Author Archives: KristinRoss

Case Study

Case Study – Online Engagement and Teamwork Tools

Katherine is an instructor at community college and teaches a course in a program of study that prepares students to work in human service programs supporting at-risk children and families. Her course focuses on interprofessional practice and preparing graduates to work with teams and in leadership roles. One of the course learning outcomes is for students to apply knowledge and skills to function effectively within interprofessional teams.

Because the course is delivered online, Katherine wants to create opportunities for students to learn about and develop interpersonal communication skills by engaging with each other using web-based technology. As well, one of the assignments includes a significant amount of teamwork to create a video that the group will show at a student showcase on interprofessional practice. Based on experience, she recognizes that teams tend to be more successful when there is strong group cohesion.

In prior program courses, Katherine’s cohort of students have had challenges with group work, so she knows the video assignment could be daunting. Faculty share that students have had difficulty engaging with each other online for a variety of reasons related to availability: many are single parents, a majority are employed part-time, and a few are working full-time while they take a lighter course load. In addition to these constraints, many students are not aware of web tools and strategies for effective time management and communication.

Katherine wants students to be engaged with each other online to experience a sense of connectedness and accountability to their teams (as will be expected in their roles after graduation). She believes students can be more efficient and productive regarding their group assignment tasks by using web-based technology for collaboration and effective time management (e.g., scheduling of meetings). This will be essential so they can focus on the assignment activities and have a successful experience working with a group while strengthening their interpersonal knowledge and skills.

In your discussion group, please answer in the forum Module 3 – Online Engagement and Teamwork Tools:

Katherine has come to you for guidance because you work in the college department that supports instructors in the development of curriculum, instructional materials, and use of technology.

  • What strategies would you suggest to facilitate group cohesiveness and online student engagement with each other?
  • What web-based tools might students find beneficial to support online collaboration and effective time management for scheduling of team meetings and other tasks?

Be sure to cite relevant literature to support your guidance to Katherine.

Case study note – future ETEC 565A students need not be teaching similar content as Katherine, but may want to facilitate effective peer-to-peer communication and group work for students in an online learning environment.

 

D2L Module on Stress Management & Burnout

I completed my Content Module in Desire2Learn (D2L), a Learning Management System that we use at Camosun College, Victoria BC. It is the second module in the course I teach on Interprofessional Practice, which is one of five courses in a post-degree diploma called Interprofessional Mental Health and Addictions (IMHA). The IMHA Program is offered as a blended delivery; each course is primarily online in D2L and includes face-to-face seminars at the beginning and/or end of each course. This Interprofessional Practice course includes these seminars at the start and end, during their final week in the IMHA Program.

My digital story, as described previously in this class blog, offers foundational concepts related to stress and stress management; these are explored in more depth as students progress through the module. Subsequent modules present content on teamwork, boundaries, codes of ethics, standards of practice, and ethical decision-making in the context of interprofessional practice. For our students to be effective graduates in the field of mental health and addictions, they must demonstrate sound coping and team skills to support clients to be healthy and able to manage their challenges. Community mental health and substance use services experience a high degree of worker turnover and burnout, so we have much content in the Program to support students to be well-rounded and balanced professionals with effective self-care to promote all aspects of holistic health (e.g., mental, physical, emotional, interpersonal, and spiritual).

In a major re-write of this course, I included the digital story using VideoScribe to offer a more light-hearted take on the content that can be very challenging for some students, especially as they delve deeper into the course. VideoScribe can offer playful elements through the programs vast collection of images, yet I was able to bring in my own as well.

In the online academic environment, adult learners need to experience a connection to the material to be engaged with it. Because students read a significant amount of research in the course, I want to incorporate a variety of elements to help keep the content fresh and interesting. Degang (2015) recognizes that “visualization of abstract knowledge can stimulate students’ interest, maintain and improve learners’ enthusiasm to actively participate in leaning“(p. 21). My intention in the course is to enhance the content to be more reflective of current trends in interprofessional practice and to help students be excited (or at least enthusiastic) to learn. They can develop personal skills to be effective in the field, yet at the same time equip their counselor “toolbox” with strategies to support clients. Just as I demonstrate the application of various strategies to help my students be actively engaged in their learning, they too will be teaching and coaching their clients to learn new skills and knowledge. I believe it is incumbent on me to create an online learning environment that is inspiring for lifelong learning as the field of mental health and addictions is ever changing and growing to incorporate new strategies of frameworks of practice.

Degang, L. (2015). Research on the factors affecting online learning participation of learners in teachers distance training. Higher Education of Social Science, 9(1). 19-23. DOI: 10.3968/7202

 

 

LMS Course Introductory Module

I have chosen to revise a course I will be teaching in the coming months, IMHA 514 Interprofessional Practice. It is one of six courses in our Interprofessional Mental Health & Addiction (IMHA) Post-Degree Diploma IMHA – Camosun College. The course requires significant upgrades due to recent changes in the IMHA Program curriculum to reflect the shifting knowledge and skill required of gradates in the field of mental health and substance use services.

Course Description

This course focuses on skills, knowledge, and values necessary for interprofessional practice in mental health & substance abuse services. Students will examine the responsibilities and obligations of the professional with emphasis on self-reflective and ethical evidence-based practice, including legislation and policies affecting the care of persons with mental health and/or substance use challenges.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of IMHA 514 learners will:

  1. Demonstrate responsible and ethical decision-making in interprofessional mental health and substance use environments.
  2. Take responsibility for decisions and actions, and evaluate the effectiveness of these in collaborative care settings.
  3. Articulate a philosophy of practice as an interprofessional mental health and substance use professional as it relates to the support of individuals and families.
  4. Use effective and appropriate advocacy skills and strategies to advocate for individual and family supports and services.

 

The IMHA Program is delivered in a blended model; each course includes face-to-face (f2f) content at the beginning, middle, and/or end of the course, with a majority of the content delivered asynchronously online through Camosun’s Learning Management System, Desire2Learn (D2L). When the Program was first developed in 2007, we explored course delivery options, including traditional f2f, completely online, and blended formats.  We determined that a blended delivery would best match learning activities for the knowledge and skill-sets required in the field of mental health and substance use services. Our sources for guiding the development of the courses included Boettcher and Conrad’s Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web (2004).

Over the years, we have tried different ratios or f2f to D2L, sometimes without any f2f instruction in a course. Continued student and faculty formal and informal feedback has resulted in the current delivery, whereby f2f seminars provide a forum in all courses for students to develop their interpersonal skills and intervention strategies for supporting clients. The majority of students have indicated that they appreciated the f2f components to enhance their educational and community experience in the cohort. For example, they have shared that the direct in-the-moment guidance offered by faculty and peer feedback was instrumental for making adjustments to improve their application of skills.

A more recent exploration of the literature for this ETEC 510 assignment determined that blended delivery continues to be highly favored. Based on a study to determine potential factors related to student satisfaction with online courses, Beqiri, Chase, and Bishka (2009) recommended that “schools and universities lean toward a blended course-delivery mode (with some face-to-face component) versus 100% online delivery” (p. 99). Dukes, Waring, and Koorland (2006) found that “studies have demonstrated that blended instruction can positively affect numerous aspects of the academic experience . . . faculty reported greater flexibility with course development, increased contact among students and instructors, and better integration of inquiry-based instructional methods” (p. 153).

Although the majority of students in the IMHA Program have lived on Vancouver Island, we often have students join us from off-island; for example, the current cohort includes students from Port Hardy, Vancouver, the BC interior, and Calgary, AB. To help reduce travel times, we have scheduled on-campus mandatory days as intensives that cover two courses in the same week. We have also designated some face-to-face days as optional for long-distance students; they are accommodated through the use of Skype to connect to students on-campus. On occasion, we use inter-campus video streaming when we can arrange for students living near a post-secondary institute to connect to the Victoria campus.

We believe it is important to help all students feel connected in our cohort model, especially in the interprofessional practice course because we are facilitating the development of knowledge and skills to be effective in collaborative teamwork. Students come with a variety of work and educational experiences for which we want to encourage an appreciative community of learners that benefit from each other’s perspectives and engage in healthy communication as will be expected when they are graduates in the field.

This course includes two categories for graded assessment:

  1. D2L public discussion forums and private personal reflection postings 66%
  2. Student Directed Learning project and presentation to peers 34%

The discussion and personal reflection postings provide opportunity for students to not only demonstrate their conceptual skills and integration of the course content, but to be a contributing factor in each other’s learning. Anderson (2008) recognizes that this type of assessment becomes a “reflective task” and students “use their posting . . . as evidence of their understanding of content concepts and intellectual growth during the class” resulting in “quality contributions” (p. 287). The intention is to help students be responsible for their learning, which informs the final student-directed project.

The Student Directed Learning assignment is aligned with the course outcome of developing a philosophy of practice. Students will develop a rationale and supporting documents to design and develop a project that reflects their learning needs; they will share their projects during the final seminar in a context or interprofessional education. This final project is a form of summative assessment in which students incorporate aspects of the course content through a personal lens for professional development. It is criteria-based in which students receive a set of guidelines that include required elements of the project (e.g., slide presentation, educational document), and the expectation it is relevant to their own and their peers’ learning needs. This is an integral aspect of the assignment to engage students to be motivated by and respond to their self-assessed learning needs. Although the course material is important to meet all learning outcomes for the course, students at this post-degree level of diploma studies benefit more from this type of assessment than an exam, as has been previously used. As Gibbs and Simpson (2005) recognize, “students tend to gain higher marks from coursework assignments“ (p. 6) and that average marks were higher when there were no exams but only coursework. They also determined that assignment-based courses resulted in a higher quality of learning (p. 7).

In addition to graded assignments, students also complete Critical Thinking Moments to consider application of the materials to self. These are strategically placed throughout the modules for students to pause and consider the application of concepts to self as emerging workers in mental health and substance use services.

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an Online Learning Context. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Retrieved from: http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/14_Anderson_2008

Beqiri, M. S., Chase, N. M., & Bishka, A. (2009). Online Course Delivery: An Empirical Investigation of Factors Affecting Student Satisfaction, Journal of Education for Business, 85: 95–100. Doi: 10.1080/08832320903258527

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2004). Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web (2nd ed.). Phoenix: League for Innovation in the community College.

Dukes III, L. L., Waring, S. M., Koorland, M. (2006). A The Blended Course Delivery Method: The Not-So-Distant Education. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 22(4) 153-158.

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

 

LMS Selection

The assignment of creating a rubric to decide on a Learning Management Systems (LMS) for Athabasca University was an interesting endeavor. It demonstrated the complexity of the process of developing a team-created rubric as well as the multiple considerations for implementing and using a sustainable and user-friendly LMS.

Although I do not participate in a committee or process to adopt and maintain the Desire2Learn (D2L) LMS at Camosun College, I am now more confident to share my thoughts and experiences with our LMS to help guide decisions and make improvements that will benefit students and faculty. I create and use rubrics in all my courses, yet this assignment provided a different context that demonstrates the value in assessment for multiple platforms.

I appreciated all my team members and their willingness to create a positive collaborative experience. They readily shared their skills and knowledge regarding Learning Management Systems, as well as contributed to the tasks for assignment completion. Everyone was flexible for scheduling meetings and were actively involved in team conversations. It was helpful to be introduced to new tools for making our processes efficient (e.g., Google Hangout and Google Docs).

Thanks everyone for a great learning experience and first completed group project in my MET courses!