Students in the online EDUCAUSE Institute Management Program came into the program to enhance their management skills and came away with a newfound empathy for the students and faculty they support.
How do you move a traditional in-person professional development program online and still offer the same or better overall experience? Be agile. We participated in the first online EDUCAUSE Institute Management Program and offer our perspectives on the experience. By being agile, the faculty and staff were able to adapt and make changes throughout the program to ensure students were successful. Career IT professionals traditionally manage the tools that help facilitate online instruction but may not often experience using those tools as students. We enrolled in the EDUCAUSE Institute Management Program to enhance our management skills and came away with a newfound empathy for the students and faculty we support.
The EDUCAUSE Institute Management Program launched online in June 2020 and ran for nine weeks; nearly forty students participated in the program. Weekly one-hour live sessions enhanced written assignments, discussions, and group projects. Many online classes have twenty or more students, so for scalability, three faculty from EDUCAUSE led the discussions. We received faculty feedback on assignments that was relevant and personal. The personalized feedback, coupled with the authentic interactions and dialogue during our live sessions, made this program even more meaningful. As students, we found this experience to be very different from a massive open online course (MOOC), which typically only provides one-sided communication. In other words, in order to scale to the size of a MOOC, class communications are more often broadcast to students, leaving little room for engaging dialogue.
Two EDUCAUSE staff members ensured that the program ran smoothly, learning what worked well and what did not and making adjustments to the resources as students and faculty went through the course. The agility and flexibility of the faculty and staff ensured the success of the program.
Program Design
The online EDUCAUSE Institute Management Program was very different from and delivered far more than we expected, and we hope that our experiences and insights help future students know what to expect so they can get the most out of the program.
The instructors told us that the online version of the Management Program was initially developed more than a year ago. It had not simply been thrown together in response to the pandemic. It had already been designed as an alternative offering to the in-person program. The online program was finalized just as COVID-19 became widespread.
The suggested time commitment for the program was originally five to ten hours per week; however, some students spent more time with the coursework. We found that you get out of the program what you put into it. With everything else going on at work and in people's personal lives, we had to use our time-management skills to ensure that we gained all that we wanted to from the program.
The in-person version of the management program is very time-intensive and takes place over four days. The instructors wanted to maintain opportunities for personal contact in the online version. To do so, they scheduled "happy hours" where the students and instructors were free to discuss anything. The most effective happy hours were the ones that followed the live sessions because the momentum from the session continued in an informal setting.
One of the biggest benefits of the course was personal contact with other managers and directors outside of our home institutions. Modules like financial management and team development provided us with the opportunity to improve our skills in a variety of areas.
We had to schedule group project work and meetings with time zones in mind. We also used the Canvas app to look at the class calendar and get notifications on our smartphones.
Instructors and Staff
The experience and knowledge of the faculty and the solid foundation they built for us were two of the largest contributors to the success of this program. Every module included a wide variety of videos and reading materials curated by the faculty. We were not required to read or view everything that was made available. As we discovered during our live interactions with other students, many of us were able to choose some materials based on our individual needs, backgrounds, and experiences.
In addition, the faculty made "course corrections" throughout the program, such as expanding tool choices for uploading videos, adjusting assignment deadlines, and breaking large meetings into smaller, more personal meeting groups. The flexibility of the faculty and their willingness to accommodate the needs of students underscored their commitment to helping students complete the program successfully and on time and maintaining the EDUCAUSE reputation for high-quality program delivery.
The realistic approach adopted by the faculty also contributed to our learning experience—professionally and programmatically. Module topics included professional ethics, project prioritization, budget reductions, and team building, among others. Each competency related to the real-world issues that we all contend with in our professional lives and that have been made even more complex because of the current pandemic.
Every student in the Management Program came from a different background and had different training—from newer managers to experienced managers to directors. The Management Program faculty and staff did a great job of meeting students where they were.
The structure of the live sessions, discussions, and activities were very beneficial because there was no one single style of learning activity. We didn't get a "boring" quiz bank at each session. Instead, we worked through breakout sessions, discussions, and projects. One real-world example consisted of a budget-cut activity. Because we were able to deeply apply what we learned in the exercises to the work we are doing in our jobs, the material had a lasting impact. The teamwork also provided a rich experience. Team members came from different institutions and environments, which provided the opportunity for participants to learn from a variety of perspectives.
Empathizing with Faculty and Students
Classes are increasingly moving online, including professional development courses,1 and we wanted this blog post to be more than just a "Yelp review" of the EDUCAUSE Institute Management Program.
We began the Management Program expecting to enhance our management skills, and we came away empathizing with the effort and journey of moving courses online for faculty and students.
Another thing that we took away from this course was that it took a team of five people to run a program for forty students. Moving faculty and students to online teaching and learning is a team effort. It's not something that can be done alone. IT professionals and support staff must work with faculty in creative ways. As IT support professionals, this is important for us to understand. We now see that moving forward together will require innovation and that patience and grace will be needed as we support this new reality.
Looking to the Future
This EDUCAUSE Institute Management Program faculty and staff did an excellent job of engaging us in an online course, regardless of the pandemic. We need to embrace going to online instruction; it is becoming the new reality even if for the short term.
The lessons learned from this course informed our roles in IT support positions like system and database administrators. We need to remember to be patient and bring all of the tools in our toolbox to support the faculty and staff at our home institutions. We found that the Management Program was the most successful when faculty and staff shifted to meet the needs of the students. It helped us to grapple with how we can engage students and faculty who may be hundreds of miles away or in remote locations and using a tiny desktop screen with less-than-ideal connections and hardware.
For more information about enhancing your skills as a higher education IT manager and leader, please visit the EDUCAUSE Review Professional Development Commons blog as well as the EDUCAUSE Career Development page.
The PD Commons blog encourages submissions. Please submit your ideas to [email protected].
Note
- Melody Bucker, "Pivoting Professional Development through the Framework of Digital Transformation," The Professional Development Commons (blog), EDUCAUSE Review, June 29, 2020. ↩
Sara Baber is the Director for Distance Learning in the Texas A&M College of Geosciences.
Barry Chiu is a System Administrator Team Lead at Northwestern University Information Technology's Platform Services.
Austin Halliday is the Chief Technology Officer at Lubbock Christian University.
Cory Hearnsberger is an IT Manager for Texas A&M Engineering Information Technology.
© 2020 Sara Baber, Barry Chiu, Austin Halliday, and Cory Hearnsberger. The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 International License.