Training Delivery WG
National Training Program Wiki Main Page
Contents
Members
Co-Lead(s): Jeff Gabler (WESTAR), Zac Adelman (LADCO)
Amy Mathison (WI DNR), Chris Stoneman (EPA OAQPS)
Overview and Charge
Tasks
- Develop/maintain list of instructors by subject categories and course topics.
- Develop and implement a process for recruitment of new instructors.
- Develop and implement use of improved tools for evaluation of instructors and course materials.
- Oversee interactions with instructors to address needed improvements to instructional materials and to provide other course support.
- Develop and implement delivery format alternatives for all courses including classroom and e-learning/distance learning.
- Provide updates to instructors regarding course library additions and updates.
- Provide information to instructors on use of LMS functionalities and enhancements to aid them in fulfilling their instructor roles for downloading and uploading information to the LMS.
Conference Calls
3rd Wednesday @ 11:00 Central
May 17, 2019
Action Items
- Zac and Jeff: recruit state participants into the WG
- Zac: develop the WG scope/charge
- Zac: develop thoughts on how to determine the effectiveness of the new eval instruments
- Amy: comment/edit training deployment terminology worksheet
- Amy: draft slides for training delivery ideas for the Communication WG leadership
- Jeff: after Amy feels ready with her slide, schedule a call with the Communication WG to hear Amy's thoughts on delivery
Attendees
Agenda
- Review April action items
- Orient new WG members to tasks and priorities
- Review charge and ask for this WG
- Review Jeff's terminology memo
- Discuss how to identify the best deployment options for a course
Attendees Jeff, Amy, Zac
Call Notes
- April Action Items
- Jeff: research terminology; status: completed, see white paper
- Jeff: reach out to MJO training coords for upcoming trainings to test new evaluation instruments; status: communicated with other MJOs, and they are being deployed by LADCO, MARAMA, and SESARM
- Zac: draft WG charge; status: pending
- Zac: draft WG ask to get people on board for April 17 call; status: larger ask developed for the JTC/WGs sent to MJOs
- Introductions
- Amy described her background in education and training
- Jeff described the history of the national training program; EPA effectively left the program in 2004, now returning under Peter Tsirigotis' leadership
- Zac described the WG, priorities, and focus on the delivery options in the near term
- Need to establish communication channels with other JTC WGs; looking to the steering committee for guidance
- Evaluation Instrument Discussion
- How do we know if this new eval is working better? Zac suggests that is we receive more meaningful narrative responses than with the previous eval, it's a success; the new evals were designed to elicit more frequent and meaningful narratives about the student experience; are there other metrics that we need to consider?
- Need to convey to LMS workgroup a need for better content management system (CMS) in the LMS to allow for conditional responses (i.e., if you answer or 1 or 2, you need to substantiate with narrative); LMS should auto email link to survey after a course is completed
- Is the course evaluation anonymous? respondents may be more bold when anonymous because less accountability; could the survey be anonymous to get more meaningful answers?; currently APTI-Learn is not anonymous; we would need to convey that the person's identity would not be revealed in their response, but that it's not a anonymous survey (need to know the respondent in the database to connect to the certificate generation); the new LMS should have an option to toggle on/off whether respondent identities are provided in the evaluation results summary
- nature of making the eval a requirement in the process is that some people will just rush through the instrument to get their certificate
- evals are currently only connected to the classroom courses; SI courses need an evaluation too; can we create a process to use an evaluation/automate the SI courses: take the course -> get link to eval -> certificate, similar to classroom
- Orient new WG members to tasks and priorities
- In the near-term the focus is on item 5
- Review Jeff's terminology memo
- Amy will mark-up the latest version of the memo
- Best Deployment Option Discussion
- Amy described her process for identifying delivery options for a course
- Choose right tool for the job: do you want people to just have knowledge, or do you need practical/participatory experience; #1 training option will always be face-to-face because it provides opportunities for the full range of communication options: audio, visual, hands-on, etc...but may not always be feasible/practical
- When determining if it's live, webcast, e-learning, need to decide what will create proficiency; if need proficiency, then you need interaction; simply passing knowledge can be more passive; the higher you need to go up on the proficiency scale, the more you need interactive training (practice applying skills for greater proficiency);
- Process for finding the right option is based on the factors in place, need to consider geography of students and travel; need to balance flexibility for access with building proficiency
- e-learning is great for foundational knowledge, understanding a concept, criteria for understanding when a process/task is complete (not a lot of judgement)
- Should not have to recreate the wheel when creating e-learning; but it's not just putting slides online; to properly transfer format need to cater to the objectives of the course; e.g., if classroom was full of labs, it's hard to transfer to e-learning
- As the Curriculum WG is already working on the CEMs courses, there is a pressing need to convey information to them on how to best choose deployment options
- Jeff asked if Amy could communicate to the Curriculum WG the same thoughts that she just shared with us about course and deployment selection
- Zac suggests that we get a best (and worst) practices summary out in front of the CEMs WG as a way to build some knowledge but also to get them to slow their schedule until we get a more comprehensive guidance together
- Zac asked Amy to put together slides that summarizes her thoughts on learning delivery, best/worst practices for discussion (not recorded) with the Curriculum WG leadership; we would then evolve this to a webinar for the larger curriculum WG membership that we could record
April 2, 2019
Action Items
- Jeff: research terminology
- Jeff: reach out to MJO training coords for upcoming trainings to test new evaluation instruments
- Zac: draft WG charge
- Zac: draft WG ask to get people on board for April 17 call
Attendees Jeff, Zac
Agenda
- Review action items
- Review tasks and prioritize
- Work on charge and ask for this WG
- Discuss current e-learning options available through APTI-Learn and elsewhere
- Review materials sent by other WG's (e.g., instructor list, course inventory)
Call Notes
- Review tasks and prioritize
- (1) Instructor list - received from Kara, Jeff will take this on
- (2) Instructor recruitment flyer - received from Kara, will need to have active recruitment efforts
- (3) Evaluation instruments - recently developed, passed forward from the JTC workgroups, now need to test the new formats
- (4) Interactions with instructors
- (5) Delivery format alternatives - need help from learning/teaching experts, recruit into this workgroup, want to generate excitement about this task in the recruitment ask;
- (6) Updating instructors on course library updates
- (7) Update instructors on functionality
- Brainstorm on ask
- Terminology - what do we call this?
- Commitment: At least 1 hour/month, a bit more time earlier on getting familiar with the process
- Objective is to identify learning alternatives, find opportunities in the training program to implement alternatives, what courses fit
- Need people with experience in learning alternatives (distance learning? e-learning?)
- Can we bring in people from outside of the state agencies?
- How involved are the e-learning courses? Do some courses require more formatting than others?
- What is the student experience? What is the course developers experience? Is there a role for a learning expert to tailor courses to an e-learning format
- Need people with experience developing/using e-learning technology, knowledge of alternatives, people with experience using e-learning from the student perspective, people with knowledge of the air pollution training courses to identify opportunities to use e-learning in the curriculum
- Develop recommendations for the new LMS, what capabilities are needed in the new server
- Direct Recruit: Lisa Bush (CARB), Kevin ? (VA)
March 20, 2019
Action Items
- Zac: Create this wiki
- Zac and Jeff: research current training curriculum e-learning options
- Zac: develop a charge for this WG
- Zac and Jeff: develop and ask for the regions/states for recruitment
- Jeff: identify past JTC WG efforts that transition into this new WG (i.e., list of instructors) and facilitate handoff of these efforts
Attendees
Zac and Jeff
Agenda
Kick off the WG and discuss member recruitment
Call Notes
- Reviewing JTC workplan and discussion of tasks
- Instructor list, recruitment, evaluation, interfacing with instructors seem manageable as they will carry forward work recently completed or already underway in the previous JTC workgroups (identify the WGs and facilitate handover to this WG)
- Delivery format alternatives (scope #5) is going to be the biggest challenge; need to get learning exports in this WG to help us understand what technologies/techniques are possible and best suited for the training materials
- Need to review what's currently available for training, check APTI SI
- Direct recruit of WG members: VA and CARB staff
- Broadcast wide recruitment message to MJOs for bringing in state/local staff
- Need to develop and ask: how much time, what's the charge of the group, what's expected of the WG members
- Develop list of deliverables for this WG, with timing
- Regular call schedule
