 - 13:01whatever we are providing in that
-
13:02 - 13:03material and provide them with that kind
-
13:03 - 13:05of authentic experience that we want,
-
13:05 - 13:07and of course, for them to figure out
-
13:08 - 13:12what have I learned and how will I be
using this new knowledge and skills I have -
13:12 - 13:14developed in a real-world environment,
-
13:14 - 13:16so there's a lot of authenticity going
-
13:16 - 13:16on here.
-
13:17 - 13:18So next slide quickly.
-
13:18 - 13:20How we did it, as I said,
-
13:21 - 13:23we talked through our process that we used
-
13:23 - 13:27prior to 2014, and there were a number of
processes that we used prior to 2014, -
13:27 - 13:30so we consolidated,
we re-engineered, -
13:30 - 13:32we had a number of templates that
were designed, -
13:32 - 13:34we revised all of our protocols,
-
13:34 - 13:37and of course, we redesigned our
collaborative work spaces. -
13:38 - 13:41So we work right now in a environment,
-
13:41 - 13:43where we have everybody interacting
-
13:43 - 13:48just as the students would if they're
using the learning management system. -
13:48 - 13:52The project management approach:
we had targets, we looked at a re-assessment, -
13:52 - 13:54we had those weekly meetings,
-
13:54 - 13:56we always had debriefings at the end
of each stage, -
13:57 - 14:00and of course, we had to have some
contingencies in place. -
14:00 - 14:05And what our outcomes were,
human performance, of course, -
14:05 - 14:07you have the departmental leadership,
-
14:07 - 14:09you know, had to look at how I worked,
-
14:09 - 14:11what kind of leadership I brought to them,
-
14:11 - 14:12and we interrogated that.
-
14:12 - 14:17How effective were the teams in that process,
we have interrogated that. -
14:17 - 14:19Our processes,
we have done that. -
14:19 - 14:21And what kinds of lessons
have we learned? -
14:22 - 14:24We are still finding ourselves
-
14:24 - 14:25in a situation where some of our
-
14:26 - 14:27multimedia requests are not linked to
-
14:27 - 14:29generative strategies of learning.
-
14:29 - 14:32We need to focus more on quality,
-
14:33 - 14:36on learning activities to recognize that,
-
14:36 - 14:40and we need to have all of this linked
to recall integration, organization, and -
14:41 - 14:43elaboration strategies throughout project
implementation. -
14:44 - 14:46So whatever we do in terms of the development,
-
14:46 - 14:48we have to use these kinds of strategies
-
14:48 - 14:50to help our students over the line.
-
14:50 - 14:53Okay, and I think I end here.
-
14:53 - 14:54Thank you.
-
14:54 - 14:55(Emcee) Okay, thank you.
-
14:55 - 14:57That was a marathon.
- Title:
- OEB 2015 - The Agile Approach to Learning Design - Denise Gaspard-Richards
- Description:
-
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- Captions Requested
- Duration:
- 14:59
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