The Dilemma
I’m a civil servant working for the Department of the Navy as an instructor trainer. A trainer’s main objective is to help prospective instructors gain the basic skills necessary to be effective on-ground communicators. The course seats twenty-four using an Automated Electronic Classroom (AEC) and lasts for two weeks while running concurrently with a sister program having the same objective. A staff of three is assigned to help each group of learners achieve the objective, and when this is accomplished after ten days, the cycle begins all over again. The curriculum’s pace is very fast, and remains so for the staff throughout the year with very few breaks and even fewer chances to catch up on quality training. To the instructor training staff, quality training is defined as knowledge and information that will allow each staff member, especially during phases of student evaluation, to provide much of the same type feedback. This article will take a look at various ways a close-knit busy staff can train online to the mutual benefit of those involved.
Social Capital and Training
The collective knowledge and skills of a few on-ground instructor trainers creates a powerful network of professionals that can help guide a large group of learners toward the course objective; similar to but not exactly the way skilled officers influence traffic. The instructor training school being referred to is run using a self-paced, computer-based format. The learners convene in an AEC, each having their own computer workstation with Internet and Intranet connections. Individually, the course content is studied online in conjunction with hard copy resources. Once basic instructor knowledge has been constructed, the learners gather in smaller groups in order to convert their new knowledge into skills. At this point the staff role switches from classroom facilitator to laboratory evaluator.
A substantial amount of social capital is needed to create a successful laboratory environment. Social capital can generally be defined as influence derived from the amount of time, energy and resources shared by individuals to the benefit of the community (Putnam, 2000). In the laboratory mentioned above, collaboration is high between learner and staff member, according to Narayan and Pritchett (1997) frequent interaction between staff and learner is a sign of the need to maintain high social capital. Repeated interaction cultivates norms of exchange through which participants become more willing to help one another, which in turn improves coordination and dissemination of information and expert knowledge (Narayan and Pritchett, 1997). Social capital builds from continuous interaction between learner and staff and also from the cooperation of each staff member with one another.
The training organization’s creditability is sustained by staff members who make it a common cause to know the same things. The more staff members are “working from the same page†when it comes to instructing and evaluating learners, the greater the amount of trust that is built. Trust is created not only between individual staff members, but also between the staff as a whole and the learners. The building of confidence is an aspect of social capital that affects the entire culture in a positive way. Putnam (2000) observes that social capital greases the wheel that allows communities to run smoothly. For instance when people are trusting and trustworthy, and maintain continuous interaction, everyday business becomes more easy and enjoyable (Putnam, 2000). Finding a way to train an educational staff too busy to meet face-to-face is a capital idea that will help members keep up with the needs of learners through the sustained development of its practice.
Trusting Technology’s Tools to Conduct Training: Online Communities
For busy staff, continuing a culture of effective training online would be an excellent practice to adopt. Gray (2004) points out that online community could provide a virtual space where trainers both new and experienced could learn elements of their practice and gain insight into the meaning of their work. Her study further states that participants in the community of practice (CoP) thought that online technology “made their job easier†through interaction with subject matter experts. They basically learned through the sharing of stories and discussion of problems. They also “learned by lurking†and “picked up ideas†just by reading the online postings without ever contributing anything (Gray, 2004).
A practice of the instructor training staff during on-ground learner evaluations is to provide specific written and verbal feedback on the “live†use of course content. Some examples of classroom skills to be displayed by the learner are a) Using the basic functions of an electronic podium and SMART board, b) Following a lesson plan, c) The use of the 5-step questioning technique, and d) Controlling personal characteristics to include aspects of voice, eye contact, gesturing, and attitude. The wording of the lab grading-rubric is vague in many areas, which causes different staff members to evaluate the same learner differently. Online staff training is needed in order to make the questionable areas more clear by gaining further insight into the meaning of the work through shared best practice.
Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts
In reference to instructor training, gaining further insight into the work means descending closer to the forest in order to see the individual trees. Determining what staff does as a whole requires collaboration among the individual staff members to ascertain the details of the feedback given during labs. Knowing the specifics of the feedback given is the essence of staff “working from the same page†as mentioned earlier. In order to meet the needs of the training community, the use of Web 2.0 technology, or wikis, blogs, and podcasts, allow busy staff to literally work from the same page. Downes (2004), a leading expert on online learning, sees the use of open media such as blogs, podcasts, and wikis as the key to the future of learning. Blogs, wikis, and podcasts provide the capabilities to do a variation of the same functions. Most of these tools permit a) Creating and editing chunks of text, b) Making those chunks accessible to others on a Web page, c) Creating and editing comments about those chunks, d) Making those comments accessible on a Web page, e) Adding pictures, sound recordings, and other types of media files to some chunks, f) Organizing the chunks, g) Controlling who has access to the chunks, and h) Enabling people to receive notifications about new items or new modifications of old items (TLT Group, 2006).
Busy Instructor Training School could improve staff performance by reinforcing face-to-face training with online training using technology’s tools; blogs, wikis, and podcasts would each serve a training function in line with its distinctive characteristics. A blog would fulfill the general training requirement by acting as an online journal in which staff could reflect on their perceptions of the training material and on their own learning process. Schwartz (2004) adds that wikis
can provide an efficient, flexible, user-friendly interface for collaboration, staff interaction, and knowledge creation. For staff members who are not strong writers podcasts could be used to record thoughts on a PC or mobile phone, and consequently add to it and edit the recording, and then post it.
As in face-to-face training environments online training should have someone to manage or facilitate the exchange of ideas. When ambiguity arises during debate over a particular practice, there is a need for someone with subject matter expertise who is vested with authority to make a final decision. Gray (2004) also suggests that organizations planning to develop online communities of practice should use a moderator. Effective moderation helps to carry the community through the expected give and take of interactivity and to facilitate the learning that is the critical part of the experience. Key characteristics of a moderator include technical competence, understanding community building, being learning oriented, and having enough knowledge of the practice to be credible (Gray, 2004).
Conclusion
Blogs, wikis, and podcasts allow busy staff to train frequently by moving their community of practice online. The author is not suggesting that technology should be used to take the place of traditional face-to-face training, but it can be used to help keep busy staff up-to-date, and as a knowledge archive also. Technology’s tools can be utilized for more than just “dumping†knowledge into a placeholder to be mulled over and commented on at the learner’s convenience, but they can be used to sustain the efforts of the on-ground community online.
About the author
Bervin Smythe is an instructor trainer to adults in the military who are seeking to become onground instructors. His interest in online learning came about when online coursework began to expand several years ago. He holds a MA in Education, Guidance and Counseling, a graduate certificate in Online Teaching and Learning, and is currently working on his MS in Education, Online Teaching & Learning at California State University East Bay in Hayward, CA.
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California State University, East Bay
EDU 6707 History/Culture Of Online Learning
Professor Datta Kaur Khalsa