My training organization has a good problem. We are beginning to develop classes that are in too much demand. In fact, for one very popular and much needed topic we have staff requesting the course from 5 different manufacturing sites located around the country.
The challenge is getting that training to everyone who needs it. The course content is technical enough that we only have qualified instructors and subject experts at a few sites. Can you imagine our dilemma? Here we are a rapidly growing corporation, and we cannot distribute critical knowledge to all sites. We tried having our few qualified instructors travel to requesting sites, but travel is becoming too expensive and time consuming.
Even within sites that have instructors, there is a tremendous costs with pulling staff out of work and planting them in a classroom for 2 days. And what happens if that instructor is too busy for when the training is needed? The organization is out-of-luck.
For my action research, I am looking at an exciting new instructional approach to solve this problem. It involves delivering instruction live over the internet. This is sometimes called online synchronous delivery, and for my research involves using web-conferencing technology. The best part is that this technology is already in use at our company (called WebEx), we only need to apply it to training. Another great plus is that students can take this training from their own computer. All they need is internet connection and a phone.
I am using three phases (or cycles) to apply and research this delivery method. Since this approach live instruction, I decided the first cycle should involve having instructors learn how to effectively facilitate online delivery. I conducted a online class using our web-conferencing tool WebEx. Each of our instructors had an opportunity to learn the online tool and practice delivery.
For my second cycle we instructed our first global online class. We delivered to students located at three sites. An existing course and materials were used for this session. We made only minor alterations to taylor the course for online delivery. The course was broken into six, one-hour sessions, and delivered over several weeks. I measured the effectiveness of the approach by comparing test scores with the same course taught in traditional face-to-face settings. I also interviewed many of the students to get their feedback. The results were very encouraging!
Currently, I am conducting my third cycle. I decided to use the same course topic. However, this time I have students attending from all 5 sites. I made other changes. I decided to use a different instructor, one who I believe will bring more energy and interaction to the course. I am also adding a major activity that will allow students to a deliver a portion of the instruction. We will see if this activity makes the course more learner-centered, and result in greater involvement and interaction.
I should have all the results available in a few weeks. It will be very interesting to see if this approach becomes an exciting new way of distributing knowledge to our staff around the globe.
