Learning Design and Course Development
Creating Active Learning Environments
Designing learning environments is more to me than aligning needs with objectives with requirements with content with activities with assessment. The one constant in my work as an adult educator is orchestrating the optimal social and physical conditions for a particular learning objective. In other words, provide the right growing medium, nutrients and elements so that learners have all the best possible conditions to grow.
Learnscaping is how I think of designing learning interventions: designing spaces for active engagement of learners with their learning.
Learning and Knowing
My approach to learning design reflects my views on learning and knowing.This concept map illustrates my understanding of learning and knowing.
As you can see, it's not very linear! It reflects my belief in the recursivity of learning.
Portfolio
What follows is a selection of learning objects, courses and programs I managed through the entire development process.
Critical Assessments and Spinal Treatment (Basic Trauma)
(7-hour instructor-led face-to-face course)
This course consisted of two parts: three cases presented as problem-based learning that challenged learners' understanding of trauma scene assessment and decision making, and the demonstration and practice of the Canadian C-Spine rules for spinal immobilization.
The challenge of in developing this course occurred in the initial needs analysis. I was initially charged by our governance group to create a one-day trauma course. However, my working group of subject matter experts advised that it was impossible, as standard trauma courses are at a minimum, 2-days due to the enormity of details needed to be covered. Focusing on assessments allowed us to cover the largest amount of details within the context of the thinking skills we wanted paramedics to practice. In working with the group, we also discovered that there were many inconsistencies in spinal treatment throughout the province, so we seized this gap as an opportunity to push through an evaluation of and decision on a spinal immobilization approach by the physician-led governance group, and to then take this approach to all 3200 paramedics.
Donning and Doffing of Tyvek Suit
(30-minute online course/learning object)
The goal was to create a short and engaging online module that detailed the correct way to don and doff a Tyvek suit. These suits are used for infection control to protect paramedics as a last resort. The intention is for the online module to be used as a reference by paramedics and follow-up checks of proper donning and doffing will be carried out by their supervisors.
The challenge was to create a media-rich low-bandwidth interactive presentation. I used photos instead of video and produced the module in Captivate.
Situational Awareness for Emergency Responders
(7-hour instructor-led face-to-face course)
This course originated as a response to the deaths of two paramedics in Kimberly, BC. The paramedics were called for two patients at an abandoned mine and died from a lack oxygen when they entered a confined space. The purpose of the course was to develop paramedics situational awareness and decision making abilities. After conducting an extensive needs analysis, we contracted with Gary Klein, author of Sources of Power and Cognitive Task Analysis, to analyze situations paramedics found themselves in and create activities responding to those situations that could be used in a course. We took those activities and developed the one day course.
Occupational Safety and Health 1 & 2
(8-hour online course)
This is a self-accessed asynchronous online course for 3200 BC Ambulance Paramedics which is part of fulfilling WorkSafeBC requirements. A previous version of the course was released in 2001 and consisted of .pdfs put online. I did two things with this project: 1. We updated the content to reflect 2008 WorkSafe requirements, and 2. I combined two courses into one, so that the risk management model introduced in original OSH 1 is contextualized in the examples of work hazards itemized in the original OSH 2. Part of the requirements was also to have a post-course exam, so that the learner would qualify for continuing education credits and 8 hours of pay.
The challenge was to create an engaging learning experience within the parameters of three modules self-accessed. I used myUdutu to build the course. I broke down the content into manageable chunks and then added pre-assessment and post-assessment questions around the content. I tried to maximize the amount of feedback given on the assessment questions, so that the learner would have maximum opportunities for success as well as to provide at lease one extra voice, albeit controlled, so that the learner wouldn't feel so lonely.
Frontline Supervisor Education Program
(10 1-hour online modules; 35-hour face-to-face course)
We broke this program into two parts, 10 self-accessed online modules that were available to everyone, and a one-week face to face program that is available to candidates who are successful in the job selection process. The online modules cover most of the content needed to act as a Unit Chief or Charge Dispatcher and contains mostly procedural knowledge. The focus of the face-to-face sessions is on the interpersonal skills needed to be a successful Frontline Supervisor: coaching and mentoring staff, leading initiatives, and supervising and managing the day to day operations of a station.
Infant Transport Team Education Program
(2 year program)
I planned and designed the pedagogical approach and curriculum overview of this program, before handing it over to the Provincial Training Officer who is delivering the day-to-day training. Because the Infant Transport Team works with BC Children's and Women's Hospital, it was necessary to build the program with input of all the stakeholders not only from the current team, but also from the hospital. The curriculum overview was built with input from existing team members and reviewed and approved by the lead physicians from four different areas: Obstetrics, Neonatal, Pediatrics, and Emergency.
Introduction to Treatment Guidelines
(20-minute online module; 3.5 hour instructor-led face to face course)
The BC Ambulance Service transformed the linear protocols that guide paramedics in their practice to treatment guidelines that build a far greater medical context to the protocols. The purpose of the transformation is to allow paramedics to make decisions for their patients in the field that are within their scope of practice but may be outside of a specific protocol.
Because the shift from protocols to treatment guidelines represents a huge cultural shift for paramedics, the purpose of the online module was to introduce them to the drivers behind the change, through audio interviews with some of the key individuals. The face-to-face course consists of three cases presented as problems, that challenged learners thinking to go outside of strictly defining protocols to consider the wider ramifications of treating patients appropriately within their scope of practice.
Recognition and Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect
(3.5 hour instructor-led face to face course)
This course arouse out of changes in provincial legislation that made all of us responsible for reporting suspected cases of child abuse and neglect. Because paramedics, as community workers, are often in situations where they may witness evidence, the purpose of this course was to help them be able to identify suspected cases of child abuse and neglect. I produced a 1 hour video of a presentation given by a physician who is BC's leading expert on recognizing child abuse and neglect, which is shown during the class. The course also presents scenarios that challenge learners to practice how they will react when living in small towns, and/or knowing the potential perpetrators.
Instructor Development
(2-days, 7 hours each day)
I have led instructors in preparing for the Recognition and Reporting of Child Abuse and Introduction to Treatment Guidelines courses. In addition to familiarizing them with the contents of each course, I led them in activities where they practiced facilitation and instructional skills.
Orientation to Preceptorship for Paramedics
(2-day, 14 hours instructor-led face-to-face course)
Part of becoming a fully licensed paramedic involves a period of time working with and being evaluated by an expert practitioner. The purpose of this 2 day course was to develop preceptors for their role. In the past, preceptors had not been supported and one effect was that some brought to their role a 'gatekeeping' attitude which was detrimental to the learning experience. This course attempts to situate new preceptors in the role as practitioner-educators and contains many activities that develops their communication skills, particularly when giving feedback. The course also models the One-Minute Preceptor and learners have many opportunities to practice it with scenarios that contain different kinds of challenging behaviors. The orientation course has now been used with both Dispatcher and Primary-Care Paramedic Preceptors.
Orientation to Mentorship for Paramedics
(2-day, 14 hours instructor-led face-to-face course)
Similar to the Preceptor, the purpose of this orientation program was to develop the communication, interpersonal, and educative skills of expert paramedics to help them with their mentoring role. The orientation spans two full days. The first day is focuses on the educative role of being a mentor and the second day focuses on giving feedback and being a good communicator.
The challenge for me was to develop activities that approximated the real-life relationship between mentor and mentee while at the same time build in content that developed these expert paramedics' understanding of the greater context they were participating in. To that end, I relied heavily on jigsaw/information gap activities so that learners will communicate and educate each other about the new content.
Risk Management for Project Managers
(total of 7 hours of learning spread out over different learning events)
This project was a just-in-time learning intervention required by a large organization's IT project managers. As learners were distributed across North America, the learning intervention employed WebEx meetings and SharePoint document sharing.
The goal of this short course was to introduce these project managers to the basic processes of risk management, the policies of their employer, and to give them opportunity to be coached in risk management practices. Using a problem-based approach, activities are centred on solving real-work problems.
New Media Module
This module was part of an intensive college-level 13-week course in Culture and New Media Studies. The topic of this module was Identity and New Media. Learners met both in classrooms as well as online via a Moodle course.
The module had two components: daily activities where learners explored topics of self and identity, and a week-long activity where learners worked with artificial intelligence (a chatbot).
Korean EFL Teacher Training
(4-weeks of 3.5 hour-days of instructor-led classes)
A group of 60 Korean high and middle school teachers had contracted with my client to learn more about Canadian teaching practices.
Throughout the planning stages, it was revealed that they also expected language improvement activities. The challenge was to combine these two goals into an engaging four week program.
Intensive Communication Skills
(2 2-week sessions of daily 3 hour instructor-led classes)
Learners had complained to me of how they received very little feedback on their performance as speakers and writers in the current offerings of the institution I was working for at the time. I proposed, researched, planned, developed and designed, implemented and evaluated these two modules in intensive communication skills. My guiding principle was to have the learner busy making language for the entire duration of the class. Eliminating most of the "teacher talk", the facilitator's role was reduced to giving directions, managing time, and for the final class half-hour, giving feedback and error correction explanations.
presentation on my design process
Job Search for ESL Learners
(6 weeks of twice weekly 2 hour instructor-led sessions)
I identified a need in our community for a course that specifically addressed new immigrants with language needs who were looking for a job for the first time in a Canadian job market. I designed the course so that learners would write resumes, practice cold-calling, and interviewing techniques but with the further aim of developing their language skills during those activities at the same time.
Academic Preparation
I overhauled and redesigned this course to include an electronic component to extend further the written component. The objectives of the course were the improvement of learners' listening, reading and writing skills. The course was part of an articulated program that eventually led to learner eligibility to enroll in English 10 and eventual high school completion.
English Skills for Accounting
I researched and designed the pedagogical framework for this project. The learners were new immigrants to Canada who were accountants and bookkeepers in their previous countries. The project was divided into two sections: a language skills course and an accounting software course. As English for specific purposes was still very new during the mid-90s and there were very little materials available, I based the design on the emerging Activity Theory. Based on research I did, interviews with subject matter experts (an accountant and a bookkeeper) and observing a bookkeeper, I designed the course around authentic activities performed by bookkeepers and then scaffolded in the needed language and social interactions that were typical of the work.