As promised, we’re back. Last year we shared how a webinar promoted and delivered like a radio show was a hit. This year, we want to share how this idea has changed our entire approach to Faculty development. We are Back on the Air. Come see what we are doing!
Everyone experiences that excitement of building a new, fun, interactive faculty development workshop and then very few people attend. It’s disappointing, to say the least. Our Instructional Design team at the University of Cincinnati have been trying different approaches to providing faculty development in creative ways with two goals in mind:
- The creative planning and development of workshop content doesn’t become wasted effort.
- Our faculty get access to much needed information in a way they can fit it into their busy schedules.
Last year at the OLC – Accelerate Conference we had a popular session discussing how we created a monthly faculty development webinar promoted and delivered like a radio show. The presentation, which drew 60 participants and was featured in an article in Inside Higher Ed (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/21/one-universitys-approach-online-faculty-development-radio-show), told the story of Design Time. Each Design Time episode was done live in WebEx and recorded for faculty to view at their leisure. And guess what; they were viewing them. We discovered an approach that reached more faculty in that one year via our Radio Show than the prior 3 years combined! So what did we do? We took that success and ran with it. This year, we’re back to tell you how that went.
The analytics we reviewed told us a few things:
- Faculty wanted to view short videos
- Faculty looked to engage with the content we provided at all times of the day and night (in other words, when they had time)
- Faculty would ask us to cover certain topics and share the videos with colleagues
We chose to take all that we learned from this success and apply it to our entire Faculty Development approach.
- We re-vamped our Design Time radio show into a Video Series that tackles topics of Teaching and Learning theory and ask our faculty to think about new approaches to their teaching. We call this Design Time Revamped!
- We created “Quick Tips” as short how-to videos
- We created a character named “Bob” who talks through best practices (i.e Lectures, video lighting and audio, etc)
- We developed a completely self-paced Online Teaching Strategies course for faculty to complete at their own pace with Interactive Learning objects as the main presentation of content
By taking this approach a few things happened. We yet again surpassed our faculty engagement in development opportunities, we spend creative time and development wisely, and we are reaching a lot more faculty.
Why is it important that we figure out an approach to Faculty Development that works? As we stated last year, we as educators know that faculty development not only supports teachers in building their skill set and mastering their craft, but it also has an effect on increasing student outcomes. A recent article in Inside Higher Ed discusses a study that spoke directly to this. “Independent ratings of students’ learning outcomes demonstrate that when faculty learn and apply better ways of addressing desirable student learning outcomes, they translate their learning into course materials and assignments that actually do positively influence students’ learning,” the article says. “That result, in the end, constitutes a successful case, and that kind of design produces long-range outcomes” (Flaherty, 2016).
We need to continue to think creatively and find ways to reach our faculty and not always ask them to come to us. If we value the importance of teaching and technology, we will reach our faculty where they are and support them.
This presentation
In this presentation we would like to continue our story of Faculty Development success. We will share the analytics from our faculty development videos, share the video production process and commitment to the creative development, showcase the different types and categories of videos, and encourage others to share their faculty development successes.
Wrapping it up
It is our intention to:
- Showcase the success of the Radio Show as a Faculty Development success by discussing the analytics associated with the show.
- Discuss challenges, success, and things we learned in the process. Including committing to the video production process.
- Ask participants to share their successes.
Participants in this session will leave with a greater understanding of how to creatively use media to extend professional development opportunities to greater numbers of faculty.
Resources
Flaherty, C. (2016, February 10). New study suggests that faculty development has a demonstrable impact on student learning. Retrieved May 18, 2016, from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/10/new-study-suggests-facult...