 Hello everybody, hello panel. My name is Kira O'Farrell, I'm from Trinity and I'm here with my colleague Theresa Logan-Felin also from Trinity, Michelle Tuher from NUIG, Alison Egan from MIE and Anne Jordan who's just joined us who's been working in Trinity with us on this project and Anne is originally from WIT. So the title of our project is the Alignment and Development of an online programme for graduate teaching assistants. These are our colleagues, we're working with us. Therese Moylin is not able to be here but she's from IADT. So what's our project about? Well, in Trinity we've had an existing five ECTS module for our graduate teaching assistants which is called Teaching and Supporting Learning and it's been running for a number of years now. The issue with it was primarily that we couldn't reach enough of our graduate teaching assistants with it. We could only take on about 20 people at a time to have it right and typically it ran twice a year and as usual like we have far more teaching assistants than that and teaching assistants may not have been able to attend on the days we wanted to do it. So we're very grateful to have the opportunity to develop this into an online module which hopefully will be available to all the institutions through the National Forum. The idea is that it will be quite flexible, we're hoping it will be quite flexible. We'll use it as a five ECTS module because we've gone through that accreditation process already, we're going to use it as a blended module, we're going to top and tail it and we're going to do some more classes with it. It will be released as an online module and then it's up to each institution how they use it, if they want to do it for credit, if they don't want to credit it, it can be hopefully useful in itself as a piece of unaccredited professional development. We've done it in blocks, the idea is that hopefully you can either take it as a whole, there's seven blocks or that you can take it in pieces depending on your needs and the needs of your graduate teaching assistants. Our module was for graduate teaching assistants who were already teaching and some of the feedback that we got when we did the needs analysis of this was that we found that we had graduate teaching assistants who were about to go into the classroom who we weren't capturing because one of the things we wanted to do with our existing module was to get them to do some peer review and to get them to reflect on their teaching as they were doing it. So what we've done here is we've also included a wider audience of teaching assistants who are about to go into the classroom for the first time and haven't actually taught or who would like to explore that road. So that's what our project is. That's our work plan. The analysis stage was generally to March so we met, we discussed what we needed, we created some focus groups, we did data collection, data design and analysis. The design phase was April to June, we began the curriculum development, we did that with some existing graduate teaching assistants following your feedback after the first time we met. The instructional design process began and we're currently in the development stage where we're moving from Anna who is our academic developer is moving her scripts and her videos and her PowerPoints over to our online learning team who are designing them and putting an instructional design framework on it and creating it as the online interactive experience. We're still hoping to have reached implementation by this September. It's a fast pace but we're on track. Ideally the impetus is that we want to release it for new graduate teaching assistants who will be starting in October. So the idea is that we'll hopefully be able to release a pilot version by September by the end of September and then we'll evaluate that as the year goes on. So this is what we've completed. We've completed the project initiation and the analysis phase. Following feedback we did, we had mapped our existing module but we also began to see what other modules, what other offerings were out there in the field. There weren't too many but there were, NUIG had a module that they were using, Epigium. Other people had kind of just in time training so we were able to kind of map and see where the needs were. Within our institutions we had some, for example engineering have a small program so we were able to align with them and see where that mapped. We also did a literature search but that's ongoing and is continuing to do that as we go through the modules. We surveyed and focused, quite extensive. We had about 250 respondents in total between the focus groups and the surveys which was a mixture of graduate teaching assistants as well as institutions. We sent out an institution-wide survey to all of you and also some kind of key stakeholders I suppose within the university who we would have worked with before in terms of our TA program. From that we identified some gaps and we began to fill those gaps bearing in mind that the project was about I suppose the enhancements of an existing 5 E STS program. So we went with what we had and we just filled the gaps that the need analysis showed. So now we're currently designing it in the online environment as I said it will be the ideas that will probably most likely be blended by each institution as they get it. We've repurposed, as I said, reused some of the existing materials, we're filling the gaps and we're just about to hand over the second of seven domain-based learning blocks as we call them and I'll show an example to you now just in a minute. Once it's handed over it goes through a design phase so that's kind of the instruction design phase and that's a lovely iterative phase. We're really just in that entry on at the moment so it kind of goes back between the instructional designer and the academic developer and they work together to get it right. Okay what's next? We'll just continue in that iterative stage over the summer and as I said then come September we'll hopefully pilot and then begin to evaluate after that. These are some of the things that, to briefly, I presented at the last event where I talked about it in more detail about the survey and the focus groups but just to highlight a couple of areas where there were gaps, communications came up quite strongly as what both students and institutions wanted as part of a graduate teaching system programme. We didn't have a huge emphasis on that in our existing modules so we feel that communication is also part of the domains of the professional development plan so that was a gap that we had to fill. Lecturing, a lot of them wanted lecturing now. That was something that we talked a lot about. For me a graduate teaching system is more about small group teaching and supporting learning but they were very keen to find out a little bit more about how to construct a lecture. I suppose we've met that half way. We've included in the communication section and the design phase information on how to create an effective PowerPoint and how to structure your lesson plans. So it will be tools and skills hopefully that will be useful for lecturing without actually saying you're now going into a classroom and you'll be expected to lecture because they shouldn't be at this stage of their career. Lab management techniques was something that came up as well as it happens. We have in Trinity at the moment a project which was just completed which was an innovation grant and they have just completed a lab management manual which is online and interactive so we're going to be able to link to that as well which is good. Students as partners, this was something that's been really rewarding actually and very interesting. It was the student representative on the panel who gave us feedback on this. I had said that we were going to contact students and talk to existing graduate students and use them for the focus group and the design phase of it and the feedback that we got was what else can you do. It really got us thinking about how we can use students a little bit more. As it happened, we had a five-ease test. That module was starting around the same time as Ann was developing it so we invited the students on that programme to be part of this and they really have in many ways acted as co-designers on it. Unfortunately that programme is finished so but there's lots more opportunities hopefully down the road. NUIG, the students on their course will evaluate it next term and the existing students in Trinity also have given us resources that we can use. For example, real teaching philosophy statements that they have written as part of their programme or lesson plans, things like that so it's been a really good process. The other interesting thing was that we had in the survey that we did, we asked if any of the students would be willing to be contacted. We sent a survey around to existing GTAs in Trinity and a large number, almost 70 of them were, it was a very large number actually agreed and gave us their email so that's a lovely resource base that we can come back to again. We are already contacting if we need a science voice or if we need somebody to look at something and saying is this right for the science, we're contacting these people and saying would you mind having a quick look at that but hopefully we can make more use of that ongoing. So these are the blocks. We have seven blocks which will form the module. We have aligned them throughout I suppose to the domains. Initially we thought we'd have five blocks actually in the same names as the domains but we felt it was better to do this way. So they're the blocks. You can read them yourselves and this is what it's going to look like. So this is heart of the press so to speak, the online press. Now they have, my online colleagues have stressed that this isn't the final product so already now when I read these just yesterday I could see a few areas where we need to tweak so don't worry about the content so much but this is what it will look like. So when you go on to the home page this is what you'll see. You'll see the learning outcomes and introduction to the module and in this case the academics were involved in teaching that module so Anna and myself are there for the moment. Then down the left hand side is all the blocks. So if you click on the first block then you'll get to, well this is the design process that they use so you'll get to an introduction to prepare, to study, apply, reflect and recall and that's the stages that the learner will go through for each of the seven blocks. So click on the introduction and Jane Doe will be replaced with Anne in this case. Anne is about to do her recording. So what Anne has done is she's provided online learning with the script and with PowerPoints and the online then have made that into, they've created a multimedia interactive experience. Anne is about to record that so we haven't got to that stage where it's recorded yet. But Anne will give a brief introduction to the block, to what students are going to, to how students are going to learn in it and to the key parts of it. It's short, it's just a few minutes long and we'll explain what the learning objectives are for that block. Then when you get into the prepare stage it's just, I suppose the hook just to get the, just to get the teaching assistants thinking about what they're going to learn. So it can be a number of things. In this case they've just done a very short reflective question. So this is about the role of the teaching assistant this particular block. So what we've said is, you know, do you have the approval of your research supervisor if you're going to teach or if you want to teach? So for those of them thinking about that they now have to think well I need to go and contact my supervisor. I didn't realize I had to do that if I'm going to teach. And then when they contact their supervisor or their institutions they'll be told well in Trinity you can't teach in your first year for example. So when you click on this, if you click on you don't know then you'll get some more information about what to do or where to go. The next stage is the study part. And the study part is I suppose the content and the didactic part. So that's the lecture. Again everything is red. It's on audio and there's a PDF copy so it's inclusive. So that's what you see if you click on the study part. That's the start of the presentation. Again this is the role of the graduate teaching assistant. And each, there's typically about 20 minutes worth of listening for this part. So as Anne will speak or as it won't always be Anne we'll vary it but as the academic speaks the text comes up. So in this case it's talking about what the role of what graduate teaching assistants might be doing in the classroom and you click on these. The specific roles are highlighted here in a quadrant. You can also click on each quadrant to find out more information about it. So for example if you're not in the lab you might not necessarily click on the last one. If you are talking about managing tutorials or seminars you'll click on that you'll get more information. So that's 20 minutes of your didactic piece I suppose. Then you get to the apply section. And the apply section is I suppose asking you to think about how you'd put into practice what you've learned. So often might be the creation of a small artefact or to journal something. So in this case we're asking TAs to investigate any other training opportunities that are within their institution, in their faculty, or elsewhere and to sort of plan and think about how else they could supplement this throughout their whatever. The reflect section is what it says. Typically we will ask our students, our teaching assistants to think about what makes, to think about an aspect of that block. And they will be asked to maybe write about it in a learning journal or maybe to put to do a video blog or something like that. And then the recall section that would be more small quizzes just to make sure that they've got all the key information. So that's the design process that's used by the online learning team in Trinity. So we weren't in a position to change that design process but we actually think it's working quite well. The final part of that, am I running out of time? The final part of that is the extent and that's where we will link them to other resources, to videos, to reading. And there's also pre-reading at the beginning but I don't think that I said. So that's where we are, that's what informs their theory. And that's my last phase but basically to say the communication, we're just supposed to be communicating all the time with our stakeholders to let them know it's on the way. And the next stage is as of to the UK next week, isn't it Ann? Next week you're going to the UK tomorrow and she's presenting a poster about this. And I only saw the poster today but it's lovely and she's going to be talking about this and how we've developed and hopefully get some more feedback from the conference. So thank you.