Over the course of the last four years, our department has made connections with the upgrading area from our neighbours to the north, our sister college, Norquest College. Our online programs have co-hosted two upgrading online conferences, with community college speakers and important keynotes, and our planning to hold our third annual in March 2013. Our respective curriculum teams have worked together on funded course development projects, like the Microsoft Office and new Mathematics 10 courses. For these projects, we built exams and instructional videos which we now share. From all of this work, we participated together in an on-site, once in a lifetime, presentation skills conference with RexiMedia experts.This last Friday, November 30, 2012, the Norquest crew came down to Bow Valley College for our annual visit. We spent the morning sharing work done in the areas of exam development, media development, course development, and professional development related to the above. Norquest eagerly showed us their online Chemistry and English Language Arts courses. Their designs are clear and concise, being so easy to navigate and "get learning done." Norquest has developed extensively their Real Time Online program with much success and are looking to further develop their Anytime Online program. We were shown their exceptional work on instructional videos as well as their engaging online program promo. We were shown flash interactives for trigonometry and a flash scheduler students could use to build their own calendar to match their learning pace. They shared our concern over the need for ongoing professional development for our instructors who are also our developers. They have their "stars" who care about the work that they do, and it shows.
Next up, we shared some of our new format exams, unit assignments and labs, showing where we are heading. We talked about optimal mark recognition (OMR) as next steps lending towards item analysis and an exam bank. We showed them an exam review document with classification and approval fields as we start a collaborative exam review process. We outlined our media development projects and we brought up our YouTube channel matching theirs. We showed them videos that they produced hosted on our channel. We discussed our use of mybvc.ca and Google Apps for Education for the Anytime Online program and curriculum development. We certainly have our own stars who care as much about what we are trying to accomplish.
Throughout the day, we shared laughs. We had lunch and breakfast together. We swapped stories. We expressed many of the same concerns. We clearly have the same students and challenges. We shared our feelings about restructuring. We identified possible points of collaboration. We will try to start a common online exam bank. We will host another upgrading online conference. We will collaborate on English Language Arts re-development. We will find opportunities to work on presentations and instructional videos where possible. We will examine the possibility of developing exam and media development certificates, with the workshops and activities included, together. We mentioned reciprocated course offering recommends according to our institution's strengths. One item was certain: none of this is possible without doing it together. Having a partner is not nice. It is essential. Our time, funds, energy and expertise are constrained as colleges. As partners, we can advance access to quality learning for adults throughout the province.
I couldn't agree with you more, Carey. The day was fun and fulfilling. There is a wonderfully deep base of talent to the Norquest group and I truly appreciated their real commitment to “sharing”. I thought I would share a little piece on "building a culture of trust and openness” out of a literature review I wrote a while ago. It speaks a bit about the importance of collaboration and its ability to improve performance and innovation.
ReplyDeleteSharing
“Teaching is a very personal and 'individual' activity, yet teachers benefit greatly from links with other teachers, both with colleagues in their own establishment and with colleagues in the wider teaching community.” (Kimble, Hildreth, Bourdon, 2008) Very important, in this complex process of creating and maintaining elearning opportunities for new and returning students, is to understand and encourage collaboration between individuals and institutions. It is very important that practitioners at all levels embrace a culture of sharing their knowledge, skills and new ideas. But knowledge sharing can be difficult to accomplish. Administrators who are aware of some of the challenges inherent in knowledge management can influence improved performance and innovation. Theories surrounding the concept of a “community of practice” can be of value when considering the purposes behind effective collaboration. Research in this area indicates that when practitioners view knowledge as “meant for the public good, a moral obligation and/or a community interest” (Ardichvilli, Page, Wentling, 2003) the knowledge flows easily. This demands the building a culture of trust and openness wherein information sharing is involves not just the “finding, transferring and archiving of knowledge” but making explicit expertise or “tacit knowledge” which is valuable, context-based knowledge that is difficult to capture and store. (Davenport, Prusak, 200)
Many thanks to Norquest and their wonderful collaborative efforts. Murray Ronaghn
*Meeting the Need: Student Success in the Online Environment
Teaching – Learning – Development – Administration
A Literature Review
https://docs.google.com/file/d/1AHBCxSuXUnhyyZcTF2QVoOjRhSzFA54QNXhTjKFmRFUThnVfM7y-QZfbLPQR/edit