Craig Ferguson
Zain Yousaf Ali
University of British Columbia
ETEC 565A: Learning Technologies: Selection, Design and Application
February 27, 2016
Contractor Education Program at the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre
Introduction:
The Dr. Peter Centre is located in a residential neighbourhood near downtown Vancouver and is a mix of hospital and residence for people living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to providing treatment and consultations, the Centre includes 24 fully-equipped private suites intended for both long and short-term care.
The Building is due to undergo seismic upgrades, and this opportunity will be used to renovate six of the suites. In addition to the disturbance the work will cause, it also means that a large number of new contractors and their employees will require access to the building. Due to the sensitive nature of the work, as well as the health and safety considerations around communicable diseases and working with a vulnerable population, all employees working on site are required to undergo a health and safety review, training in privacy and confidentiality requirements, and an orientation on working with marginalized people (Ferguson and Ali, 2016).Therefore, the target audience for this course will be the employees of the contractors who will be performing this work.
It is assumed that each contractor has provided their employees with appropriate Occupational Health & Safety Act training (OHSA), and that each employee holds current Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) certification. However, part of the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre’s risk management policy requires them to confirm this training in order to demonstrate that they have done due diligence to protect the health and safety of workers and residents and to avoid liability.
In addition to this compliance training for health and safety, the Board of Directors has requested that each person working on their site receive training in biohazardous infectious materials with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS precautions, an introduction to mental health awareness, and a briefing of PIPPA regulations in BC.
The Dr. Peter Centre has stipulated that both of these training programs are mandatory for all personnel employed on a contract basis and must be completed in their entirety by all employees before contractors will be granted access to the building.
Because the Contractor Education Program is intended to be a pilot program to assess the feasibility of the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation offering more online courses to a wider audience, it is being developed on two platforms simultaneously: WordPress and Moodle. These were identified as the best candidates in the Platform Evaluation stage of this project (Ferguson & Ali, 2016), and after this project is completed, the two Learning Management Systems (LMSs) will be evaluated to determine which to proceed with in future. While the materials covered will be the same across these two platforms, the form of the course, as well as certain aspects of assessment, have had to be customized to benefit from the affordances and work around the limitations of each system.
The process of designing this course was based on the “backwards” or “integrated” method presented by Fink (2003) and McTighe and Wiggins (2004) which calls for first, an analysis of the situational factors that will have bearing on the course (Ferguson and Ali, 2016), second for the selection of learning objectives, third for the creation of assessment tools, and finally for the development of activities and resources that are informed by the first three steps. In this paper, we will be looking at steps 2 to 4, beginning with Learning Objectives.
- Learning Objectives:
There are two components to this course with related but different objectives. Because the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre receives funding from and is regulated by the provincial government of British Columbia, the Health and Safety component is offered in compliance with provincial and federal law. Although it is assumed that workers are coming to this course with a fundamental understanding of workplace safety and WHMIS certification, the Dr. Peter Centre requires that they be able to demonstrate this knowledge. The Health and Safety component is intended as a confirmation that they do have this knowledge.Therefore the objective for this first section is recall and understanding, or ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Comprehension’ according to Langley’s ‘Taxonomy of Educational Objectives’ (http://teach.its.uiowa.edu/files/teach.its.uiowa.edu/files/Taxonomy%20of%20Education%20Objectives.pdf; based on Bloom’s Taxonomy:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy).
The objective for the second section, that contract employees will gain an understanding of the specific issues working in the Dr. Peter Centre around respect for the rights and privacy of vulnerable people, and working in environments where there is a risk of exposure to communicable diseases, is assumed to be new information for all employees. This training is not legally required, but it is the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre’s official policy as part of their ongoing community education effort. In formulating the objective for this second section we have relied on Fink’s “Taxonomy of Significant Learning” (p. 9) as the framework to guide the creation of the assessment tool (see the ‘Assessment’ section below).
The objectives for this course, presented in the table below, are based on the template in McTighe and Wiggins (2004). The ‘Essential Question’ will require participants to demonstrate “inquiry, understanding, and transfer of learning” (p 14) as per this template: they will be asked to to integrate their awareness of working with vulnerable populations with their understanding of the basic health and safety procedures.
| Established Goals |
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| Understandings | Participants will understand that…
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Participants will know…
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Participants will be able to…
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| Essential Question | How does the information about working with vulnerable populations relate to your general workplace health and safety knowledge? |
- Assessment
The learning objectives above can be divided into two areas: legally required health & safety compliance, and board-mandated awareness training. Demonstrating understanding and competence in both of these areas is a necessary outcome of this course, as the topics build around each other, but each section lends itself to being assessed differently.
For Part 1, the main purpose is compliance rather than community awareness or professional development, and a basic understanding of workplace safety is assumed. Therefore assessment will be limited to checking for recall and comprehension in this area, combined with proof of current WHMIS certification obtained through prior training.
Assessment in this section will take the form of multiple choice questions, constructed as a learning tool by deliberately including examples of undesirable behaviour, as well as to clarify the appropriate goals and standards (Nicol 2007). This course is delivered online, allowing feedback to be tailored to the specific question and delivered instantly and in sufficient detail as per Gibbs and Simpson (2004).
Because workers are expected to know this basic information before starting this course, participants must score 100% in this section to advance to Section 2. For this reason, the test should be seen as a formative assessment tool: for each incorrect answer there will be a pop-up balloon explaining why the answer is incorrect and giving appropriate references so the participant can go back and review. At the end of the test participants will receive a list of incorrect answers with links to the appropriate information. Workers will be able to attempt the test as many times as needed until they demonstrate mastery.
For Part 2, it is expected that the material will be new to most course participants, and that this awareness will underpin all of the work they do at the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre. This means that assessment must be for application and integration, as well as comprehension and recall. To achieve this, assessment will be forward looking (Fink 2003), requiring course participants to apply what they’ve learned by analyzing scenarios.
Assessment of this section is based on the idea that everything here will build on participants’ existing knowledge, as confirmed in Part 1. The assessment will ask participants to reassess their understanding of workplace safety in light of this new information from Part 2. The case study model is intended to promote integration and deeper learning that goes beyond recall and understanding. The first four categories of Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning (p 9) are particularly applicable to assessment of this section: foundational knowledge refers to the basic health and safety information as well as basic information about privacy, dealing with hazardous medical waste, and demonstrating respect for residents. Participants will demonstrate their ability to apply these skills by completing at least one case study which requires them to integrate the concepts from the two sections.
But this raises the problem that deeper learning usually requires feedback from an instructor (Gibbs & Simpson 2004 pp 8-9). However the rationale for putting this material online was to relieve Dr. Peter personnel from having to deliver this instruction, and so some other model for assessing this performance needs to be developed.
The model we settled on is as follows: Participants will first watch a series of video presentations and answer questions for which they will receive feedback. As with the multiple choice questions in Part 1, incorrect answers will elicit pop-up balloons with the correct explanation and links to the relevant textual or video material. Once they have worked through this material, they will proceed to the case study.
There will be four case studies, each developed as a series of graphic and text based interactive panels depicting realistic scenarios that workers might encounter. Participants will be asked to read or view a scenario, and will then be presented with several choices for how to proceed at several decision points. Again, each of these choices will result in instant feedback and if needed, links to appropriate information about the correct response. If a participant fails the first case study, they will cycle through to the next one and so on, until they demonstrate mastery.
It should be noted that Fink’s Taxonomy includes the two additional categories of ‘Caring’ and ‘Learning How to Learn,’ but although it is the mandate of the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre to perform community education at every opportunity, it is beyond the scope of this course to teach contract workers new ways of caring for residents, or of getting participants to reflect on themselves as learners learning how to learn.
Bearing in mind that some of these workers will be semi-skilled or unskilled (painters for example), and that many of them will have English as a second language, the wording in the printed text will be in plain English, and graphics and video will be used wherever possible. We have assumed that the time and facilities needed to complete this course will be provided by the contractor, as well as translation services should they be needed.
- Course Structure
This course is designed to be fully automated. To that end it has been designed as a self-paced learning environment with no feedback or discussion forums (although there is support available via phone and email). Additionally, the program has no scheduled start or end date for participants because it has ongoing rolling enrollment due to the nature of the short-term contract work of the target group.
As mentioned in the introduction, this course has been developed using two different platforms: Moodle and WordPress. Each of these developments shares the learning goals and the assessment methodology described above and both are as similar as possible, but, as a result of differences in their affordances, the implementations differ in several ways, especially related to course navigation and activities.
In Moodle, activities and presentations are displayed using the built-in modules of files, pages, and SCORM activities. Because WordPress doesn’t have native support for embedding HTML5 activities or other quiz types and this UBC implementation of WordPress doesn’t allow for additional plugins, everything has been done using embedded iframes with content hosted in Google Drive or YouTube.
With these differences in mind, the Contractor Education Program is composed of four modules on either platform. These modules are based on the desired learning outcomes described earlier and include an introduction, a review and compliance module on health and safety, an awareness module on working around the residents and patients of the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre, and a conclusion module.
Course Outline
Module 1: Introduction
- Video introduction to the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre, what we do, and who we serve.
- Course outline and expectations.
- Explanatory interactive presentation that introduces the course and gives instructions for how to navigate the site
Module 2: Health & Safety for Workers
- Interactive video introduction to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
- Focuses on the health and safety rights and responsibilities of workers, supervisors and employers.
- Serves as a general introduction to workplace health and safety.
- Multiple choice questions to test for recall and understanding–100% score must be achieved before receiving Module 2 Completion Certificate.
- Upon receiving the certificate, participants using Moodle will automatically be allowed to advance, as completion of Module 2 is the condition for allowing access to Module 3. Participants must also upload their WHMIS certification into a designated assignment drop box.
- Participants using WordPress will email Module 2 Completion Certificate and a scanned copy of their WHMIS certification to the Dr. Peter Center before being able to proceed to Module 3.
Module 3: Working With Vulnerable Populations
- Video introduction defining vulnerable populations and explaining how they relate to the Dr. Peter AIDS Centre.
- Interactive presentation with best practices for working with this population and how to integrate respect for residents into professional practice.
- Multiple choice questions to test for recall and understanding.
- Case study that puts participants into a realistic situation and asks them to apply what they’ve learned.
- Multiple choice questions at key points in scenario–100% score must be achieved before receiving Module 3 Completion Certificate.
- Upon receiving the Completion Certificate, participants using Moodle will automatically be allowed to advance, as completion of Module 3 is the condition for accessing Module 4
- Participants using WordPress will email Module 3 Completion Certificate to the Dr. Peter Center before being able to proceed to Module 4.
Module 4: Conclusion
- An explanation of the next steps after the completion of this course
- Sign in at front desk on first day of work
- Receive numbered employee fob for duration of contract
Additional Information About the Course Structure
Communication
- All instruction will be online through text, video, and audio. This information will be presented in plain English to increase accessibility.
- Course participants must get a password from their employer in order to access the activities.
- Support and clarification available from designated support staff through email or over the phone.
- For the WordPress implementation of the program participants will be required to send proof of module completion (a certificate that generates after completing each module) through email.
Activities
- Traditional multiple choice quizzes for comprehension and recall that confirms participant’s knowledge.
- Assessment for learning in pop-up questions with instant feedback, links to appropriate information, and lists of incorrectly answered questions (Nevin 2010).
- Case-based final questions that solidify learning and provide instant and customized feedback to participant’s responses, as well as links back to the appropriate information.
- This course makes use of no external applications or plugins. All activities take place within the learning environment using content hosted on internal servers.
Platform Differences
Working with the same basic course outline on two different platforms required us to make significant variations to aesthetics, technology, and form to accommodate each platform. Moodle was specifically designed to host learning content, which afforded the Moodle version of the course to make use of a single-page design with all of the activities in built-in modules on that page. This is convenient and makes it easy to create structure and add content. On the other hand, this UBC implementation of Moodle lacks the ability to be meaningfully customized (UBC doesn’t allow access to the back-end for direct html editing). And Moodle is also less attractive, as it has less support for animations without a plug-in and, no matter the theme, is always recognizable as Moodle, with pages that often appear busy and crowded.
Conversely, WordPress requires more work-arounds in the form of plug-ins which must be searched for (or written by the designer) in order to properly display learning content as this is not a native-feature, but WordPress is still much more aesthetically pleasing and customizable, even when using an installation controlled by UBC–the layout can be changed to suit the information; additional pages can be added as needed–the information doesn’t all have to be on one page as in Moodle; and even the small selection of available plugins affords enough flexibility to create a clear and engaging learning environment.
The biggest difference between the course implementations on Moodle and WordPress is the way in which participants are registered and tracked. This has implications for both participant registration and certification.
In Moodle, the course will be behind a password-wall, and participants will be sent a link that they can use to register themselves and start the course. This allows the system to track the progress of their account and create records of their participation. This is not possible with the current WordPress configuration. To account for this, the WordPress version will be publically viewable, but participants must enter an employer code (provided in advance to their employer) in order to take any of the quizzes or view the interactive content.
Moodle has a built-in certification feature that can be set to become available only after all the conditions are met. This feature will be used with SCORM activity types that can relay grade information directly to Moodle. WordPress does not have this feature, so certification will be built into the HTML5 activities used for quizzing. At the end of each module, participants in the WordPress course will be awarded a certificate that they must save as a .pdf and email to the course manager.
Going into this project during the platform evaluation phase, we thought that WordPress would be simpler to maintain and update for an inexperienced administrator. However, experience has shown otherwise: it seems paradoxical, but Moodle is much easier to use than WordPress for a project like this. This is because Moodle was actually designed to be an LMS and all the necessary activities can easily be uploaded into the appropriate modules, whereas WordPress was designed to be a blog or static website and requires complicated technical workarounds to perform even the most basic LMS functions.
It’s still too early in the project to recommend one or the other for future courses, but based on our experiences with the introductory module, Moodle is the best choice for an organization that values ease of use. However, if you’re more interested in producing a course that looks good and doesn’t need its own server to run on, WordPress might be the right choice.
Bibliography
Bloom’s Taxonomy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 27, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom’s_taxonomy
Ferguson, C., & Ali, Z. (2016, January 31). Platform Evaluation [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/craigslist/platform-evaluation/
Fink, L. D. (2005). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning.Retrieved March 1, 2015 from Dee Fink & Associates
Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31.
Jenkins, M. (2004). Unfulfilled promise: Formative assessment using computer-aided assessment. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, i, 67-80.
McTighe, J., and Wiggins, G. (2004). Introduction: The logic of backward design. Understanding by Design: Professional Development Workbook. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Nevin, L. (2010) Assessment For, Of, and As Learning http://www.tvdsb.ca/webpages/takahashid/techdia.cfm?subpage=128207. Accessed February 4, 2016.
Nicol, D. (2007). E‐assessment by design: using multiple‐choice tests to good effect, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31:1, 53-64
Workshop by D. Langley (2013), Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology, University of Minnesota Syllabus Goals vs. Objectives (PDF); Taxonomy of educational objectives