Senior Instructional Technology Consultant Keep It Short! Developing Bite-Sized Workshops Faculty Will Actually Attend Josh Lund Senior Instructional Technology Consultant DePaul University

Intro Embedded consultant for DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business, School of Music, and College for Continuing and Professional Education began as a lead trainer for FITS Central Support Team 1st day of work for DePaul= 1st day of training on new LMS (Desire 2 Learn)

LMS Training: Wave 1 Initial Implementation: Fall 2010 1 year to get 40% of faculty trained (active users)- ~1,000 faculty 1-2 hour offerings Fundamentals of D2L Personalizing Your Course Assessments, Gradebook, Etc.

LMS Training: Wave 1 “Content of presentation was appropriate for my questions and concerns”- 14% disagree

LMS Training: Wave 2 Shorter workshops (1-hour limit) More Open Lab workshops More/better handouts “Content of presentation was appropriate for my questions and concerns”- 9% disagree

LMS Training: Wave 3 College and School-specific trainings Individual course designer findings “Content of presentation was appropriate for my questions and concerns”- 3-4% disagree

5 Things Faculty Hate About Training Workshops Results from: Post-workshop surveys Ongoing surveys in the DOTS program (enrolling approx. 75-100 faculty/yr.) Statistical user data from D2L system itself

#5: Scripts (7%) “I don’t know if they were prepared to answer my questions.” “The Course was taught in a foreign language -- computerese.”

#4:Lack of/Bad Handouts (10-12%) “Instructor was very clear and helpful. But it would have been nice to have handouts to refer to later when I am actually setting up my classes.” “It might be helpful to tie the presentation closer to the handouts.”

#3: Lack of Relevance (11-15%) “I really needed more hands-on time to get the feel for the system.” “It would have been helpful if we could have actually set up classes we will be teaching.”

#2: Exhaustive Detail (15-20%) “Too much information for an initial session.” “Not everyone in the room is a 20 or 30- something technogeek. Talking about the five different ways to perform the same act is confusing and gets in the way of real learning.”

#1: Techie Titles (20%) “I didn’t know for sure what I was signing up for and now I wish I had picked a different course.” “I suggest you totally re-think these modules, redesign them, and then advertise them honestly.”

5 Things You Can Do #1: Make It Sequential “Does the workshop follow a logical, orderly sequence?” Info should flow the same way the resource does

5 Things You Can Do #2: Make It Practical “Can they apply this and/or produce something immediately?”

5 Things You Can Do #3: Give Them Stuff “Can you put something in their hands?”

5 Things You Can Do #4: Show Some Personality “Do they feel like you are sensitive to their questions?” Improvise!

5 Things You Can Do #5: Make it Short “How soon will they need to use this?” Keep in mind 7+/-2 To them, shorter = easier

After the workshop is over... Give them support/contact info...and follow up! Open Lab? Model the behavior you hope for

Thanks! Questions? jlund2@depaul.edu