What: The University of British Columbia migrated Learning Management Systems from WebCT Vista to Blackboard Learn 9.1. The entire process took over three years to complete from testing and selection to implementation. As part of the faculty development team at the University, I was one member of a small team tasked with providing central professional development for faculty, staff and students at UBC. This was a enormous task that involved determining faculty needs, and developing and facilitating a range of professional development activities. These ranged from resource development, central workshop facilitation and custom professional development activities across different faculties and units at UBC. Examples of the support we provided included:
- Central professional development workshops
- Customized training, Education, Land and Food Systems, Arts, Science, Pharmacy, Medicine
- Online resources
- Train the trainer sessions offered for staff and faculty from across the community
- Fully online course ‘Getting Started in Connect Online’
- Weekly drop in labs
- Virtual drop in labs
- Virtual workshops
So What: The scope and relatively short timeline for this project required a needs focused, flexible and creative approach to professional development. Traditionally universities have often focused on IT focused training for faculty professional development around learning technology. This process has helped me to understand that for professional development it is valuable to focus on faculty needs assessment from the outset. It is also useful to ensure that professional development around learning technology focuses on approaches to teaching and learning with technology rather than on procedural training e.g. click here.
