This presentation provides an overview of leadership strategies used to manage a team of instructional designers, help desk personnel, and subject matter experts. The session will explore and discuss how these strategies are being used in the distance education program and how they can be adapted for all environments.
This presentation will discuss how the Associate Dean of Academic Technology at a state college provides leadership to a team of instructional designers, help desk personnel, and subject matter experts. Leadership strategies used to manage the online course development process, develop a monthly e-newsletter, implement new technologies, and establish professional development for faculty on e-learning best practices will be shared with participants. This session will discuss the cultural shift for the college in leadership styles, related personnel and process modifications, and illustrations of successes and challenges along the way.
The “Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership Model” will be highlighted and examples of how they can be applied will be provided:
-
Model the Way by establishing standards of excellence, setting an example as a leader, working with the team to set interim goals, and creating opportunities for victory.
-
Inspire a Shared Vision by envisioning the future for the department/team, creating an ideal to reach towards, and seeing exciting possibilities for the future.
-
Challenge the Process by changing the status quo, looking for innovative ways to improve and move forward, and encouraging experimentation and risk taking.
-
Enable Others to Act by fostering collaboration, building spirited teams of individuals, establishing mutual respect in the team, encouraging trust and respect for human dignity, and strengthening others to reach their full potential.
-
Encourage the Heart by recognizing the contributions of everyone on the team, sharing in the rewards of victories, and celebrating all team accomplishments.
This session will provide information on project and resource management, ownership and support of department processes by the design team, and effective communication with upper administration. By using a variety of free, open source tools and a custom built database the design team is able to function collaboratively within the team and collectively with outside departments. Department specific data is gathered, organized and used to enable each team member to act in the best interests of the college and department.
The efficient use of Google’s G Suite to work collaboratively with every app in the suite will be showcased as an example of how the Academic Technology Department is able to complete projects on or before deadlines. The ability of G Suite to share/store documents, slides, forms, and resources using the Google Drive, has fostered an environment where the team can experiment and take risks. Team members can track meetings and identify task/reminders using the Google Calendar, create collaborative documents using Google Docs, produce engaging presentations using Google Slides, and collect information or survey users using Google Forms. Google provides the tools necessary to successfully implement the G Suite through an extensive educational library, supporting documentation and tons of resources.
The use of a custom-built, relational MySQL database for monitoring the course development process and tracking of faculty professional development will be explored as a project management tool. The use of this database has enabled the department to support the online course development process which has led to tremendous growth in our online and hybrid course offering. The process has also created a collaborative experience and produced over 150 interactive, engaging, and effective online courses in the last five years. Data on the growth of the distance education program including the number of model online courses developed, faculty trained to teach online, and success/failure rates for online courses for the last 3-5 years will be presented.
Presentation attendees will leave with various tools and ideas on how to implement project management strategies back at their home institutions. They will be able to explore and discuss how these strategies are being used in the distance education program and how they can modify these practices to work for their departments. Practical examples of how each tool is used as a project management tool will be provided in the presentation. Participants will be given a list of resources and apps to review and share with their team as well as ideas for their use.
Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations Ed. 5. N.p.: Jossey Bass Inc, 2012. Print.