An Examination of ePD

Monti Tanner
Assignment 2
EDUC 5500
November 2009

An Examination of the Distributed Learning Coursesoffered as part of theCalgary Board of Education’s ePD Strategy

INTRODUCTION

Teachers, Administrators and Support Staff within the Calgary Board of Education have access to electronic Professional Development (ePD). The CBE currently supports three different strategies of ePD: Distributed Learning Courses, Webinars and Communities of Practice. These strategies cover a variety of topics that are of interest to educators, and are all made available free of charge to all CBE teachers, administrators and support staff.

Although not the only board-wide PD strategy, ePD is available to all teachers, administrators and support staff in all geographic areas of the city and across all grade and subject levels. In addition, ePD Courses are available to educators outside of the CBE’s jurisdiction, and (for a registration fee) can be taken by teaching staff, designers and administrators from external boards and agencies. This means that the program needs to offer increasingly diverse options and opportunities, and at times needs to be “all things to all people”.

As part of my critique, I will narrow my focus to only review the Distributed Learning Courses offered as CBE’s ePD. I will take some time to review this one specific part of the CBE’s ePD strategy and examine some of the challenges with this program, and offer some suggestions for implementation that I see as being beneficial. The other two components of the ePD strategy (Webinars and Communities of Practice) are important initiatives that offer alternatives to Distributed Learning Courses, and have made significant difference to the professional staff within the CBE. However, their specific role and function will not be discussed in this critique.

Although the online Distributed Learning Courses are available to teachers, administrators and support staff, the largest market is for classroom teachers and area-based Learning Leaders within the CBE, so I will approach this critique with a “teacher’s” lens, and focus on these courses as a Professional Development strategy for classroom, school and area educators (teachers within the CBE).

An Examination of the Distributed Learning Courses offered as part of the Calgary Board of Education’s ePD Strategy

The Calgary Board of Education offers a variety of Distributed Learning Courses throughout the school year. Teachers must register for the courses in advance, begin them with their cohort, and finish within the prescribed timeline. These courses are offered online, and are facilitated by a CBE educator (a teacher, specialist, consultant or administrator), and offer an optional 90 minute face-to-face meeting at the start of the class.

The courses are not simply offered in isolation; the CBE offers an ePD Certificate for educators interested in furthering their own Professional Development in a more structured and recognized way. This offers teachers the chance to plan out their own Professional Development over a number of semesters, with a clear designated goal in mind.

A specific range of courses are offered with a focus on Distributed Learning, and online strategies that teachers would use in their own classrooms. In addition to these courses, ePD is offered to teachers interested in diverse topics, including: Gifted Education; Knowledge & Employability; Traditional Learning Centre; and Teaching Sexual Health. These elective courses, with a focus outside of Distributed Learning, are available to teachers who want to further develop their knowledge, without committing to the entire ePD Certificate.

The ePD courses are housed within desire2learn (D2L), the CBE’s learning management system. Each of the courses is housed within its own shell, and includes content material, interactive discussion boards and dropboxes for publishing and posting participant work. Some of the PD courses make use of the “Survey” and “Quiz” tools embedded within D2L. By having all of the Professional Development content located in one easy-to-access place, teacher participants can access training materials, review specific video walk-throughs, and return to any of the material or discussions as needed.

If the teacher’s goal is to obtain the ePD certificate, the first mandatory course is Teaching and Learning Online (TALO). This introductory course offers an overview of D2L as an educational and learning tool, and provides a context for teachers who want to learn more. As a Learning Management System, D2L is composed of many different tools for communication, instruction, assessment, evaluation and collaboration. TALO shows teachers how these tools can be used within a traditional classroom setting to better engage their students, and bring in technologies that allow for communication and personalization. Rather than just focusing on the technology being used, TALO has a specific dedicated focus on pedagogy as well. Teachers are not simply shown the multitudes of tools that are available within D2L, but are asked to think critically about the use of the tools in their own educational setting. By following a cohort model, these ePD courses encourage community-building and collaboration among teachers from a variety of backgrounds, with various experiences and expertise.

The second required course to obtain the ePD Certificate is Building Distributed Learning Environments (BDLE), in which participants start with an empty D2L shell, and throughout the semester, add in multiple components to make the course a dynamic, interactive and useful environment. Teachers in BDLE are first asked to identify their goals for the course, and plan out the type of Distributed Learning Environment they are going to build. Once they have their goals set, the participants take their time building up their learning environment one component at a time. By having a focused outcome (generally a shell that will be used with a specific grade or subject), teachers are able to make a meaningful creation that can be used immediately upon finishing the class. Not just a theoretical study, BDLE ensures that each teacher participant leaves the course with a “product”.

After taking the two introductory courses (TALO and BDLE), teachers who wish to pursue the ePD Certificate then register for the next two required courses: e-Designer and e-Valuator. In reality, many teacher participants do not move on to these more advanced courses, because their specific needs have been met with TALO and BDLE. Because these courses are independently facilitated and run various times throughout the school year, teachers can take some time between the first two courses to make sure they understand the effective uses of D2L within their own learning environments.

The ePD course e-Valuator offer participants the opportunity to explore effective assessment activities for an online environment. Because this course must be taken after TALO and BDLE, participants have a basic level of understanding, and are able to function at a more advanced technological level. Now, teachers can begin to use D2L in a focused and structured way – by engaging students with activities and assessments. There is a focus on formative and summative assessment, and participants are exposed to online assessment and feedback, and experience the value of immediate online feedback.

Further, e-Designer provides the opportunity for teachers and course designers to enhance their skills in creating content that reflects the best practice in instructional design and active learning theory. Because participants will already have hands-on experience with creating D2L shells (from BDLE), they will focus on creating online activities that encourage student interaction and community building. Apart from the technical skills required to accomplish this, teachers will be asked to analyze the use of technology in an appropriate fashion. Teachers need to optimize the use of the online environment, and e-Designer will help them ameliorate their existing D2L courses.

In addition to these four courses (TALO, BDLE, e-Valuator and e-Designer), participants wishing to obtain the ePD Certificate must take two elective courses. These can be classified as either Distributed Learning courses and General Education courses. At this point in their Professional Development, teachers would make a personal decision about which courses would be the most beneficial to their working environment.

Distributed Learning courses include the following: e-Coder (intended for teachers who want to further explore HTML coding to enhance their online environments); e-Media (for teachers who want to enhance their learning environments with multimedia pieces to engage their learners); e-Portfolio (a new course designed to showcase the newly-released e-Portfolio tool within D2L); Information Literacy (designed for teachers who want to explore digital information, digital citizenship, information retrieval and critical thinking related to media and new communication technologies); Digital Resources (offering an overview of learning repository technologies, including the CBE Learning Repository); Accessible Websites (focusing on Universal Design for Learning principles); Podcasting and the Auditory Learner (with an equal focus on the technology and the pedagogy).

Other electives include the following: Understanding the Knowledge and Employability Student (K&E Programs are available at a number of different CBE high schools and this course will help teachers differentiate their activities and assessment strategies); Traditional Learning Centre (with a focus on the philosophy, pedagogy and organizational structure of a Traditional Learning Centre, this course is designated for teachers interested in working at a TLC school); Literacy and the L.D. Student (designed to help teachers understand how to best meet the needs of students with learning disabilities); Learning and The Gifted Student (helps teachers identify and create best practice for assessment and differentiation strategies when working with students characterized as gifted); Understanding Students Who Have Experienced Trauma (designed to help participants understand the specific needs of students who have experienced trauma, and provides strategies for establishing a safe classroom environment); Teaching Sexual Health (a new course intended for CALM and Health teachers in Jr. and Sr. High).

The ePD website (www.cbelearn.ca/pd) offers descriptions of all these ePD courses, including a detailed outline, course summary, specific intended audience, learner outcomes, technical requirements, pre-requisites and sample timeline. This ensures that all participants are well aware of the commitment each course represents, and are prepared for the course when it begins.


My Professional Development Philosophy

My Professional Development philosophy states that Effective Professional Development: Offers sustainability and consistency; Provides practical and pragmatic support for teachers; Addresses student learning needs; Is personalized to the learner; Must be supported and directed by strategic leadership; Is school and job-embedded; Takes place within a community of learners; and Occurs over time. Using my own established philosophy as a guide, how does the CBE’s ePD strategy measure up? What are the inherent problems with this particular strategy’s design, implementation and evaluation, and what solutions can I offer, based upon my experience?

Sustainability and Consistency:
Because of the delivery model of these online ePD courses, I believe they are sustainable and offer a significant amount of consistency. This doesn’t mean the courses are stagnant, but because of their format, teachers and administrators can be assured that the courses offered in one semester are comparable to courses offered the next semester. This is advantageous for administrators who want to ensure their staff has similar training experiences. The courses are housed online, and this permits teachers to return to the material as needed. If teachers have specific questions about D2L, they retain access to the included tutorials and help forums.
In the past, there have been a number of ePD courses that were cancelled because of low enrolment. As the courses are facilitated by a CBE educator (a teacher, specialist, consultant or administrator), they require a minimum enrolment to go ahead each semester. If there isn’t a strong enough desire within the CBE community, courses have to be cancelled. Alternatively, there was the opposite problem in the 2008/2009 semester. Because of appropriate marketing and advertising, there was an influx of teachers wanting to take one specific ePD course: TALO. In fact, there were a number of schools where the administration encouraged all of their staff to take TALO in preparation of using online environments in all traditional classrooms. Even though these are internet-based courses, they still require instructor facilitation. Because there were not enough facilitators available, many teachers were denied access to TALO at the start of the school year. This means that although these courses are dynamic and established learning environments, not everyone gets access whenever they choose.

I would suggest ensuring enough trainer/facilitators would be available so no interested teacher would be turned away. There are a minimum of 40 teachers in the CBE who have been working in an exclusive online environment for the past 4 years, and they would all be excellent facilitators of TALO. Using the expertise that’s located within our own board would ensure we are able to provide consistent and sustainable Professional Development.

Practical and Pragmatic Support:
The ePD courses are valuable resources that offer practical, applicable resources and support. The four core courses of the ePD Certificate involve the actual creation of a learning environment that can be used immediately in the teacher’s setting. Because the courses are facilitated by an educator who is experienced in the delivery and creation of online content, participants can be assured they are receiving adequate and appropriate technical and instructional support.

For me, ensuring the PD strategy is effective and practical needs to be one of the primary areas when critically examining the design and implementation. I am so impressed with the quality of instruction and the depth and breadth of learning in the TALO and BDLE courses, that I would suggest any teacher who is interested in using D2L to further their classroom instruction be required to take these two introductory courses at a minimum. Not only do these courses offer the technical support and instruction that new users require, but they also focus on the pedagogical reasons for using technology in the classrooms. If we are encouraging our teaching staff to use technology, we need to make sure they have the appropriate support and understanding of what meaningful technological use is.

Addresses Student Learning Needs:
The ePD courses are pre-designed and there would be minimal opportunities to bring in current student work to use as the centre of the learning. However, this doesn’t preclude student learning from being the basis of the Professional Development. With the resources and skills offered, teachers could take this new-found information and apply it directly to current classroom practice. Because the ePD courses require thoughtful considerations of the specific goals a teacher wants to achieve, individual student learning needs would be at the forefront of the participant’s mind. Some of the ePD courses, specifically those with a focus outside of Distributed Learning, would lend themselves to addressing specific student needs. For example, the course Learning and the Gifted Student would put that specific student groups’ needs at the forefront.

I would suggest that these ePD courses offer teachers the opportunity to bring in student work and student data to drive their Professional Learning. One way of managing this would be to extend the dates of the courses across an entire semester. This way, teachers could take the knowledge and skills they’ve gained, apply them to the classroom environment, and then bring the results back to their cohort. Currently, this is not realistic, because many of the ePD courses are seven weeks in duration. This would be a beneficial addition to the ePD courses, as it would increase the depth at which the participants could study any particular topic.

Personalized to the Learner:
Although the ePD courses offer some flexibility, the content material and assignments have been pre-designated by the designers. Participants are able to make significant choices about the courses they will take, but once they are enrolled, the content and material is the same for all learners. However, there is a great deal of flexibility in the assignments teachers are asked to complete. Each of the assignments are personalized by the teacher, in hopes of creating learning objects, or furthering their own understanding of the concepts and topics covered. Because the course facilitators understand the importance of personalizing learning for all learners (including students), there are many choices offered throughout the courses, and all of the material created has a direct impact on the teacher’s current working environment.

Some of the courses were created at a different time, and do not have a consistent look or structure. This probably should be ameliorated so there is structural and design consistency across all ePD courses. The four core courses of the ePD Certificate currently use the same stylesheet, but the others do not, which can potentially lead to confusion from participants. I would suggest that all ePD courses be given a cosmetic overhaul so they have a consistent navigation and structure. This would help learners move from one course into the other, and allow the participants to immediately feel comfortable in the new course.

Supported and Directed by Strategic Leadership:
This Professional Development strategy has been given a high level of support from senior administration within the CBE. Because of this involvement, the ePD courses have continued to increase in popularity. It seems as if the strategy has been directed by senior administration, but at times, the specific support is lacking. For example, there are still a number of areas that don’t have representation. Although the focus has been on Distributed Learning (using DL to teach DL), there needs to be a stronger focus on other areas. Some work has been done on addressing special needs (Gifted, K&E, etc), but there is a lot of room for expansion. If the Board wants to continue with this ePD strategy, there needs to be a much wider focus on the topics and issues identified and examined through ePD courses. This requires time and staffing resources allocated from the senior administration. Although the directives seem clear, the support has not been as forthcoming.

I would suggest that more resources be put into this ePD strategy, and time spent on developing a clear vision for the future of ePD within the Calgary Board of Education. Additional ePD courses need to be added to the existing compliment, and those courses should focus on Distributed Learning as well as other topics of interest to educators. The vision of the ePD strategy should be shared with all CBE staff, in conjunction with the courses being more actively marketed. Leadership should come from within the schools, as well as at the area and district level. School-based administrators need to share and understand the vision so they can work closely with the teachers to develop school-based Professional Development.

School and Job-Embedded:
Teachers from across the CBE, in different geographical and subject areas all engage in the course as a cohort at the same time. Unfortunately, this particular PD strategy is not necessarily school or job-embedded. Teachers can choose how involved they will become, and how the specific ePD courses will fit into their daily practice, but generally these ePD courses are taken outside of the regular teaching day. The content of the courses may have a direct relationship to the teacher’s work, but this isn’t necessarily the case, and don’t necessarily imply that this form of Professional Development is job-embedded.

I would recommend that administration take a school-based approach, and encourage a variety of teachers to participate in specific ePD courses. This way, cohort groups could be formed from within schools, and they could focus on school-specific strategies. There are other benefits to school-based cohorts (as below). It’s up to each individual participant to make connections between their work and their professional learning. The ePD courses offer the right kinds of flexibility that a dedicated teacher needs if they are interested in making meaningful contributions to their daily work. I would further recommend that all ePD courses require teachers to make focused goals about their projects, and think critically and thoughtfully about the assignments they will complete. Currently, this is true for the core courses in the ePD certificate, but not for all of the electives.

A Community of Learners:
These Distributed Learning courses are exclusively offered online, and with the exception of the optional face-to-face introductory meeting, are completely asynchronous. I believe that more teachers would be receptive to face-to-face learning time, or even synchronous videoconferencing sessions. Understanding that one of the main goals of this ePD strategy is to keep options flexible – part of that flexibility should come through the option of meeting with the instructor or other participants on an as-needed basis.

All teachers within the Calgary Board of Education are part of a focused Professional Learning Community (PLC). I would suggest that part of the ePD strategy could include teachers participating in the ePD courses as part of their PLC, or ensuring they are reporting back to their community on a regular basis. With this accountability, teachers would take the sessions more seriously, as a professional responsibility. If the teacher indicates that taking one or more ePD course would be part of their Teacher Professional Growth Plan (TPGP), they could make sure to review these stated and intended goals with their TPGP review group. This would ensure teacher accountability to their principal, who could verify who on her/his staff was adequately trained in any particular area (including distributed technologies).

Occurs Over Time:
Because the ePD Certificate requires a few semesters to complete, teachers are encouraged to plan out their own Professional Development with long-term goals in mind. Although the individual courses of the ePD certificate are meant to be completed in seven or ten weeks, the entire ePD certificate will take a number of semesters to complete. Generally, teachers are not encouraged to take more than one ePD course at the same time, and because the secondary core courses (e-Valuator and e-Designer) are not offered every single semester, teacher participants will need to take some time to complete all of their courses. This is intentional and beneficial to the teachers who want to continue being life-long learners. This also gives teachers the chance to go back and review their progress over time, and helps them understand the progress they’ve made in a few short semesters. Many of the teachers who start the ePD courses do not have any technical or design background. After taking the four core courses, teachers have an active, engaging online environment they can use to help enhance their students’ experience.

I would recommend that the current practice be maintained, and that teachers only be allowed to take one course at a time, in this particular sequence. This will help teachers to work through the technical instruction in a manageable way. Too often teachers start one ePD course, and then soon feel overloaded and drop out. I don’t know the statistics of ePD completion rates, but I believe they would be lower than our standards for our High School students. Perhaps facilitator engagement would be beneficial, and by establishing more of a comfortable mentoring relationship, teacher participants would be more likely to continue in their courses until the end.


CONCLUSION
Some of the inherent problems with the CBE’s Distributed Learning Courses have already been identified by designers, facilitators and administration, and changes are already taking place. One of the newest initiatives to the ePD strategy is the inclusion of Webinars. These focused sessions allow for teacher participants to meet online for one or two hour sessions and discuss one specific technological or instructional concept at a time. These webinars are recorded, archived and made available for other teachers at any time. Currently, the webinar strategy is in its infancy, and has only covered technical instruction, but there is a lot of potential to increase the number of webinars offered, and to bring in experts to lead these sessions. The Communities of Practice have been an effective tool in establishing relationships and communities of learners across the board. Because they focus on grade-level and subject-area specializations, teachers are able to make active, collaborative connections to others in the board. This program is also just being started, but has the potential to link educators together in meaningful ways. The CBE is a large board, and it’s important for all educators to know that support and collegiality exist within it. These two branches of the ePD strategy have not been as actively marketed as the ePD courses, but have been slowly growing to fill in some of the gaps that the ePD courses leave.

As an emerging PD Strategy, the Calgary Board of Education’s ePD focus on Distributed Learning Courses offers flexibility and personalized choice to all interested teachers, administrators and support staff. There are significant benefits to offering Professional Development in this way. Although it’s not the only board-wide PD strategy, it is the newest, offers the most choice and diversity, has become the most widely-recognized and has the most participants of any other Professional Development strategy. Although I approached this critique looking to find significant areas of improvement, I was surprised at how I have come to a deeper understanding of all the unique components that make up the entire strategy. Although it’s never explicitly stated, I feel that I now have a much better understanding of the CBE’s ePD philosophy. A great deal of work has gone into putting these courses together, but an equal amount of work has gone into combining all of the individual courses and components into one effective program. CBE administration recognized a need for an ePD strategy, and put it into place in a way that is accessible and available to all staff. This includes offering specific courses intended for administrators and support staff, expanding the traditional Professional Development to encompass all professional staff, and not just classroom teachers.

By having a clear understanding of the needs of the system, providing the resources necessary for creation and implementation, and effectively marketing to the intended audience, the CBE has created a first-class ePD strategy that is designed to best fit the Professional Development needs of over 9000 permanent professional staff.