My colleagues, Sheri Rawls, Chad Seals, and myself gave this presentation at the 2011 Creating Futures Through Technology Conference in March. We spoke about the consortium agreement between The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) and the Mississippi Virtual Community College (MSVCC). This agreement allows USM students enrolled in a fully online program to have access to additional online general education courses offered by MSVCC, and not currently offered online through USM. This presentation included a discussion about what lead to this agreement, benefits, and lessons learned after piloting for one semester. The presentation also included discussion of where they see the future of online going for USM.
My colleague, Sheri Rawls, and myself gave this presentation at the 2010 Creating Futures Through Technology Conference in March. We spoke about the e-learning initiative The University of Southern Mississippi has undertaken to increase student and faculty satisfaction in our online programs as well as improve enrollment, retention, and graduation rates. This is an ongoing project that will continue to improve our online programs. The project included 5 main workstreams: Faculty Development, Course Development, Change Management, Scheduling, and Financial Model. Through a partnership with Blackboard, we have been able to grow our online programs and ensure a satisfying experience for our online students.
To view our presentation, please click on the link below:
I find myself struggling to keep up. I like to try to keep up with research and material in my field, but with the podcasts, blogs, journal articles, social networking groups, and on and on, how do we has professionals keep up?
With all of the budget cuts and taking on more responsibilities, how do we manage to find time to pursue our own professional development? I think it is important to still set aside time to improve yourself and learn new things in your field. One of the ways that I accomplish this is by making sure that I block out the time on my calendar to attend my local ASTD meetings. These include professional development opportunities and give me the opportunity to network with other professionals outside my office. I also submit presentation proposals to local conferences. My work no longer has the money to pay for these, but I set aside my own money to go to local conferences because I think it is important for my own professional growth.
What are you doing in these hard times to ensure you still grow as a professional?
I recently completed the Training & Development Certificate Program offered through the Workforce Learning & Performance Institute at The University of Southern Mississippi. The program requires that you complete 84 hours of in-person hours and 4 extended learning activities outside of the in-person sessions. Participants complete the program over a 4 month period where they attend 3 full day sessions a month. The program covers 35 competencies outlined by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD).
This program was the best experience of my life. I made some wonderful friends and professional contacts as well as learned a lot about the field of human resource development. The all day sessions include a variety of activities working in groups to allow you to learn from the facilitator as well as the other professionals in the program. I took so much away from this program and have implemented many of the things I learned in the program already. I will never forget this experience and would recommend this program to anyone in the field of Human Resource Development or Training.
We have started a new ASTD group in Hattiesburg!! I am very excited about the possibilities of this group. We are affiliated with the main Mississippi ASTD Chapter as well as with the national ASTD organization. If you don’t know what ASTD is, it is the American Society for Training & Development. The focus of this group is to give professionals in the area of training and development, human resource management, human resource development, and organizational development an opportunity to network and learn from other professionals in this field. We plan to have a variety of speakers at our meetings to talk about issues related to our field, do training on various topics, and motivate us (the 1st Wednesday of every other month). We have had a great turn out so far. We will be having our second meeting in August. To learn more about our group visit the Mississippi ASTD Chapter Web site.
