Ongoing User Engagement via Professional Development Workshops: Pathways Eileen McIlvain, Susan Van Gundy

Goals of Pathways workshops initiative  Increase participants’ use of NSDL Pathway portals and leverage their experience to impact a larger audience  Improve participant knowledge about digital libraries, NSDL, and how to effectively integrate digital resources in the undergraduate or K-12 classroom  Provide participants with concrete, real-world strategies that are effective and easy to implement, and that enrich their teaching practice

 Provide post-workshop opportunities that support and engage participants as ongoing advocates and members of the NSDL educational community  Develop effective models and an infrastructure for workshops that can be easily replicated by workshop participants, Pathways, and other NSDL projects, and be adapted for distance learning environments  NSDL provided funding, coordination of logistics, travel, equipment, materials. Pathways had leeway to construct workshops in accordance with their outreach goals, choice of setting, focus of activities

Workshop design or type… Collaborative discussion: MatDL, Teachers’ Domain Collaborative hands-on development: ComPADRE Train-the-trainer/user in use of digital resources for education: Math Gateway, BEN, AMSER, CSERD, Engineering Online participation: Engineering, ChemEd DLib Conference setting: AMSER, Engineering Hands-on component: All, except MatDL

Capacity-building goals  Professional development and training:  Use of digital resources, tools, or services in teaching/learning: AMSER, BEN, CSERD, Engineering, Math Gateway  Use of digital resources in other capacities:  reviewing/selection of resources: Engineering  use of courseware (Moodle) supporting chemistry education: ChemEd DLib  hands-on collaborative development and dissemination of curricula via wiki use: ComPADRE  wiki use supporting research dissemination: MatDL  Outreach and dissemination best practices: BEN  Professional development expansion and outreach: Teachers’ Domain  Collaborative discussion fostering partnership opportunities: MatDL, Teachers’ Domain

Varied scope, length, setting…  AMSER - 3 hour workshop in a conference setting; preceded by a prior-day one-hour presentation that paved the way. Hands-on exploration of AMSER. 28 participants, solicited via list serve announcement and conference announcement; 2-year and community college faculty, administrators, instructional designers.  BEN days of professional development; collaborative discussion, hands-on exploration. 25 participants selected by application process for year-long professional development program; undergraduate biosciences faculty.  ChemEd DLib – current: 8 week online training course in use of Moodle for utilizing ChemEd DLib resources; 25 undergraduate faculty participants to develop a workshop, course section, or faculty/high school teacher development program incorporating ChemEd DLib resources.  ComPADRE – 3 days of collaborative discussion, planning, hands-on exploration of wiki for curriculum development and provision; 9 high school teachers using specific physics curricula.

Varied scope, length, setting…  CSERD days of hands-on training in use of DL portals and tools for effective teaching/learning. 22 invited participants; high school teachers and other-than-school (ots) program staff.  Engineering – 4 hour hands-on workshop in a conference setting, with online component for distance participants. Training in use of DLs/portals for EP associate editors. 18 participants (6 online)  MatDL – 1 day of informational and collaborative discussion between NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECs) and NSDL/MatDL. 32 invited participants, MRSEC program officers, MRSEC staff, National Institute of Standards (NIST) representatives  Math Gateway – 2 days of hands-on exploration and enabling strategies for secondary outreach to colleagues by 20 participants (high school math teachers, 2 and 4-year undergraduate faculty)  Teachers’ Domain – 1.25 days of workshop for eleven public television station representatives with local educational partners. Collaborative discussion and planning for use of TD/NSDL resources and professional development courses in local markets, with ongoing follow-up. 22 total invited participants.

Capacity-building…  Train the trainer models  2 nd level outreach by participants via:  departmental or institutional brown bags  professional society meeting presentations or workshops  programmatic outreach  one-to-one outreach

Capacity-building…  Participants developing action plans  Teachers’ Domain: local public television station reps with local educational partners collaborate on action plans for 2007/2008 school year, utilizing TD Professional Development courses or providing other educational services  BEN: biosciences faculty in BEN Scholars program develop a learning object, and accompanying outreach plan

Capacity building…  Collaborative development - familiarization with wikis  MatDL – use by graduate students in REU program as forum for research output  ComPADRE – use by faculty as a collaborative curriculum delivery mechanism

Challenges…  Settings affecting do-ability: clear planning on what is possible to do in time allotted; technology limitations of certain settings  Scope of audience: conference-based workshops challenged to address wide range of interests and concerns of participants  Hand-holding necessary for online training; lack of participant familiarity with digital libraries  what’s an educational resource  what’s a collection  what’s a digital library  dispel misconceptions

Challenges…  Online access to portals requiring user registration: prior-to-workshop user registration at various portals is recommended, or use of a workshop account login for workshops participants  Teacher release time: K12 teachers are challenged to take one-two days away from their jobs for professional development. Incentivize by provision of continuing education units (CEUs); lower the barriers to participation  Follow-up and evaluation of second-level outreach by workshop participants

Outcomes  New relationships were established or strengthened, either programmatically, organizationally, or within Pathway communities  Professional development extended to higher ed STEM faculty and K12 teachers  Workshop participants provided usability feedback  User bases of PWs and NSDL were expanded via first and second-level outreach

Recommendations for future workshop planning  Model the use of technology; incorporate interactivity in exploration, guided activities  Model the use of content - meet the need for teacher content knowledge, within contexts of use  Provide workshop participants a range of options for how to remain involved - concrete suggestions  Leverage NSDL workshops as a partnership opportunity with other STEM stakeholder organizations and NSF-funded initiatives -> multiple audience access  Evaluation and usage: develop common, adaptable evaluation forms for data collection, common metrics -> close the loop with participants – follow-up surveys (6 months/1 year)

 Metrics: track outreach-event-generated usage spikes; create special web pages tied to events where noticeable effects, sustained use can be monitored  Micro-surveys of users on PW sites, tied to resources. One to three meaningful questions - how are you using this resource?  Collect the good stories of workshop experience/use  Revelations that occur re: use of technology in classrooms  Focused activities: creating of local action plans  Measuring attitude changes in teachers toward technology use -> changing behavior or practice as form of impact  Viral marketing –> creating teacher/faculty advocates

Next Steps…  Workshop on a Flash drive  Tape parts of workshops for inclusion on a how-to- do-workshops video/podcast, for faculty/teacher 2 nd level outreach  Standardized outreach materials for PWs, projects – the two slide essential info  Requests centralized via NSDL  Develop multi-purpose NSDL online workshops – provision of services, use of tools  Services/materials supporting 2 nd level outreach

Print-based materials development  Workshop planning guides  Participant sign-in forms; session evaluation forms  Audience-focused handouts (K-12; higher ed)  Information sheets on Pathways; partner projects  Workshop training materials that can be repurposed across projects  Provide 50/100/200 word abstract language for NSDL workshop submissions (conferences)  Provide outreach best practices (do’s and don’ts)  Provide guidelines for writing “NSF nuggets”, featuring the accomplishments and research of NSF-funded projects; submit to NSF  NSDL and Pathways posters for teachers/libraries

Online materials  Provide links to or requests for Pathways materials from nsdl.org (Outreach Materials Request Form)  Pathways, other partner projects: provide variety of PPTs: the 2-slide summary; a 15-minute and 30- minute PPT, for distribution, use by workshop participants in 1 st and 2 nd level outreach  Create an NSDL Outreach Wiki for coordination of outreach events, workshops - not to replace the NSDL Outreach Materials page or request form, but to coordinate collaborative activities: Pathways, all NSDL projects

Communications  Institute a monthly or bi-monthly conference call for outreach related issues  Create an outreach-focused list Evaluation  Track download statistics  Standardized, adaptable evaluation form  Close the loop with workshop participants – long-term follow-up: 6 mo / 1 year – has practice changed?