Pause 4 a moment

This course has given me the tools that I will need to promote faculty development within the school of pharmacy. Caffarella’s model is a great guide for organizing the steps needed to plan any program, big or small. Considering how little I knew about putting together a program and all of the aspects to consider when I began this course in August I can say I have come a long way. There are so many things I’d never really thought about related to assessing the needs of the program participants, gaining the support of the administration and evaluating the program. I realize now that there are a lot of assumptions I make in putting together presentations. I need to be more collaborative in bringing others’ ideas into the program planning process.

I enjoyed the structure of the course and the integration of the wiki and the blogs. I admit I found it much more interesting to read the blogs of others than to write my own but being forced to reflect each week on our activities helped me to see the application of what I had learned. The wiki was a great place to work through our program plan and see the ideas of others. Using these tools also gives me ideas about how I might integrate them into courses of my own. The facilitated in-class activities were fun and helped me to see the application of the topics we’d read about. Building our program plan week-to-week was also beneficial in compiling the final document.

I also really enjoyed learning from my classmates. Hearing their stories about their workplace environments and how they were already applying some of the things we were learning in class really brought things together. Everyone in class was very positive and supportive in listening to each other whether it was discussing our program plan ideas, interviews with planners, or presenting our posters. I think this friendly atmosphere made the class that much more enjoyable.

Overall it has been a valuable course which I know I will use in my future.

This week’s class we discussed focus groups as a form of evaluation. I didn’t think I’d had much experience with this format until I started reading more about it and realized I’ve been leading a type of focus group of students every semester for the past 3 years. I meet with a group of 3rd year pharmacy students to review their courses and provide qualitative feedback to the course coordinators and curriculum committee. After reading about conducting a focus group I see there are things I’ve been doing well and others I haven’t been doing as well. I use a pretty unstructured approach to obtaining the data. Essentially I transcribe the students’ comments on each course with limited guidance as I try to remain somewhat neutral. I do not, however, always keep my opinions to myself. I know I make comments about their remarks and my facial expressions frequently tell my true feelings. I’m sure the students involved in the focus group are apprehensive about expressing their true feelings since they know the feedback is going to the coordinators and may fear retaliation despite my reassurance that student names are not disclosed. Others may be too shy to speak up in front of their peers. One way I’ve managed this is allowing them to email me feedback outside of the focus group.

Reflecting on my experience with the students I can anticipate similar reactions from others in focus groups. I definitely see how leading a focus group takes practice and some understanding of group dynamics. I think it would be worthwhile to review some strategies for conducting these group student interviews with those of us on the curriculum committee to ensure some consistency across classes.

As I emerge from the fog of medication side effects and generally feeling lethargic and dazed, I find I need to review and revise much of what I have created of my program plan so far. I have edited my original submissions and put them into one page where I can see how everything relates. I will post what I have currently to the Wiki and invite comments and suggestions. It was hard for me to come up with key evaluation questions and a plan when my original structure was somewhat vague. Since the revisions I am still having some trouble with program evaluation compared to evaluation of individual sessions/topics. I haven’t discussed the plan with any of the potential stakeholders yet but think it may be necessary to create a more well-developed program. I plan to chat with the 2 new faculty I co-coordinate with this week to see what insight they might have into a program such as this.

This evening’s class was based on surveys and allowed us to critique each other’s. Demetria led us in the exercise and her comfort in facilitating groups was apparent. I received good feedback on my questions and will be applying it in my revision. I hadn’t considered the terminology I used and assumed those in education would understand. I must consider my audience is just entering that arena and may still be unfamiliar with terms that are common to me now but weren’t at one time. I also need to consider questions other than those rating confidence level in specific areas. I don’t want the survey to get too long but I think I will need more information about the background of my participants. This will also be beneficial as I plan to publish the results of the program. Always have to be thinking of how to make this “count.”

Ms. H is the program coordinator for a local children’s hospital which serves as a residential facility for children with medical and psychiatric disorders. Patients range in age from 12-22 years. Many of the children and adolescents also have social and behavioral disorders. The average length of stay at the facility is 3-4 months. She has been their program planner for 2 years now. She does not lead any of the programs but has a total of 13 full-time staff members and a few part-time staff who lead them. Training of the staff consists of a manual/pamphlet on group facilitating when they are hired with a competency test. This training is repeated annually. There is also regular time devoted to training at staff meetings and whenever new programs are developed. Annual human rights training is also mandatory due to the nature of their work.

To maintain accreditation (and funding) from the Virginia Department of Mental Health/Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, they must have 21 cycles of educational groups each week. Thankfully, this includes time on weekends. To accommodate those participants who may have difficulty with a program, a behavioral issue which prevents attendance or one who simply refuses, they schedule more than the 21 groups each week to make sure everyone attends the minimum of 21. The curriculum itself is not mandated but a diversity of educational topics is required each day in order for them to count toward the 21. Ms. H and her staff are free to design the programming. Examples of educational groups include: daily goal setting group, conflict resolution group, life skills group (i.e. sewing, communication skills), thinking error group (reviewing their day and what they did wrong, how to do better next time), nutrition group (i.e. meal planning, cooking, measuring, grocery shopping), girls/boys process group, and medication management group. These kids are learning better coping and life skills than some children living at home with their parents!

A special consideration which she must address when planning programs for her learners is the range of cognitive abilities among the participants. Although participants may be 12-22 years old, they may not read and write at age/grade level. Of course, she doesn’t want them to feel ashamed or embarrassed in front of the other participants. She is careful about training the staff in finding the balance of presenting information in a way those with learning disabilities understand but doesn’t condescend. The staff also makes it clear to the participants that they can ask for individual help outside of the session if something isn’t fully understood. Also, considering the wide age range they have to ensure the information applies to all the participants.

Ms. H gets her ideas from “everywhere” including her staff, on-line, books, participants-especially those who have been there a long time. Some materials she finds are pre-prepared and others she develops herself. She does all of this with no special training in program design or planning, simply a psychology degree and on the job training.  She talks to others who are doing similar things at other residential facilities. When a new program is developed a meeting is held to review materials with the staff. Staff assessments include a 90-day review for new hires and annual reviews thereafter. The programs themselves aren’t assessed. They do have to document what topics were covered, participants present, etc. for accreditation. Many programs have worksheets associated with them which also provide documentation. This lack of assessment was a big surprise to me. I expected the funding agency to ask for some evidence that the programs were working especially considering the curriculum isn’t mandated.

Ms. H states the most challenging part of developing a new program is finding materials that can meet all the kids on the level they are. The example she gave was a new program on job skills. How do you make this relevant to someone who is 12 and still have relevance for someone 20? Another limitation in program design is the ability to have one program build on another. Because of the number of staff leading the programs, inconsistency in leadership of the programs, and shifting schedules at the facility, each program is developed as a stand alone session. She would prefer to have programs which build on each other but due to staffing shortages is unable to do so at this time. She can’t guarantee the same person will be able to lead the same group from one week to the next to build skills over time. Another challenge, as always, is financing. She states, “You have to be creative when it comes to financing. You have to always be thinking ahead. There are pre-prepared programs that can be purchased for $2-3k but the funding isn’t there.”

Ms. H feels the most successful program currently is the independent living skills group. It is a success because the structure allows flexibility with topics and is very practical for the participants. It is also successful because the staff enjoys leading this type of program.

I found my interview with Ms. H to be very interesting. I learned a lot about residential mental health facilities and how much work really goes into the skills development sessions for the patients there. I must admit I was a little shocked at how little training the program leaders get before they’re turned loose with the kids. I know they require them to have a background working with children with behavioral disorders so at least they can handle that. I had just hoped that they would have more training on consistency between leaders to make sure the kids were getting the same message out of the groups no matter who was leading. I’m also surprised Ms. H wasn’t required to have at least taken a class in developing programs. It sounds like she’s doing well with it and enjoys it but the method does lack a systematic approach. Hmm, just gives me a little perspective. Maybe I’m more rigid than I thought.

This evening’s class was focused on the Kirkpatrick model of evaluation. This model stands as the “tried-and-true” method of evaluation in many organizations and corporations. Apparently it is not applied in the world of academia very often because I’d never heard of it before preparing for this class exercise.

It does offer a simple structure for evaluating programs but there are some elements which need clarification. As someone who might apply this model I would like more information about what to do with the information that is gathered at each level. I also agree that variables affecting learning are not accounted for. The debate on this matter was interesting. It seemed that all of us could see both sides of the argument so neither side was particularly passionate. I’ll admit it was easier for me to be on the con side because Kirkpatrick came across to me as quite arrogant and demeaning to Holton. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry…” who knew melodrama could play a role in program evaluation?

The model of evaluation which intrigues me most is the goal-free method. I think it would be fascinating to have someone sit in on my course or a lecture within my class and tell me what they think the objectives are. This would be the true test of what students are really getting out of the class. So often I think objectives are largely ignored and even if they are stated I’m not sure students recognize their value. We are working to improve our consistency in linking lecture objectives to exam questions and course objectives. I think we still need to do more in educating our students on this link.

The model which seems most familiar to me is the Logic Model. This seems to fit what we do in education with our current curriculum. I look forward to learning more about it.

The past 2 weeks have been difficult and more hectic than usual which have led to a couple of low energy class sessions for me. Wednesday nights are difficult for me anyway since it’s my busiest day of classes I teach. I have 2 hours in the morning and another 2 hours in the afternoon. I don’t know how primary education teachers do it all day!

One thing I am learning about as I read through Caffarella and work through the exercises  is writing more global objectives than what I am used to. So much of my time is spent focused on the objectives for a given class or lecture within a course. The course objectives and overall goal are typically already written for me by someone else. To have to step back from the individual class and think of the bigger picture is a switch and something I still need to refine. I did enjoy hearing everyone go around the room to discuss their programs. We were able to learn from each other’s ideas and resources. Many of my classmates have much more experience with corporate/organizational planning. I’m not as familiar with the politics and resources needed for those types of programs so it’s interesting to hear a different perspective. I have considered taking my Master’s degree and getting out of pharmacy education altogether; maybe move into the human resources development world of some business or organization. Hearing some of the stories from you in class makes me fear what that may be like!

Last session was a lot of fun with the cookie evaluation. I don’t think I’d ever considered how much I like chocolate chip cookies (or not, as the case may be) until we were comparing them. I think it was a good example of applying evaluation methods and how arbitrary those can be sometimes. I hope the other facilitated activities are as entertaining. It will help boost my energy level to keep me going through class!

I sound like my students in my Communications course when I say “it’s all common sense,” but so much of what I’ve read in Caffarella seems like common sense. I know enough as a teacher to know there is more to it than that but I’m still looking for the understanding of the steps in the process. So much of what I do in teaching or planning a course is automatic, intuitive, and unexamined that it’s hard for me to answer questions about how I intend to plan a program. How do I consider the context? How would I determine the needs of the participants? It was very helpful in tonight’s class to have Dr. Carter and my classmates to ask these questions and help me understand the little steps along the way that happen without me thinking. By detailing the thinking that goes into the planning I will better understand how to be more systematic in program planning.

Anyone else having issues with logging into your blog? Mine wasn’t cooperating all weekend…Anyway, reflection #2. After reading about the Interactive Model of Program Planning it was interesting to read what my classmates responses were to the proposed questions on the wiki. Our groups had very similar feelings about the questions posed by Dr. Carter. We did find some difference in expectations of the learners based on personal experience. For instance, while I find most adult learners to be self-motivated others had not had the same experience. A couple of people mentioned they often do not find motivation in the adult learners they work with because the learners are forced to attend their programs rather than choosing them. My learners, in general, tend to be highly motivated as they have invested a lot of their time and money to get an education.

The exercise in choosing which aspects of the Model to apply to a given situation was particularly eye-opening. It showed me how the importance of various steps is all relative to the planner. The programs planned by the 2 groups would’ve been incredibly different had we followed the steps we outline. It also illustrated the need to listen to co-planners and keep an open mind when determining which factors play a role and how ultimate decisions are made.

And now I’m thinking of a program that I would like to plan for the semester project. I’m unsure if I should look at it as a course that I could develop for my students or design a plan for teaching fellow faculty about adult learning that they can apply in their classrooms…

It took me several days to set up my blog as I was considering an appropriate title only to find all the ones I thought of were already taken. I’ve never been one for ingenuity. I settled on Pause 4 a moment. It seems to be a good fit as I am forced to pause and consider class each week in a reflection and it includes a reference to my love of cats (4 paws, get it?).

 So, here I sit, with a cat on my lap as I try to type, reflecting on our first class almost a week ago. We seem to have a diverse class which will bring interesting perspective to the course. I’m happy to see some familiar faces as well as new ones. It appears everyone is looking for a little something different to take from the course.

Personally, I hope to learn a more systematic approach to program planning. I have been planning courses and curricula with limited training for the past 4 years and knew there must be a more effective way! I haven’t had much time to explore this specifically as I tended to my mix of duties as a faculty member. I expect to use information learned in the course to re-design current courses I coordinate, design new courses for our changing curriculum, and in the future design a series of workshops for our faculty to develop teaching skills. Ultimately I hope to make my primary work an educational specialist working with incoming faculty, along with those more experienced who are looking for growth and development.  I also hope to learn about appropriate program evaluation. This area is a priority as our accreditation review is this year and we anticipate some feedback from the committee in the area of continuous self-assessment. Assessment is key for any program now and in the future as everyone becomes more outcomes-oriented. These are the 2 primary outcomes I can identify for now. I’m sure there is more that I don’t even realize I don’t know at this point which will develop over the course of the semester. Seeing Caffarella’s model has already teased out steps in the process which I didn’t even recognize as discrete entities because I usually do them simultaneously without realizing it.