VILT & BLENDED
Many trainers and teachers are expected to shift between teaching virtually and in person, but these learning environments are not the same. They require complimentary but different skill sets. Training materials must also be designed to meet the needs of these different learning environments.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INCLUSIVE LEARNING PROGRAM
A small K-8 independent Waldorf school spent June and July 2020 remodeling classroom space and establishing new school protocols to comply with COVID-19 related county health department requirements. The expectation was that school would resume in person on campus in September. In August, the county health department informed the school that it would not be allowed to hold class on campus until the COVID-19 positivity rate fell below a newly-established threshold.
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To be prepared for all future health department requirements and evolving priorities and points of view amongst the students' families, teachers and staff, the school made a decision. It would meet the critical need for children to learn in person at school and respect individual health concerns while complying with all applicable regulations. It would enable children and teachers to have the option to attend school in person and remotely, throughout the school year, as their circumstances changed.
My role was to facilitate this inclusive learning program.
Responsibilities:
Distance Learning
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Acquired and re-conditioned devices for student and faculty loan program for distance learning
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Developed step-by-step instructions for device set-up, maintenance, and accessing Google Classroom. Provided live support for families and teachers to ensure high quality live-stream and access
Distance Teaching from Indoor and Outdoor Classrooms on Campus
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Acquired live-stream equipment (HD webcams, wireless microphones) and helped faculty learn how to use it to teach remote students from their indoor and outdoor classrooms
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Assisted with implementation of wi-fi system replacement to ensure needed bandwidth for multiple simultaneous live streams from school campus
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Helped faculty to develop strategies for teaching students in person in the classroom and via live-stream simultaneously (for children who could not return to campus after health department approval for in-person school resumption)
Distance Teaching From Home
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Designed and built media carts to allow faculty in mandatory quarantine to teach and interact with students who are on campus at school. Until February 2021, the county health department required anyone at school who had one illness symptom to quarantine at home for at least three days
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Ongoing Support
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Solved inclusive learning program-related problems, as needed
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Tools Used: Microsoft Office, Zoom
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Challenges and Solutions: The biggest challenges were extremely tight deadlines and difficulty in getting affordable equipment due to high demand from many other schools. The solution for time was careful, constant project management and task prioritization. The solution for equipment acquisition was a lot of internet shopping and locating all unused school devices and reconditioning them for the loan program.
SOFTWARE ONBOARDING
Clients who attended in-person software onboarding classes complained that the print materials were not useful. Trainers had been manually updating and printing PowerPoint handouts for each class, in part because of frequent software update-related course changes.
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I reviewed the course content, matched it with existing information and job aids within the help system and created an exportable pdf student guide. Because help system information is always up to date, clients now had a useful resource and trainers no longer needed to devote a lot of time to updating and printing handouts.
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Responsibilities: Instructional Design, help system print format design, content tagging, graphic design
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Tools Used: Madcap Flare, Photoshop, Acrobat DC
ELECTRICIAN TRAINEE BLENDED PROGRAM
Student electricians enroll in this four-year, 640 hour state approved continuing education program; they work as trainees during the day and attend VILT on two weekday evenings per week. Students attend a day-long, in person class once per quarter to practice hands-on skills.
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Responsibilities: Program design, instructional design, graphic design, QA and coordination of all instructor guides, student guides and presentation content, SME management, LMS implementation and management, copyrighted materials use facilitation, train the trainer
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Tools Used: Photoshop, Word, PowerPoint, Exam View, Adobe Connect, Remote Learner LMS, Educadium LMS
