Jenny and Lisa,
As a participant in Lisa's POTcert 12 and 13 courses I plan to do a "student" footprint. (My actual role was somewhat different). The course is free and open to anyone and focuses on introducing instructors to online teaching. This includes selection of online resources for presentation and activities for try-out and consideration. There are a lot of this type of course out there, I've investigated quite a few and found POTcert to be one of the best.
Two factors making the course successful. First, the group is supportive and the second, participants are allowed to be themselves. Agency is very strong in this course and it isn’t by chance that this happens. It might be that people self-select rather than having the course pushed at them but I felt everyone participating genuinely wanted to increase skills and teaching presence. That might sound obvious? Very many teachers I’ve encountered have their self-identification as educators pounded out of them by miss-handled training forced on them without explanation in a manner disrespectful of their identity as teachers.
Where I used to work, faculty meet on their own and avoid speaking freely at formal PD sessions. Their autonomy has been trashed by admin and government assuming the throne of director of necessary skills without knowing a thing about the profession. This lack of trust is to be found nowhere in the POTcert course and the progress made by participants I think is directly related to the insistence on autonomy in Lisa’s design.
And that autonomy leads to participants to remain intact in themselves. Many of these courses seem to require a person to re-invent discard pieces of themselves as if everything is done better and faster by software rather than by the accomplished, thoughtful people they are. In POTcert confidence and capability remain intact. This environment affords curiosity and the natural experimentation people learning new skills need. Especially if it is also expected they will be the ones selecting which technology works best for their purposes.
My question to Lisa: Does she feels confined by the prescriptive aspects she has to follow? If so, is there a way to soften required portions?