Lord Fairfax Community College: Online Instruction Certification Program
Prepared by: Lauren Boyd, Chad Phillips, Kanita Shepherd
I. Background
Lord Fairfax Community College was founded in 1970, and operates publicly out of three campuses offering higher education throughout the Shenandoah Valley and Piedmont regions. The LFCC locations include Fauquier, Middletown, and a Luray-Page County Center.
With more than 75 associate degree and certificate programs, LFCC offers concentrations in fields such as administrative support, business, engineering, fine arts, information systems technology and healthcare. Students can obtain either an associate degree or certificate upon completion of specified curriculum. LFCC over 7,600 students in their associate degree programs in addition to over 10,450 individuals in professional development and business industry courses annually.LFCC is currently seeking experienced employees who enjoy making a difference in the lives of their students. Potential employees are expected to share their experiences and expertise in order to provide an optimal higher education learning environment. Being part of the Virginia Community College System, Lord Fairfax Community College must maintain and promote equal employment and educational opportunities. It is the policy of this institution to not discriminate in the form of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, veteran status, political affiliation, or disability in employment or the provision of services.
LFCC relies heavily on and hires hundreds of part time instructors annually, these part time instructors are known as “adjuncts.” By utilizing adjuncts LFCC accrues highly qualified individuals who are still actually practicing in fields that relate to the content area, allowing for real life applications and experiences to be brought to the classroom.
Due to the adjuncts lack of work availability causes for them to have minimal exposure to professional development opportunities, and interaction with full time faculty; therefore, instilling a concern with upper management of whether the adjunct’s courses are meeting the same requirements as full time faculty. Also, adjuncts were reported by LFCC to typically be hired last minute causing for a high probability of a skills gap to exist with administrative details related to working and instructing at LFCC. An example of this expected skills gap is the new hire not being familiarized or experienced with Blackboard LMS, a critical tool for an LFCC instructor.With the increase in students as well as the increase in new hires, it is pertinent that new faculty be armed with the tools they need in the online classroom. With the high number of students who are not regular full time students and take night classes as well as online classes, it is important that new hires are aware of the organization’s policies and procedures, as well as the operational systems used at LFCC. The design team will be creating E-Learning modules for new hires teaching online classes. The course creation will include a variety of mini courses about the policies of LFCC as well as a larger modules to walk through the technology used by the professors and how this can be effective in the online classroom.
II. Needs Analysis
LFCC currently requires all new hires to attend a 5-hour long evening lecture (one offered at the beginning of each semester) in which they attempt to present the employees with a comprehensive onboarding informational module. It is a lecture based learning setting.
The current method reaches less than roughly 75% percent of the new hires as many who solely teach online courses and are not in the area, as they cannot make it to the seminar. The goal for this project is to eliminate the lecture hall for new hires and provide them with a series of courses they can take at their own pace and time before they begin teaching at Lord Fairfax Community College. It is hopes that this method of training will reach 100% of new hires and that information will be better retained due to it being broken down into smaller segments of information. This should also help to cut down on costs by new hires no longer having to travel to the training and no longer needing someone to teach them the material every time new professors are brought in to teach since the majority of faculty staff members are part time, adjunct faculty.III. Learner & Context Analysis
Target Audience
The target audience for the proposed instructional design project is new hire adjunct faculty at Lord Fairfax Community College who teach strictly online classes. The new hire professors are composed of a vast number of educational, geographical and experiential backgrounds. Many of the new hire staff are not local to the LFCC campus region and never even come to the campus to teach or do anything and training and information does not get to them. Within the minimal constraints of adjunct faculty, ages can range from 25 to 70 for new hires as they must possess either:
1. A bachelors degree with 10+ years of experience2. A bachelors degree, 18 credit hours of a masters degree and 5+ years of experience
3. Masters Degree with 2-3 years of experience
4. Ph.D with 1+ years of experience
With the diverse age and educational background group, technology skills may vary, and due to the nature of online teaching, must be understood across all facets.
Target Audience Differences
Age Differentiation
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Differences in Educational Backgrounds
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Technological Skills Gap
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Non-traditional faculty
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Campus Location
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New Hire Faculty
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Environmental Characteristics
The new hire training process at LFCC was created to aid new hires with the information needed in order to effectively teach an online course. This was previously taught in a night time lecture hall at the beginning of every semester. It is needed for all faculty teaching online courses to take this before they begin to learn what is expected of them but does not happen. With the majority of faculty not being local, an online classroom is needed to get this information out to new hires. New Hire adjuncts must be aided with requirements of teaching an online course and blackboard, which must be known for all coursework.
Persona Descriptions
Melissa Best
Age:31
Job: Pharmaceutical Sales Representative
Location: Chesapeake, VA
Will be Teaching: Political Marketing Comm, Marketing for Sales
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Ms. Best has a long history of marketing and sales from her 8 years working for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals to marketing and advertising sales at Pilot Direct, a subsidiary of The Virginia Pilot newspaper, as well as marketing for the Automotive transportation trains at Norfolk Southern. She has:
● Bachelors of Science with a major in Marketing, Virginia Tech
● In Progress, Masters of Marketing, with a concentration in Integrated Marketing Communications, West Virginia Univeristy (18 completed credit hours)
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Charlie St. George
Age: 37
Job: Biological Researcher
Location: Roanoke, VA
Will be Teaching: Foundations of Cytology
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Bachelors with 10+ years
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Arthur Todd
Age: 67
Job: Retired Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
Location: Boca Raton, FL
Will be Teaching: Urban and Regional Planning, Community Development
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PhD
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Melissa Brooks
Age: 49
Job: Instructional System Developer
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Will be Teaching: Instructional Design, Web Development using Dreamweaver
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Ms. Stange has a broad range of Information Technology experience in industry, education, and volunteer organizations. She has held positions as Applications Developer, Senior Developer, Senior Programmer Analyst, and Internet Developer for several companies working with a variety of high level programming languages and data base management systems. She has:
● Associate in Applied Science with a Major in Data Processing, Chattahoochee Valley Community College
● Bachelor's of Science with a Major in Computer Information Systems, Shenandoah University
● Master's of Business Administration with a Major in Business Administration, Averett College
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IV. Instructional Goal
By instructional designers creating and implementing an e-Learning module by way of google sites LFCC new hires will be well familiarized with the organizations policies and procedures, as well as all operational systems necessary for online instruction.
V. Content Analysis
Behaviors/Content:
Use of Operational Systems
● Blackboard LMS
● LFCC email
Policies & Procedures for Online Instruction
● Online office hours
● Use of social media
Content Verification/SME Information:
Dr. Karen Kellison, the Associate Dean of Instructional Technology will serve as the subject matter expert for the e-learning course development. She will be providing all information and material regarding policies and operational systems for new hires at LFCC.
Chad Phillips will serve as the subject matter expert on new hire onboarding procedures and e-learning creation. He has worked as an onboarding trainer for new hires at Red Robin, created new hire onboarding facilitation guides and trainings for the Army Navy Country Club in Northern Virginia and currently working on a first 20 day employee guide for new hires at Advance Auto Parts.
Key Skill Units
Need to Know
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Nice to Know
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Technology Skills
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Navigation of Google Sites-where learning modules will be made accessible.
Navigation of Blackboard LMS as moderator
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Study/Learning Skills
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Strong knowledge base of subject matter to allow for focus on online instruction.
Process and demonstrate understanding of material.
High self-efficacy-ensure high motivation with learning, completion and application of modules.
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Self-Regulation Learning premise-to facilitate autonomous learning of modules.
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Soft Skills
| Time Management-ensure set deadlines of modules are met. |
Willingness to ask for assistance if needed.
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VI. Performance Agreement (Objectives)
Technology Skills
Objectives
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Evaluation Tasks
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New hires will access and complete all e-learning modules provided via google site.
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New hires will demonstrate completion and understanding of each module by attaining a required minimum score of 80% per assessment.
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Learning Skills
Objectives
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Evaluation Tasks
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New hires will demonstrate high self-efficacy by completing the modules independently and successfully.
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After reviewing the instructional modules, the new hires will demonstrate their level of comprehension by 80% or higher per module.
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Soft Skills
Objectives
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Evaluation Tasks
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New hires will implement time management skills to ensure all instructional modules will be completed by deadline.
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New hires will complete the assigned instructional modules by assigned deadline.
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New hires will comply with directives by completing all modules and assessments.
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New hires will demonstrate their compliance by attaining a minimum of 80% on all assessments provided after each module.
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ReplyDeleteYour background information is very detailed and provides me with a lot of information to get a feel for the school and their hiring system. The needs analysis tells me exactly what they want done. Your target area chart provides great qualities to keep in mind; however, you may want to add something about attitudes. Are the faculty members going to be motivated to take courses online? Are they going to feel nervous or afraid because of the online setting? Things like that are important to consider. Along with that, learning styles are also important to consider.
ReplyDeleteYour personas are detailed and realistic. In your final draft, you will want to add pictures to make them more realistic and believable. I think that your key skills are in-depth and appropriate. Your objectives clearly state the audience, behavior, condition, and degree. For the technology skills objective, though, do you need the word “access” in there? I’m just thinking that if they are completing it, doesn’t that mean they are accessing it already?
Great job! I think this design document looks great :)
Your document is clear and easy to follow. The background and personas do a good job expressing the complexity and scope of the training need. It might be worth interviewing some of the faculty to find out what kinds of specific questions they have and make sure the module addresses those sufficiently.
ReplyDeleteI did have a few questions after reading. I'm not clear on what is being described under Key Skill Units - Nice to Know. Will the learning module be just text or will there be any pictures or media? Also, what will the assessments look like?