Learn how a diverse group of individuals formed a team at our university to implement a 2-week intensive Digital Pedagogy Workshop to support university faculty who were transitioning a course to the online or hybrid environment.
Faculty development in higher education is often segregated according to the institution that “owns” the practice. Academics conduct training in pedagogical development and IT trainers teach educational technology skill building. At Loyola University Maryland, we created a cross-institutional team of four facilitators to co-develop and teach an intensive 2-week Digital Pedagogy Workshop to prepare and support faculty who are developing their first online or hybrid course. The facilitators of the workshop include individuals from the School of Education, Technology Services, Academic Affairs and the Library. We have found that this collaboration across diverse constituents improved the quality of the workshop. By purposefully scaffolding and embedding skill-development of educational technology tools into the application of teaching and learning theory, we were able to reinforce best practices. Incorporating project-based learning by having faculty build out their newly developed online or hybrid courses during the workshop provided additional motivation and opportunity for immediate application of newly acquired knowledge and skills. Sharing the facilitating roles among individuals with varying skill sets and expertise resulted in a richer learning experience for all involved.
Faculty are often initially motivated to apply for the workshop because of the opportunity to learn new and emerging technical skills, but they value that they also gain the ability to analyze and align technological tools to their instructional purposes while increasing student engagement and interaction. We feel confident in the success of our annual workshop due to the faculty enthusiasm and continued engagement with our growing community of Digital Pedagogy Workshop fellows over the past 3 years. In tight economic times, Loyola leadership has committed to continue to support this effort because it has been so successful in overcoming faculty skepticism regarding online teaching. The Digital Pedagogy Workshop has also helped faculty with minimal technology skills apply appropriate technologies to their courses and gain necessary skills. Mentor relationships have been built and cross-discipline research efforts and collaboration have fostered as faculty from a variety of disciplines have completed the workshop under the leadership of individuals from multiple departments, services, and offices across campus.
During this Discovery Session, we will focus on how the unique contributions of our diverse facilitators improved the workshop experience for all participants and share strategies for successful collaboration in the planning and implementation stages. We will also identify the critical lessons learned from facilitating this workshop and discuss the intended and surprise successes, as well as our continuing efforts for improving it. Through a series of slides about the Digital Pedagogy Workshop and an interactive infographic of our "key takeaways", we will share our experience and engage the audience by also enabling them to contribute their own ideas from their faculty development experiences, enriching the final product and providing a lasting resource. By the end of this session, participants will have specific ideas for building and leading a collaborative faculty development team of facilitatiors.