Completing the Puzzle of Professional Development

Concurrent Session 10

Brief Abstract

Transitioning to new technology requires robust PD for faculty.  This presentation will discuss a medical school's transition to a new LMS and provide insight into differing faculty personas and the puzzle pieces that go into making any PD plan a success. Benefits, drawbacks, and audience experiences will also be discussed.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Linda Macaulay, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Dr. Linda Macaulay is an instructional designer with HJF in support of the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (Bethesda, MD). She has over 15 years of experience teaching in online, blended, and traditional higher education programs. Before coming to the university, she was an Assistant Director of Instructional Technology, she taught graduate and undergraduate educational technology courses and was also an elementary teacher for eleven years. Her background in leadership for change, technology, and learning theory provides a broad base of knowledge to support faculty as they work to enhance their face-to-face, blended, and online courses with innovative teaching strategies and technology. She states that she is a "teacher first, techie second" because it is good teaching and course design that makes all the difference for student success. She lives in Landisville, PA with her son and pets and enjoys listening to Kenny Roger's music and spending time with her family to unplug and recharge. Look for her around the OLC Conference buzzing about in her red mobility scooter!

Co-presenter: Karen Marcellas, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Dr. Marcellas has more than fifteen years of experience in designing instruction for classroom-based, DL and blended learning environments. Her main role at the ETI is ensuring that the team understands faculty members’ needs, and that the team designs and develops products that meet those needs. Her work at the ETI has included front-end analysis, content design, course evaluation, and conducting research on instructional interventions. She has led professional development sessions at USU on topics including the development of effective learning objectives, the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy to guide assessment, and techniques for creating an effective learning environment. Dr. Marcellas has been involved with many instructional and educational technology initiatives at National Defense University (NDU) as well as USUHS. Dr. Marcellas is the co-author of "Instructional Designers and Learning Engineers", a chapter in the book "Modernizing Learning: Building the Future Learning Ecosystem." She has made presentations at numerous national and international conferences, including the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, the Association of American Medical Colleges Annual Meeting, the Online Learning Consortium Accelerate Conference, the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference, the Open Apereo (Sakai) Conference, Educause, the IC Industry Consortium on Learning Engineering Conference (ICICLE), and the Association for Advancement of Computing in Education's E-Learn and EdMedia Conferences.

Co-presenter: Dina Kurzweil, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Dr. Kurzweil is the Director of the ETI and has worked at USU since 2006. In this capacity, she provides strategic direction for the ETI, instructional and educational technology support for faculty, supervision of ETI personnel, and management of the ETI office. Prior to that, she worked at the National Defense University providing direction and vision of the instructional team supporting the Center for Educational Technology. She also is a faculty member in the Health Professions Education program at USU. She has served on numerous committees and task forces examining a wide range of topics including educational technologies, inter-professional education, professional development for K12 and higher education faculty, learning management systems, program assessment and evaluation, instructional design, and teaching/faculty support paradigms. Dr. Kurzweil has presented at international, national, and regional conferences, including American Educational Research Association (AERA), multiple conferences offered by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference (I/ITSEC), the Open Apereo (Sakai) Conference and AAMC.

Extended Abstract

Transitioning to a new LMS and the increased technology needs of teaching through a pandemic meant that faculty needed robust professional development to increase their comfort levels with the available technology. This session will discuss the different types of professional development we designed to meet diverse needs of faculty at a military medical school, and explore the benefits of offering different types of professional development resulting in a robust learning environment for faculty. We will share the personas we used to make decisions about the different types of PD offered. We will also examine the successes and challenges of offering professional development including: Brown bags on teaching with technology, micro-learning videos about the learning management system features and tools, drop-in sessions for faculty, 1:1 faculty support for content design, content review and media design, and intranet resources for anytime learning. Finally, we will explore the data gathered about the usage of the different puzzle pieces, and our analysis of that data.  Attendees will have the opportunity to share their own strategies and success stories regarding faculty professional development during the session. 

 

References:

Bowler, C., Foshee, C., Haggar, F., Simpson, D., Schroedl, C., & Billings, H. (2021). Got 15? Try Faculty Development on the Fly: A Snippets Workshop for Microlearning. MedEdPORTAL : the journal of teaching and learning resources, 17, 11161. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11161

Salajegheh M. (2021). Organizational impact of faculty development programs on the medical teacher's competencies. Journal of education and health promotion, 10, 430. https://doi.org/10.4103/jehp.jehp_122_21

Steinert, Y., Mann, K., Anderson, B., Barnett, B. M., Centeno, A., Naismith, L., Prideaux, D., Spencer, J., Tullo, E., Viggiano, T., Ward, H., & Dolmans, D. (2016). A systematic review of faculty development initiatives designed to enhance teaching effectiveness: A 10-year update: BEME Guide No. 40. Medical teacher, 38(8), 769–786. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2016.1181851. Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27420193/