Part II: Understanding The Problem
The Los Angeles Unified School District has devoted considerable human and economic resources towards developing the High School Leadership Take Action Campaign. The program has expanded from 16 after school programs in 2008-09 to 25 schools this year. It is hoped that it can be expanded next year to include all of the District’s 50 high school after-school programs. The students at each school organize a number of activities on their respective campus to promote student education about issues related to funding that the District receives for anti-smoking, anti-drug, and anti-violence education. The students also organize a talent show on their campuses in which students demonstrate artistic, dance, musical, poetic, and media arts talents. The winners at each campus perform in a final district-wide competition near the end of the school year.
To prepare students to organize and lead these activities, student leadership groups receive training at a number of activities throughout the year. These include single day trainings as well as weekend retreats at the District’s outdoor education center in the local mountains. A select group are also selected to attend a weeklong camp during the summer operated by the students of UCLA. To participate in any of these activities, field trip paperwork must be completed. The longer the trip, the more complicated the paperwork. To be fully prepared for any emergency situation that could arise, students’ paperwork must be completely accurate or they will not be allowed to go. The problem, however, is that in large organizations like LAUSD, training on such procedures is provided only periodically and usually only to the supervisors who will in turn assign its completion to site supervisors. Many times the site supervisors receive a packet of paperwork with no other instructions but to get it completed and turned in by the due date. Of course, in many cases, the paperwork is returned with errors and then the site supervisor has to scramble to get the documents corrected and resubmit them.
The current delivery system for training is not working. It is not realistic to offer face to face trainings for each activity. Therefore, a more practical solution would be to take advantage of video technology and create training modules that would take program staff through the paperwork for different activities step-by-step. While these training modules are not exactly like an online class, there are a number of elements from good e-learning practice that can ensure the training modules that will meet the needs of both program and district staff. Chickering and Gamson (1987) identify seven characteristics of good practice in instruction. The first four of their characteristics of good practice are relevant in ensuring quality outcomes in the proposed training: · encourages contact between students (site staff) and faculty (staff responsible for processing paperwork, · develops reciprocity and cooperation among students (allowing site staff to help their students understand the importance of
accurate paperwork · uses active learning techniques (so that site staff can learn to perform paperwork tasks and have immediate resources to
review process, · gives prompt feedback (so staff know that any questions and problems will receive prompt attention).
Garrison and Anderson (2003) have developed the theory of Community of Inquiry that suggests that there are three components that must be present for successful learning transactions in the e-learning environment: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. Garrison and Anderson (2003) define social presence as the as the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into a community of inquiry. For learners to have the confidence necessary to express themselves assumes that there is a climate that encourages questions and the contribution of ideas (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). Ideally, for these training modules, learners will feel comfortable in asking questions about the procedures and dealing with situations not addressed in the training. Likewise, they will receive prompt feedback from either district staff or peers who have dealt with similar situations.
Cognitive presence is defined as an environment that supports sustained discourse, knowledge acquisition, and application (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). In this respect, the modules and the corresponding videos which will take staff through the proper procedures to complete students’ paperwork will provide ample opportunities for staff to acquire both knowledge about the procedures and why they must be followed as well as a preparing them to use this knowledge in preparing for student trips.
Finally, there is the element of teacher presence. Garrison and Anderson (2003) see teaching presence as essential in identifying relevant knowledge, designing experiences that will foster discourse and reflection, and performing diagnosis and assessment. Because it is important that staff responsible for completing paperwork develop a relationship with the staff who process the paperwork, it is best if the persons who appear in the video are actually the staff members that field staff will be interfacing with. It is much more likely that a staff member with a question will feel much more comfortable addressing that question through the website, email, or phone contact with someone that they are familiar with. Also, because it is important for e-learning to be assessment centered in order to gauge its effectiveness and to determine ways in which the training can be made even better (Anderson, 2008).
Properly designed, the video modules will offer a way for site staff to develop the requisite skills to process student paperwork for trips and become proactive in seeking assistance when problems arise. It will also allow both new staff as well as current staff the opportunity to review procedures when they need to. They will not necessarily have to depend upon their supervisory staff to provide them with the understanding of what this aspect of their job entails. This should decrease the number of issues that district staff have with paperwork and reduce the amount of work and stress resulting on local site staff when paperwork is not processed correctly. References
Anderson, T. (2008). Toward a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), Theory and practice of online learning (Second ed., pp. 45-61). Edmonton: Athabasca University
Press.
Chickering, A., & Gamson, Z. (1987, March). Seven principles for good practice in
undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin .
Garrison, D., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st Century: A framework for research and practice. New York: Routledge Falmer.
The Los Angeles Unified School District has devoted considerable human and economic resources towards developing the High School Leadership Take Action Campaign. The program has expanded from 16 after school programs in 2008-09 to 25 schools this year. It is hoped that it can be expanded next year to include all of the District’s 50 high school after-school programs. The students at each school organize a number of activities on their respective campus to promote student education about issues related to funding that the District receives for anti-smoking, anti-drug, and anti-violence education. The students also organize a talent show on their campuses in which students demonstrate artistic, dance, musical, poetic, and media arts talents. The winners at each campus perform in a final district-wide competition near the end of the school year.
To prepare students to organize and lead these activities, student leadership groups receive training at a number of activities throughout the year. These include single day trainings as well as weekend retreats at the District’s outdoor education center in the local mountains. A select group are also selected to attend a weeklong camp during the summer operated by the students of UCLA. To participate in any of these activities, field trip paperwork must be completed. The longer the trip, the more complicated the paperwork. To be fully prepared for any emergency situation that could arise, students’ paperwork must be completely accurate or they will not be allowed to go. The problem, however, is that in large organizations like LAUSD, training on such procedures is provided only periodically and usually only to the supervisors who will in turn assign its completion to site supervisors. Many times the site supervisors receive a packet of paperwork with no other instructions but to get it completed and turned in by the due date. Of course, in many cases, the paperwork is returned with errors and then the site supervisor has to scramble to get the documents corrected and resubmit them.
The current delivery system for training is not working. It is not realistic to offer face to face trainings for each activity. Therefore, a more practical solution would be to take advantage of video technology and create training modules that would take program staff through the paperwork for different activities step-by-step. While these training modules are not exactly like an online class, there are a number of elements from good e-learning practice that can ensure the training modules that will meet the needs of both program and district staff. Chickering and Gamson (1987) identify seven characteristics of good practice in instruction. The first four of their characteristics of good practice are relevant in ensuring quality outcomes in the proposed training:
· encourages contact between students (site staff) and faculty (staff responsible for processing paperwork,
· develops reciprocity and cooperation among students (allowing site staff to help their students understand the importance of
accurate paperwork
· uses active learning techniques (so that site staff can learn to perform paperwork tasks and have immediate resources to
review process,
· gives prompt feedback (so staff know that any questions and problems will receive prompt attention).
Garrison and Anderson (2003) have developed the theory of Community of Inquiry that suggests that there are three components that must be present for successful learning transactions in the e-learning environment: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. Garrison and Anderson (2003) define social presence as the as the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into a community of inquiry. For learners to have the confidence necessary to express themselves assumes that there is a climate that encourages questions and the contribution of ideas (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). Ideally, for these training modules, learners will feel comfortable in asking questions about the procedures and dealing with situations not addressed in the training. Likewise, they will receive prompt feedback from either district staff or peers who have dealt with similar situations.
Cognitive presence is defined as an environment that supports sustained discourse, knowledge acquisition, and application (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). In this respect, the modules and the corresponding videos which will take staff through the proper procedures to complete students’ paperwork will provide ample opportunities for staff to acquire both knowledge about the procedures and why they must be followed as well as a preparing them to use this knowledge in preparing for student trips.
Finally, there is the element of teacher presence. Garrison and Anderson (2003) see teaching presence as essential in identifying relevant knowledge, designing experiences that will foster discourse and reflection, and performing diagnosis and assessment. Because it is important that staff responsible for completing paperwork develop a relationship with the staff who process the paperwork, it is best if the persons who appear in the video are actually the staff members that field staff will be interfacing with. It is much more likely that a staff member with a question will feel much more comfortable addressing that question through the website, email, or phone contact with someone that they are familiar with. Also, because it is important for e-learning to be assessment centered in order to gauge its effectiveness and to determine ways in which the training can be made even better (Anderson, 2008).
Properly designed, the video modules will offer a way for site staff to develop the requisite skills to process student paperwork for trips and become proactive in seeking assistance when problems arise. It will also allow both new staff as well as current staff the opportunity to review procedures when they need to. They will not necessarily have to depend upon their supervisory staff to provide them with the understanding of what this aspect of their job entails. This should decrease the number of issues that district staff have with paperwork and reduce the amount of work and stress resulting on local site staff when paperwork is not processed correctly.
References
Anderson, T. (2008). Toward a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), Theory and
practice of online learning (Second ed., pp. 45-61). Edmonton: Athabasca University
Press.
Chickering, A., & Gamson, Z. (1987, March). Seven principles for good practice in
undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin .
Garrison, D., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st Century: A framework for research
and practice. New York: Routledge Falmer.