Month: March 2018

Final Reflections – LRNT 525 Unit 5 Activity 1

Lorri 2 Comments

This is truly a final reflections blog for me as I have completed the Grad Diploma program.  Based on this, I am going to talk not only about the course, but the program as a whole in this final reflections post. 

Has my perspective changed?

Within this course, I feel that the information and discussions regarding change management and analytics have given me some new lenses with which to study situations.  Coming in to the course, I was unfamiliar with change management.  This is clear in my first post when I said, “I trial or pilot new technology in a specific context first before applying it to every course.  This allows us to focus on ensuring that the pilot is successful and allows the opportunity to capture lessons learned before a wider role-out” (Weaver, 2018, para 6).  I now realize that this is also an example of creating small or quick wins as described in Kotter’s (2012) change model.  This is an area that I would like to continue to research and explore on my own to add more tools to my leadership toolbox. 

Coming in to this course, I was very familiar with performance metrics as I have been responsible for them during several of my postings, but I have never seen them implemented in a way that provides value.  Therefore, I am always sceptical of performance measurement and the additional workload it can add to a system with seemingly little benefit.  However, when faced with the excellent examples in Sclater, Peasgood, & Mullan (2016) showing the innovative way many organizations are using performance metrics to achieve success, my perspective changed.  Based on this inspiration, I am looking forward to developing a training-specific performance metric in my own organization.  Additionally, I have enjoyed picking up some tools such as weaving and a little more knowledge about the capabilities of interactive .pdfs. 

Over the last year, the program has not only developed my knowledge of instructional design, but it has sparked a passion in me for active learning and engagement.  I am lucky to be able to apply this in my current job and as a sideline to help instructors I know improve courses. 

In your current role, how can you help lead a change within your organization?

My passion for active learning and engagement is helping me lead change in my organization – developing our courses with this in mind.  This is a change for my organization and I am approaching it somewhat slowly, keeping the quick wins in mind!  I have a meeting coming up shortly where we are pitching the course redesign concept for a five-day course that is currently running.  At the moment, the course has no activities or engagement (other than students asking questions) and is composed of thousands of slides of powerpoint (I am not exaggerating).  We are proposing something with more engagement opportunities and demonstrating three complete activities during the proposal (showing all the tools the instructors will have to run the activities).  The involvement our stakeholders have had so far in generating ideas and the solid materials that we have to present makes me optimistic that they will accept the proposal.  I am leading change by developing relationships with stakeholders and helping them change from a “sage on the stage” mentality to one where they look for engagement opportunities. 

What can you envision doing in the future?

There are so many things I would like to do!  To list a few:

-Use my new knowledge to create engaging human factors courses (hopefully at the University level)! 

-Help redesign or design courses to support engagement and active learning (act as an instructional designer)!

-Mentor instructors in instructional techniques!

-Develop professional development mini-courses for instructors!

-Explore e-learning software!

-Finally, spend more time with my kids and husband!  This year has been fantastic, but they have been incredibly supportive of me working weekends and evenings to complete it.  Now they deserve more of my time and focus!

So, next, it’s time for family, some camping and more exploration and learning at a little more leisurely pace!    

Thank you to all of my fellow students!  It was a pleasure learning with you!

References:

Kotter, J. P. et. al. (2012). Leading Change : Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review, (June).

Sclater, N., Peasgood, A., & Mullan, J. (2016). Learning Analytics in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1002/aehe.20121

Weaver, L.A.  (2018, February 11).  Personal leadership – assignment 1 LRNT 525.  [blog post].  Retrieved from https://malat-webspace.royalroads.ca/rru0037/personal-leadership-assignment-1-lrnt525/

Personal Reflections – Project Management – Unit 3, Activity 1

Lorri 4 Comments

Last summer I assumed a new role as Airworthiness Training Team Lead. My section (in conjunction with a contractor and the learning technology section) was at the tail end of completing a 3-hour distance learning course introducing the basic concepts of airworthiness. As I was new to the job, I was briefed on where we were in the project (making modifications based on feedback from a pilot course) and what still needed to be completed (translation and implementation in French). Within several months, we had finished the modifications to the course following our initial pilot and were ready to “soft-launch” the course (a “hard-launch” where we actively advertise could only be completed once the course is available in both official languages).
We received positive feedback from most people that took the course, unfortunately some key specialists were not consulted on the course content during its creation. There were some personality conflicts between the specialists and my predecessor (which may have been why there was no consultation). These specialists were justifiably offended at not being consulted and upon review of the course, noted specific errors in the content. As the course had already been sent to translation, this required fixing and tracking the errors in the English version and fixing the errors in the French version after translation. In addition to these issues, the course was handed over to my section for maintenance as part of the original plan, but it was designed in a software version which initially had limited access. This caused delays in fixing the errors in the English version.
Conway, Masters and Thorold (2017) stress that it is important to understand the power dynamics in a system when you are completing a change. In retrospect, I should have completed a more thorough review of the project when I took it over to determine if there was anything that was initially overlooked. Although the project did have a project plan which included consulting specialists regarding the course content, somehow these particular specialists, key stakeholders in the project, were missed during the implementation. The project could not be successfully completed until the concerns of these key stakeholders were satisfied (A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide), 2017). To address these issues in the future, an additional person separate from the project team could be used to review the stakeholders to ensure that no key stakeholders were missed.
Additionally, it was not recognized when our section assumed responsibility for the course maintenance that we did not yet have access to the required version of the software the course was written in. This was the closure of that phase of the project and transfer to on-going operations and should not have occurred until the transition could be completed successfully (PMBOK guide, 2017). Termed “Evergreening” by Norman (2017), a plan for ongoing upkeep and maintenance of online courseware is required. In the future, the courseware files should be shared prior to the transfer of responsibility so that our section can verify that we have all of the files and can access and modify them.
Despite these issues, the course is already enabling new personnel to immediately learn the basics of airworthiness wherever they are stationed and most students have responded to course surveys with positive feedback. So, although there have been some lessons learned from the project as described above, it is meeting the goals and vision for the project.
References:
A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide). (2017) (6th ed.). Newton Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Conway, R., Masters, J., & Thorold, J. (2017). From Design Thinking to Systems Change, (July), 32. Retrieved from https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/reports/rsa_from-design-thinking-to-system-change-report.pdf
Norman, D. A. (2017). Lessons learned : AV systems design in the Taylor Institute. [blog post]. Retrieved from https://darcynorman.net/2017/03/11/lessons-learned-av-systems-design-in-the-taylor-institute/