A Successful Faculty Development Program for Effective LMS Implementation

This webinar is part of our OLC Innovate 2021 Best-in-Track (Blended Teaching and Learning) summer webinar series!

The most significant investment educational institutions invest in to support online teaching is the Learning Management System (LMS). Yet, for all the investment, the use of LMS features is inconsistent among faculty and the degree of integration with modern learning theories is small. As the need for remote/online teaching rises because of the COVID crisis, academic administrators require their faculty to structure and organize their course content effectively on their LMS and maintain the quality, social responsibility, and branding of their institutions. The challenge to administrators is essentially how to increase the value of an LMS investment by increasing faculty usage of the LMS in a manner that is beneficial to optimizing student learning. The challenge also is how to provide a design framework for faculty development that is both relevant to what the faculty teaches and that is scalable. Based on a need’s analysis from a Design Research Project to increase faculty technology use, the most important factor related to faculty improper use of LMS was how to merge technology with their content and pedagogy [i.e. even if they knew how to use the technology, they did not know how to merge it with pedagogy and their subject matter]. Therefore, I recommend a faculty development practice for effective use of LMS using the TPACK Model (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge). The training approach uses the 3 pieces of the TPACK model (Technology, Pedagogy and Content) to develop asynchronous modules, perform workshops, and develop instructional materials. 

In this webinar, I share how to apply the TPACK Model to help faculty use LMS effectively and I also share data on a successful faculty development program that took place at Southern California University of Health Sciences during Fall 2020 using this approach. This institution-wide program was an effort to help faculty design and build high-quality online courses by making effective use of the LMS. The program was titled ‘Optimizing Canvas for Student Learning”  

During this 1-hour webinar, the attendees will accomplish the following: 

  1. Apply the TPACK model for LMS training at your own institutions 
  2. Use data on usage and effectiveness from faculty to design and develop faculty development programs and LMS training models at your own institutions 
  3. Design and Develop faculty development programs for effective LMS implementation at your own institutions 
Speaker Bio
 
Dr. Swati Ramani
Director of Faculty Development & Curriculum Management – Southern California University of Health Sciences

Swati Ramani serves as the Director of Faculty Development & Curriculum Management at Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCUHS). As Director, she develops and oversees the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence (CFDE). Some of her key areas of focus at work involve: designing and developing online courses with faculty for the new online programs internally and with an outsourced instructional design firm, performing faculty development on technology and pedagogy/andragogy topics, and supporting and leading the curriculum management integration with Curriculog.

Swati’s background includes over 8 years of experience in the field of Instructional Design and Educational Technologies. Prior to joining SCUHS, she was working at The College of New Jersey, located in Ewing, NJ, where she helped and supported faculty to design and develop online courses and integrate technology into their teaching practices. Previously, she has worked in several roles related to instructional design and technology services at The Getty Leadership Institute, Pitzer College, Pomona College, and Claremont Graduate University, all located in Claremont, California. Throughout her roles, she has worked closely with a variety of faculty to develop effective solutions for online course development and also helped instructional design and technology support teams develop faculty professional development opportunities that provide effective solutions and easy operations for online course delivery.