Leveraging a BOLD transformation forced upon us
Channel: eCampusOntario
Date: 2020-10-30

Before COVID-19, faculty enthusiasm towards eLearning was curbed by competing demands on their time, limited training, and lack of incentives. Since the pandemic, however, every instructor has been forced to teach remotely. At York University’s Teaching and Learning Centre, what was a poorly attended course aimed to assist instructors in gaining practical experience with the pedagogy, planning, and hands-on production involved in designing and assessing eLearning activities, became an overnight hit. 

The course, entitled the BOLD Institute – for Blended and Online Learning Development – was purposely redesigned and redeveloped under the aegis of 'inspiring action to make an impact' in the fastest, most effective, and most supportive way possible, almost like a boot camp for change agents. The course fuses two main areas of expertise (pedagogy and technology) to address faculty needs in two areas of eLearning practice (online facilitation and content authoring) by building capacity in both understanding of broad academic theory and its practical application in focused action. It humanizes the difficult transition educators were forced to make amidst COVID-19 in that it adopts a project-oriented framework to facilitate an enriched learning experience in which instructors work together. While gaining and understanding of a concept or model, they use the concept/model to build a learning object/lesson, metacognitively reflect on their learning experience from the perspectives of both student and instructor, and turn the feedback and the reflections into improvement in the next phase of development.

In this show and tell session, presenters will describe how they took this pre-existing course, turned it around, and used it as a launch platform for institution-wide action that would focus efforts to renew and expand online learning. The presentation will showcase the learning objects faculty members have developed since this spring through partaking in the BOLD Institute. The audience will gain practical tips and solutions on how to implement rapid capacity building in an institutionalized setting to capitalize on the opportunity COVID-19 has created for eLearning development. The presenters will also invite attendees to share their experiences so far. They believe the education community can use the current impetus for change to move from makeshift remote teaching to an intentional eLearning transformation where the instructor is the instrument of change.