Michigan Community Colleges: Colleges Coalesce Around eLearning Platform
A group of Michigan community colleges has launched a major initiative focusing
on learner-centered outcomes and standards, with the help of WIDS software,
training, and design models. WIDS, or Worldwide Instructional Design System,
is a set of software and training tools developed by the Wisconsin Technical
College System. It is an approach to teaching, assessment, and outcomes measurement
that is now in place in 300 schools and school systems in the United States
and abroad.
Michigan’s Department of Career Development partnered with WIDS last year
to support curriculum development and advance a competency-based curriculum.
Says Jim Folkening, director of the department’s Office of Postsecondary
Services: “Michigan community colleges have always had a commitment to
academic quality. Recently, though, because of initiatives such as (Academic
Quality Improvement Project) and others, we’ve begun offering incentives
to the various campuses to implement specific programs. Academic improvement
is the goal. WIDS is the technological platform many of the schools are using
to reach it.”
The software, now in its seventh version, allows educators to build courses
online or offline, and produce outcome summaries, reports, syllabi, teaching
plans, and performance assessment reports. The new software is faster, more
functional, and more Web-friendly than its predecessors. Users can now generate
work directly to HTML, for instance. The software features wizards that simplify
document creation. It also allows more experienced users to forego the wizards
in favor of customized output.
WIDS has been implemented by 26 of Michigan’s 28 community colleges. Since
the adoption of the statewide contract, over 300 instructors have completed
the basic WIDS training. Many have gone on to create learner-centered courses
and programs using the WIDS model. The community college system now has 50 coach
trainers who will work as assistant trainers teaching new faculty initiates.
Folkening notes that there is interest in WIDS across the board. “Enthusiasm
for WIDS depends on the personality of the instructor,” he says, not on
the discipline from which he or she comes.
Distance learning is a major application of WIDS. The ability to take documents
directly into HTML and WIDS’ compatibility with Blackboard, the platform
in place at Michigan community colleges, makes it a natural choice for developing
online courses. At Muskegon Community College, for instance, faculty are building
distance learning courses from scratch using WIDS.
Although the implementation of WIDS statewide is relatively new, some Michigan
schools had individual WIDS licenses long before the state contract was put
into place. Mott Community College, for instance, has worked with WIDS for seven
years. Over 100 of its instructors have completed basic WIDS training. Seven
Mott faculty members have completed trainer-level preparation and now work with
onsite faculty who need support implementing WIDS techniques. At Mott, WIDS
is used for any course that is modularized—that is, any course that is
developed in components—as well as many standard courses.
According to Lynn Thigpen, an instructor in Mott’s Communications Technology
program, WIDS has been a great boon to their campus. “Mott has always been
a leader in providing distance education, first via videotape and now via both
videotape and some online courses,” says Thigpen. “WIDS has given
us a better instructional design model for distance education courses.”
Thigpen believes that WIDS has given teachers a better tool for working with
student performance. “It helps instructors work with students to solve
problems,” she says. Also, from a faculty development standpoint, WIDS
has made a significant contribution by getting all faculty members on the same
page, pedagogically and structurally. “Using the same system gets everyone
talking a common language.”
Folkening expects the focus on outcomes to continue, with WIDS being part of
the picture. Their three-year contract is designed to give the community colleges
time to train plenty of coach trainers who will then carry on the WIDS mission.
At the moment there is no shortage of interest among faculty who want to learn
the WIDS system. “Success breeds success,” says Folkening.
For more information visit www.wids.org
or contact Robin Soine, WIDS, at (800) 821-6313 or [email protected].