Time Flies!

This will be my last post for Programming Planning in Adult Education.   It seems like the time
between starting the course in January to now has flown by.  A lot has happened both professionally and personally during this period of time.

I was not very keen on having to blog as part of the course but I have realized that it is an effective way for students to reflect on course materials and to communicate with each other while
learning in a distance education environment.   I have enjoyed reading the posts of my classmates over the last few months.

As I reflect on my learning from the course I am motivated to work (in the immediate future) on three areas back in my workplace where a part of my job is developing workshops for adult learners:

1)       Learner Needs Assessment – In my opinion as an organization we are really good at assessing organizational needs to drive budgets, workshop development, and planning but we have not been very good at assessing learner needs.   Moving forward I would
like to evaluate learner needs and determine if we are properly meeting their
needs and what changes can be made or additional education workshops we should be
offering to meet our learners needs.

2)      Program Objectives – I have realized that I could do a better job at setting learning
objectives.  I set objectives at the beginning of the workshop but I think that moving forward I will set objectives at the beginning of each module and an objective before learning activities so that learners have a better understanding of the desired outcomes and are less likely to “get lost” in the information.

3)      Program Evaluation – as mentioned in one of my previous blogs program evaluation is
something that has not been done well.   Program evaluation was not thought of until after the workshop was developed and we scrambled and took an evaluation sheet from our internal HR department.  We are having participants complete evaluations but the information we get is irrelevant.  Currently we are operating under the
assumption that since people are attending our workshops and seem happy when
they leave we are doing a good job.  Currently the only evaluation information we
use is enrolment.

I am going to do a personal review of what I think would be helpful from the evaluations (and I plan on using the text book as a resource) and I also plan on meeting with our
organizations executive to evaluate what they would like to see from
evaluations (besides the number of attendees).  

So far I have enjoyed my learning journey in Program Planning and Evaluation and I have gained some useful tools that I will use in my workplace.   

Personally I find online learning difficult but due to life circumstances it is the format that works best for me.  With this course I did really enjoy the detailed course outline week by week it helped me stay on track and engaged in the course material.  

I also like having multiple assignments throughout the course this also helped
me remain up to date with my reading and learning and also provided me with
feedback on my learning.

I am now off to work on the final assignment.

Thank you!

Inspired

Sometimes day to day activities at work and school bog me down and I loose perspective.  Last weekend I was a student in a workshop through the CACE program and I had the privilege of chatting with one of my classmates who reminded me why I feel passionate about adult education and the importance that it can have on some one's life.

The individual I spoke to had a change in life circumstances which resulted in him no longer being physically capable of doing the work that he had done since he was 16 years old.  An organization similar to the one that I work for has able to assist him with identifying new occupational goals, worked with him at identifying his strengths and weaknesses, and are now working in partnership with adult education programs with the end goal of him finding employment in a new occupation at 45 years of age. 

My discussion with this individual reminded me as to why I am taking the CACE program - I want to improve my knowledge so that I can work with people such as him and develop programs to help them achieve their goals while going through a difficult period in life.   I think that adult education is such an important component to helping people continue to realize their potential and successes.   

Reflecting on Program Evaluation

I just finished the section on program evaluation.  I must agree that evaluation is a process that must be considered and planned at the begining of the program.  Although I agree with this statement I am also guilty of making program evaluation an after thought (me being honest).

We invested a lot of resources in the workshop I was a part of developing but then just before the launch we thought "how are we going to evaluate this?"  I had no idea (to be honest) and under a time crunch I scrambled and got a form from our HR department used for staff training.  We have been using this form for a year now and the information is not useful at all.

I am now commited to developing a more appropriate form that will provide me with useful information to adjust the workshop to better meet learner needs.


We do have to report feedback to our executive but I think the only number that they are concerned with are the number of enrolled participants.  

I think a starting point will be to meet with the executive responsible for my department and ask her what type of information that they would find useful.

It is amazing how fast time flies!

Response

Tammy, in response to your comment. (I am not sure why I cant respond to your comment so I am responding with a new post).

I was hired for my role based on my technical knowledge not based on my knowledge of adult learning or developing effective workshops.  

The first workshop I developed was launched three years ago.  As I have learned the workshop has evolved.   It is interesting to look back on how far it has come over three years.  It is a work in progress. 

A workshop that I took through the CACE program at U of M was Delivering Dynamic Workshops.  It is an optional 2 day workshop.  At the time I registered for this workshop I was struggling.  I knew that I wanted to have an interactive workshop but I was not sure how to make it interactive and meaningful for the participants.  This workshop helped me out tremendously it came at the perfect time.  I was able to implement some of the learning activities. 

To answer your question yes there were a lot anxiety producing moments! 

Great instructional plans = great workshops

When I was hired to develop educational workshops for the organization I work for I had no formal training in adult education and training.   My organization is famous for putting together full day power point slide shows and they force adults to sit and listen.  Not surprisingly this method was not effective in changing behavior. 

Developing instructional plans I believe is what sets apart a boring workshop with participants not engaged from an engaging workshop that leaves participants inspired to implement the material in their lives and workplaces.  I also believe this what sets apart a workshop that was developed by a skilled facilitator versus someone who is simply a subject matter expert. 

Ensuring the delivery of a workshop meets the needs of learners you as a facilitator have to understand those needs and have access to resources on how to meet those needs.  Developing an appropriate instructional plan takes time and skill. 

Well developed instructional plans leads to engaged participants who leave the room feeling energetic and inspired to action.

Bill Strickland Video

I finally had a chance to view the Bill Strickland video on Ted.com. 

I my opinion Bill Strickland is an inspiration to us working in Adult Education   He provides me with a real life example of what is possible when you believe in a cause, have passion, and are willing to involve a city in making a great facility for adult learning.

I took away three main themes from the video.

1)  Change the way people see themselves before you change their behavior.
2)  The importance of forming partnerships.
3)  Act on your dreams in case they do come true.

The facility that Bill Strickland founded in Pennsylvania is leading edge and I hope that corporate and government leaders see this as well.  Often times in our community when working with people with disadvantaged backgrounds the facilities that we work with are also often disadvantaged.  

Needs Assessment

I just read the section on individual needs
assessments. 

In the organization I work for it is my opinion that we do a
poor job of assessing learner needs prior to developing a training
program. 

The need for training programs is typically identified
through an organizational need.  Dollars
are assigned for training when an organizational need is identified.  The training program is developed and then
individual needs are assessed and training materials are adjusted accordingly.

I think that we are doing a poor job by not spending more time
assessing individual  learner needs prior
to spending dollars on developing training programs.