4 Managing and Sustaining a TLC

2. Training program

A well-designed training program is crucial for the successful implementation of activities in a TLC. The program should clearly outline the activities, the time frame, the venue, and the timing of each activity to avoid conflicts with other departments. A training program is like a schedule, and can be done for an entire term.

A good program should also include the deliverables that will be achieved within a specified period of time. This ensures that everyone involved understands what is expected of them and helps to keep the program on track.

The person in charge of the TLC should prepare the program and share it with any champions who are supporting the TLC. The champions should then review the program and make any necessary changes before submitting it to management for approval. Once the program has been approved, it should be shared with the Heads of Departments, who can then plan for its implementation.

It’s also important for the person in charge of the TLC to have a daily work plan that outlines the schedule of activities. This ensures that the activities flow smoothly throughout the day and that trainers seeking TLC services, including consultations and other activities, know when to seek certain services.

 A SAMPLE OF KNP managing daily activities

8:00 am-10:00 am	1:1 consultations
10:00 am-12:00 am	Development of Teaching and Learning resources and sharing with relevant trainers
1:00 pm	Updating the trainers and relevant stakeholders on TLC progress, prepare and submit reports, requisitioning of required materials for use
2:00 pm-3:00 pm	Work-time (designing and developing sessions; answering emails)
4:00 pm	Workshops, online sessions
5:00 pm	Collaborative planning session with TLC staff

3. Communication

Effective communication is essential for the success of the TLC, both within the center and between its members. Good communication practices can lead to higher-quality results. Timely information and feedback can significantly improve the outcomes of the TLC’s activities. However, too many communication channels can lead to distorted information and feedback that is not aligned with the goals of the group.

To ensure effective communication, one designated person should be responsible for disseminating information on behalf of the group. Before reporting, the champion must gather information from other members, compile it, and ensure that it is harmonized.

Communication can be achieved through various channels, such as email, SMS, WhatsApp, or phone. However, all formal communication should be conducted through the designated formal channels. Having a designated website can also support communication goals.

Timely communication is crucial in ensuring that all members are updated on the latest developments and can respond accordingly. By implementing good communication practices, the TLC can achieve its goals and objectives effectively.

Communication within the champions

The person in charge of the TLC should update the champions of all the ongoing activities in the TLC. S/he should share the program and work plan of activities in the TLC. The champions should be updated on what the TLC is doing and intends to do with achievements and failures. Periodic meetings with champions should also be implemented to ensure that champions have an opportunity to connect with one another, share ideas and issues, and shape the direction of the centre based on their experiences. It is also important to TLC administrators to listen to champions and incorporate their feedback into the centre’s operations.

Communication with management and HoDs

It is important to find ways to maintain clear, open communication with HoDs.  HoDs are in essence champions of TLCs, and a strategic ally in the successful running of any TLC.  TLC managers will have to find ways to build key relationships with HODs in order to liaise with them and keep abreast of teaching and learning needs within various areas.  Furthermore, HoDs can act as messengers and allies to promote TLC initiatives.  Innovative and intentional partnerships between HoDs and TLCs can lead to program-specific supports that can target specific needs and gaps of particular areas. 

4. Marketing the TLC 

Here all academic HoDs are invited, trainers trainees and the management to attend an unveiling of sorts.  This opportunity is a chance to, market the TLC to key institutional stakeholders, and to announce the presence of the TLC as a legitimate institutional centre, unpacking its mystery and hoping key stakeholder would carry the message forward.

The introduction of the centre and giving an overview of its history, and how it came to be is done.  Then give an overview of CBET and its role in the project and give an overview of the programs that will take in the TLC.  Outline and describe the deliverables that and the timeline for achieving those action items.  Give an overview of the materials and resources available at the TLC if possible take them round to see them.  Discussed what role the each would have in the TLC and ask for their support in a variety of ways.  Finally facilitate a Q and A, from all participants wrapped up nicely.

VIDEO: The following video captures the responses from various TLC users about how the services of a TLC has impacted their practice.

Transcript of the Video

Since the establishment of the Teaching Learning Center, it has been very instrumental in providing resources that are key to imparting knowledge, skills, and activities to our trainees.I am Samuel, Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Kisii National Polytechnic.

Hello, my name is Eugene Otolo. I am the Head of the ICT Department here at Bondo Technical Training Institute.

Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Daniel Nyagwoka. I’m a trainer at Kisii National Polytechnic in our health department. Let me take this opportunity to appreciate Kisii National Polytechnic and our partner for establishing the Teaching Learning Center in our institution.

With the help of the TLC, our trainers have been able to improve lesson planning and engage trainees in the learning process.

So far, our department has had interactions with the Teaching and Learning Resource Center. The TLC has been supportive in mentoring our trainers to deliver training using online tools. It also has a repository that provides teaching and learning tools such as course curriculum, course syllabus, and other guides for our trainers to reference.

Since the establishment of the Teaching Learning Center, it has been instrumental in providing key resources for the knowledge, skills, and activities of our trainees. In addition, BOPPPS lesson planning has been crucial, especially in my department, as our trainees pursuing advanced programs require a broader understanding of both institutional and market happenings.

The TLC serves as a one-stop resource center where all trainers, both new and experienced, can seek assistance related to their teaching profession.

In the health sector, we are developing highly competent individuals. That’s why we use a variety of strategies starting from the classrooms to provide a comprehensive understanding and acquire skills and competencies that are crucial for nation-building. I sincerely appreciate our partners and Kisii National Polytechnic for taking a step forward in establishing the Teaching Learning Center.

Initially, we faced challenges with practicals’ planning, but through the TLC, our trainers are now able to effectively plan practical sessions. This has made previously difficult areas easier for the trainees to understand, as they can now visualize and engage fully in the learning process. Therefore, I recommend further improvements to the TLC and encourage new trainers to join us.

As a recommendation, the TLC should expand its repository to include as many tools as possible.

Additionally, I call upon all teaching institutions to establish a teaching learning center because it serves as a one-stop shop. It’s a model where trainees can access a range of services crucial for training. I fully support institutions that are planning to establish learning centers and encourage others to follow suit as it is the way to go.

5. Website Development Content (Co-Determined by the team )

Involve the ICT experts to design a website for you, if you’re your institution have one to create a space for you. TLC champions can  choose to create a website committee  to  collect the following materials and connect with the institution’s website coordinator to develop a page on the greater institutional page.

• Pictures of the TLC space (present and future)
• Pictures of TLC activities to date
• Pictures of trainers
• A list of resources and pictures of the texts
• Text: brief history
• Text: brief overview of the TLC and what it does
• Text: list of the people who work at the TLC
• Schedule of any workshops/events upcoming
• Location
• Contact information (email, phone, address)

The committee you choose will determine the nature of the content that will appear on the website and what information or resource they need to collect in order to design the website.

6. Interacting with management and other departments in the institution

This is done through involvement of the management in the TLC activities. Share the reports and work plan activities with the management. The management plays a key role in supporting the TLC in terms of sourcing resources, and sustaining the smooth operations of the TLC.

The management will

1. Set aside rooms for the TLC that will accommodate/ facilitate provision of services for its trainers. It will meet the requirements of the law and policies and guiding the setting up of such facility ( space, health and safety measures)
2. Avail required resources for the appointed manpower to run the Centre in consolidation with Canadian Partners.
3. The CBET champions who will run the centre will draw a program of activities in consolidation with stakeholders especially HODs and then implement it within the required period.
4. Carry out internal and external Monitoring and Evaluation.

7. Network with Canadian Partners and other institutions

• KNP networks with other educational institutions in the region more so TVET institutions( TTIs, VTCs, etc.) besides secondary and primary schools. All this institutions may find a TLC very very useful through its spill over benefits.
• KNP also works with Canadian partners in YAWK Phase I and II programs to develop and implement the teaching and learning materials. This includes the lesson plans, trainee study guides and assessment tools.

 

8. Procurement of materials TLCs use

If you are funded by donors, prepare a wishlist of TLC equipment required and review  it.   A committee to be struck to source the items and to find the quotes for each item.  This list will be submitted to donor for their review on specified dates.

9. Scholarship of teaching and learning

You need to look at the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and how to support research into teaching.  The KNP team had interest in this topic from the group after Dr. Kathleen Borotlin posted a call for articles from a Canadian teaching and learning journal looking for submissions from geographical regions not well-represented in the literature. We watched a short video on SoTL from Elon University, and then discussed what research into teaching was and why (or why not) it should be part of KNP’s TLC.  The consensus from the group was that KNP’s TLC should participate on a small scale in some research into practice to contribute to the shifting landscape of tertiary education in the region, and the country.  We discussed what a good, small-scale research question should look like and practiced creating them.  We also created a small committee to put together a draft of an essay about KNP’s journey of creating a TLC.

10. Workshopping

The TLC team engages trainers in a participatory workshop that frames learning as discovery, and encouraged trainers to think about how they can create opportunities for students to “discover” knowledge from the bottom-up, as opposed to the top down.  They get more ideas of an “engaging” teaching strategy means.  Trainers are asked to apply new concepts and ideas to their own lessons, and then reflect back on how these strategies play out in practice.

Design and deliver workshops

Here you apply best practices in workshop design whereby you work with small groups. The following stories capture some of the workshop experiences KNP has had and can hopefully can support other institutions starting out.mples of workshops done in Kisii 

 

a) An induction workshop for new trainers

In Kisii NP we designed an induction workshop for new trainers, a workshop that had been identified as one that the team would like to implement in the first 3-6 months. We started with the principles of backward design, identifying what the team wanted to achieve in the workshop, and practiced writing effective learning outcomes. We then worked backward to design a structure of the workshop that would align with aforementioned learning outcomes. The team worked in small groups to each design an outline for the workshop. They workshopped their ideas, and collectively we came to a consensus about the best design. Caroline developed case studies and implemented the same.

Again, we turned our attention back to pedagogy and the team engaged in a workshop on assessment and evaluation. We focused on formative assessment: why it’s important and strategies to do formative assessment well. From there we laddered into work on summative assessment, paying particular attention to designing rubrics. The team was highly engaged but struggled a little with the nuts and bolts of rubric design. Specifically, the team struggled with getting specific when articulating criteria for assessment. After the session, Kathleen shared via email a package of resources on rubric design, including a number of templates that trainers could use. The TLC team could benefit from more training and practice in effective teaching strategies before they will be confident and credible to offer training to others in these areas.

b) KEFEP Workshop

This training session was co-facilitated by Dr. Kathleen Bortolin and Mr. Jessie Chalmers, who had arrived the day before. Jessie was looking to build out some of the teaching strategies for the CDACC curriculum he has been working on for the KEFEP program, and Kathleen was looking for an authentic opportunity to have participants apply their skills to an extremely relevant TLC activity. Workshopping one “project” from the CDACC curriculum, participants worked in groups of three to decide how to allot roughly 19 hours of teaching time to prepare students for the project. We advised the groups to create a logical sequence of learning activities and describe briefly what the activities would entail and how they represented a CBET methodology. Groups worked diligently and extensively on this task and then presented their ideas to the group.

After each presentation, Jessie and Kathleen highlighted what groups had done well, and where they would need to continue to improve. All groups were able to create a logical sequence of learning activities. All groups made a concerted effort to work engaged, student-centered teaching strategies into their teaching plan. All groups were able to articulate at least one engaging, student-centered approach to teaching in their lesson plans. However, all groups demonstrated that they could use a little more training in and understanding of what interactive, participatory teaching is. Jessie and Kathleen agreed that next time, they would have to provide a solid model to participants so that they could understand more fully what a student-centered, bottom approach to this work could look like. Overall, I think this activity was valuable. It was a challenge for the participants and identified for the trainer’s areas that will still need to be developed in TLC staff.

We also engaged in a short pedagogy workshop on meaningfully incorporating group work into classes. Some of the trainers struggle with large class sizes, so this work was valued. As was the case with the other pedagogy sessions, I think the team could continue to benefit from more pedagogy training and opportunities to apply the concepts in their classes, reflect on them, and craft mini-training sessions related to these ideas.

Caroline was to design and deliver more workshops and this is what has been done.

c) Learning series workshop

Kathleen proposed to the Kisii team to design a learning series workshop for the trainers. Caroline, John and Geoffrey were to deliver the workshop. John and Geoffrey were not able to participate due to their tight schedule they had of attending classes, however Caroline did it on behalf of the group. The workshop took five consecutive days whereby Caroline developed a program shared with management and sourced all the required resources for use during the training. She requested the HoDs to give some members from their departments to participate in the same. Few members were selected because large groups are not easy to reach to each individual member.

The learning series covered the following content:

Overview of the BOPPPS concept

• Learning outcomes for trainers (trainers who attended the session)
• Overview of the BOPPPS
• Overview of backward design
• Discussion Q and A

Lesson plan development

• Trainers choose a lesson to work on
• Overview of CBET and student focused teaching and learning
• Workshopping and aspect of the BOPPPS framework

Participatory learning strategies (engaging students and using CBET)

• Overview of CBET with a focus on student-centered and engaging practices
• Example of CBET teaching activities; predicting, problem-solving, case studies, etc.

Formative assessment: giving and receiving feedback

• Overview of formative assessment
• Why formative assessment is valuable
• Examples of formative assessment strategies

Q and A

Caroline has been designing and delivering more workshops on the following

• Prepare course outlines and lesson plans that are in alignment with CBET methodology, using meaningful sequencing
• Demonstrate the use of active and participatory student-centered teaching strategies
• Demonstrate effective use of BoPPPs by applying BoPPPs to actual lesson plans
• Understand how the TLC functions and what services it offers
• Prepare meaningful and effective assessment and evaluation tools

• Introduction to KNP, CBET and the TLC
•  Assessment and Evaluation 

How to design and deliver a workshop

11. Strategic planning and capacity-building of TLC staff

The following is a sample of KNP Key Deliverables in 2020. Other TLCs may find these applicable to them starting out.

In the first three months, the TLC will:

Deliverable	Timeline	Point Person
Organize and decorate the space that will be temporarily used by the TLC, including organizing resources and acquiring any further equipment and tools	Ongoing until the launch	Caroline with support from Evans and John
Provide Darrell Harvey (VIU) with a list of three quotes per item on adjusted wishlist	By March 9th	Evans, Caroline, John
Launch the TLC at an event at KNP to raise awareness of the TLC	Late March Launch, Planning the launch from March 15-March 31	Caroline with support from all TLC team
Design and deliver 1-2 CBET workshops for trainers	Post-launch (April and May)	Caroline and Geoffrey with support from TLC Team
Design and deliver an induction workshop for new trainers	Early to mid-April	Caroline with support from TLC team
Design and deliver a workshop on trade projects and business plans	Mid to late April	John with support from TLC team
Design and deliver 1-2 CBET training workshops for other key KEFEP mentee institutions	Late April/May	Evans, John and Caroline with support from the team
Carry out one-on-one consultations on a small-scale basis	Post launch	Caroline and all champions
Track requests from 1:1 consultations and create a spreadsheet to determine highest demand areas	Ongoing until the end of May	Caroline and John
Create a larger team of departmental CBET representatives from all 11 academic departments to be ambassadors of CBET and the TLC	Begin at HoD meeting (Feb 22). Representatives chosen by March 20th.	Caroline, Geoffrey, John and Evans
Hold meetings with 11 ambassadors chosen by HoDs	1st meeting March 20, Subsequent meetings monthly	Caroline with support from TLC team
Liaise with HoDs to garner support for trainers to be released for training	Ongoing	Evans, Geoffrey, Caroline
Undertake a needs analysis with HoDs and others to identify gaps and needs, using this data to inform plans moving forward	Begin March 1, Complete by launch	Caroline, John, Geoffrey, Evans
Using the team’s ideas from February training, collect and/or create content for website.  Liaise with KNP’s website team to get website built	By March 10	Geoffrey, Caroline, John
Create the  pamphlet that the team designed	By March 15	Kathleen
Write draft article for Teaching Learning Inquiry (ISSOTL journal) on the TLC’s journey to this place.  Send to Kathleen for editing and feedback	By March 15	Ben, Geoffrey, John and Caroline
Hold a review with the entire team to reflect on the success of achieving these variables and report back to Kathleen	By May 25th	The entire TLC Team

In the first 6 months, the TLC will:

Deliverable	Timeline	Point Person
Deliver 2 CBET workshops/month, reflecting as a team once a month on how the workshops are going and how they might be improved upon		All TLC Team
Design and deliver 3-4 new workshops/seminars/offering/initiatives based on needs analysis from HoDs		Caroline and Geoffrey with support from the team
Design and launch a book club to introduce the key resources from the TLC to KNP staff and reflect as a team	Launch in July-August (repeat if it’s a success)	Caroline and John
Continue holding 1:1 consultations and collecting data on top issues	ongoing	Caroline to coordinate CBET Champions schedules; Caroline to coordinate collecting data on main themes
Collaborate with other comparable institutions through training trips (benchmarking)		John, Evans, Caroline with support from the team
Investigate educational technologies, creating capacity and expertise within the centre.  Determine reasonable and achievable ways that educational technology could be incorporated into TLC training	Ongoing until September, 2020	Benjamin, Geoffrey and John and Caroline
Host a conference at KNP on teaching and learning	Fall, 2020	Evans, John and Caroline with support from the team
Publish one article related to teaching and learning practice	Fall, 2020	John, Ben, Caroline and Geoffrey with support from Kathleen
Relocate to new space (TLC Office)	June?	Caroline with support from everyone
Hold a review with the entire team to reflect on the success of achieving these variables and report back to Kathleen	By December 31, 2020	The entire TLC Team

 

At one year, the TLC will:

Deliverable	Timeline	Point Person
Hold a retreat with the entire team to reflect on the year identifying key successes, key challenges and next directions	January, 2021	All TLC Team (and maybe Kathleen?)
Create your next year’s strategic plan with key deliverables identified, timeline and key point people	January, 2021	Evans, John and the entire team