The “Traditional Workshop Model” of professional development is dead. RIP. To engage a college-wide OER initiative, the Mesa Community College Center for Teaching & Learning and eLearning Departments collaboratively reinvisioned faculty learning experiences through an “Expert Model” for online zero-textbook-cost course development. The outcome of this venture will inspire you!
For many years, teaching and learning support centers have struggled with workshop attendance and the “cafeteria-style” model of professional development. Attendance at workshops is low and outcomes tend to be superficial at best. The Mesa Community College (MCC) Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL) and eLearning departments set out to address the aforementioned issues with a new professional development experience known as the “Expert Model” which facilitates the process of developing an online zero-textbook-cost course.
The Expert Model leverages the expertise of faculty and staff and prioritizes the faculty’s immediate implementation of concepts learned in this process to reinforce knowledge acquisition. Designing a zero-textbook-cost online course is the framework for faculty professional development in the Expert Model. Faculty Content Experts (CEs) collaboratively design and build this course using necessary experts such as: Multimedia Developers, Accessibility Experts, Instructional Designers, Instructional Technologists, Librarians, and Content/Peer Reviewers (CEs). Our goals for this program were simple. We defined our successful outcomes as (1) the online course was developed with zero-textbook-cost associated; (2) student success rates would increase as proven by other institutions Nationally; and (3) faculty would know the rules of OER, Z Degree and online course design. The actual outcomes of this program exceeded our expectations. Our Z Degree efforts through the Expert Model revitalized and even generated engagement from many departments at the college and faculty had a better understanding of how to increase success and satisfaction in online learning.
Prior to the Expert Model, we would fund faculty to work on projects that they proposed and did independently on their own. Although we would check in periodically with expected benchmarks, we put the onus on the instructor to contact and connect with support staff if they determined a need. With the Expert Model, faculty follow a phased timeline during one semester in which they met weekly with their Instructional Designer or other expert personnel as determined by their progress and timeline and course needs. The Expert Model has provided a much more consistent outcome for the online Z Degree courses and faculty learning.
The Expert Model provides faculty with a semester long professional development experience with a final product. This experience is the gift that keeps giving in that faculty will teach the class and refine assignments each semester until it is time for the revision cycle. We fund the revision cycle and work with the faculty and their department to figure out how they would like to engage the process. If more than one faculty is teaching the class, revisions can be done as a department retreat focusing on data analytics and assignments that need to be adjusted.
We would like to share our journey in developing this program in order to provide insights about how to engage this type of professional development at session attendee’s own institutions. We will provide data, tools, and strategies for implementation.