On January 9 and 10, 2012, the Teaching Personnel Office and the Human Resources Office at USEK, in collaboration with the IT Office, organized a workshop on “Online Learning”, given by Ms. Susan Conrad, Director of Instructional Technology and Design at Marymount University in Washington DC, and Ms. Ghania Zgheib, Faculty and Content-based Instruction Coordinator at George Mason University in Washington DC.
The workshop, aimed to keep USEK Faculty members up to date with innovative teaching strategies that would encourage students to ‘think beyond the classroom’. It also prepared them to integrate technology into the learning process by presenting information on the new vision of inquiry based learning and the basics of online learning. It showed how to design an online course, how to effectively integrate social media tools into teaching, how to effectively use discussion boards and wikis for student engagement, how to link technology to learning objectives for successful learning outcomes and, finally, how to immediately boost student engagement through several innovative learning strategies, Web 2.0 tools.
The welcome speech was delivered by Dr. George Yahchouchi, Director of the Teaching Personnel Office, who stated that “The world is moving fast and we have to decide whether to be contributors or followers and I think we all agree on the first option”. He underlined that “…our main mission at the university is teaching and learning as well as research and other community services and it is our responsibility and mission to provide USEK students with the best learning experience, not only in Lebanon but in the region, by rethinking our teaching and learning strategies in two ways: Firstly, by enhancing team work and critical thinking between faculty members and perceiving evaluation and peer observations as means to develop rather than to audit and control; Secondly, by taking full advantage of technological development by using e-learning in our teaching methods. E-learning is not a substitute for ‘face-to-face’ teaching as is the case with online courses. It is a platform that facilitates learning through an improved course management discussion and exchange between faculty members and students and between students themselves”. He announced, at the end of his speech that, “For the moment, we can say that the use of the USEK e-learning platform, which will start next semester, will become our responsibility as USEK Full Time Faculty members, and this will be added to the criteria used in the teaching evaluation”.
Afterwards, on two consecutive days, Mmes. Conrad and Zgheib presented a workshop on the concept of online learning, shedding light on the following issues: education vision, social media, online learning, technology overview, attributes of effective online learning, online learning quality framework, using a wiki to create your online course, getting your students ready to learn in an online environment, student engagement in an online environment, and evaluation tools.
Mr. Imad Daou, from the IT Office, also discussed the basic features of the USEK e-learning platform.
The workshop was concluded with the screening of a short movie on the transformations that educational systems are witnessing, followed by a closing speech by Rev. Fr. Hady Mahfouz, USEK President. The latter underlined the fact that “…the University mission aims to provide the appropriate atmosphere for students in order to help them acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, and also to develop their competence by making use of modern technologies, especially because the world is witnessing a major revolution in the field of communication and information”. Moreover, Fr. Mahfouz praised the efforts deployed by the organizers of this workshop which aimed to ensure the quality of teaching and promote education in the University.
At the end of the workshop, Dr. Yahchouchi presented Certificates of Attendance to the participants, in the presence of Mr. Ziad Eid, Director of the IT Office, and Mrs. Aline Ghazal, Director of the Human Resources Office.