I began this process by drafting a syllabus for my course topic of estate administration and immediately became overwhelmed. As stated repeatedly throughout this assignment, estate administration is a complex and wide-ranging topic – it can cover most activities that people might get up to in their lives. The feeling of being overwhelmed signaled to me that a course outline is exactly something my workplace would benefit from. We do currently have a list of topics to train, but they aren’t organized in a way that aligns with the learning process, or the work the learners are engaging in concurrently. Creating the syllabus forced me to rearrange the training into modules, and to think about the resources available for each sub-topic, such as ‘guest speakers’. My current practice is to call on ‘guest speakers’ as I think to, but if this activity was built into the design of the course, I would know exactly when it would be the most effective time to introduce their knowledge. I am aware that these revelations seem obvious, but it can be hard to achieve this clarity with other demands pulling me in different directions. It’s rare to have the time to examine a process as a whole and consider how to improve its design.
Currently, my workplace is in the process of implementing Moodle to replace a former LMS that has very limited functionality. So, I have never had access to a proper LMS to organize my training, and using Moodle for the first time was almost a dream. (I state that with a full understanding that there are far more impressive LMSs than Moodle). I will also state that I spent several hours experimenting in frustration before getting the hang of Moodle. Recently, I have been working to build a sort of crude version of digital course components using Microsoft SharePoint (decidedly not an LMS) and I now see through experimenting with Moodle how much functionality I am missing out on (e.g., the glossary function, how easy it is to set up a forum, the ease of scheduling activities, the chat function). I’m excited to see what access will be provided to me when Moodle is fully implemented.
Finally, I want to reflect on my process of drafting learning objectives (LOs) for the course. In the discussion this week, I focused my LOs on the unit I will be creating for Part 2 of the assignment, only to realize that creating the LOs for the course as a whole is a requirement for Part 1. I began by editing my first unit LOs in response to the instructor’s feedback to help wrap my head around the concepts. After much deliberation, I attempted to draft LOs for the (very complex and wide-ranging) topic of estate administration and was able to narrow them down to 7. The process was enlightening – I am going to bring them to the current group of learning staff next week to hear their feedback. I wonder, do they realize these LOs are the focus of their training? Am I providing sufficient training to lead them towards these LOs?
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