Instructor Success Drives Student Success: Learning Experience Solutions to Help Faculty Thrive!

Concurrent Session 2

Brief Abstract

Northeastern University and O’Donnell Learn will summarize 3 years of research leading to the creation of a personalized and scalable faculty support solution for creating humanized, inclusive and engaging learning – Faculty Concierge. Northeastern University will discuss how this learning design support and technology platform is simplifying and reducing course preparation time and equips faculty with the tools they need for creating successful, contextualized learning experiences.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: John Falchi MS ABD, O'Donnell Learn LLC

John Falchi, Ms, ABD, is Senior Vice President, Growth and Product Strategy, for O'Donnell Learn.

Co-presenter: Jared Auclair, Northeastern University

Jared R. Auclair is currently the Associate Dean of Professional Program and Graduate Affairs in the College of Science at Northeastern University and Associate Teaching Professor in the department of chemistry and chemical biology. In addition, Dr. Auclair is the Director of the Biopharmaceutical Analysis Laboratory (BATL), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Center of Regulatory Excellence in Biotherapeutics and Advanced Therapies and oversees the International Council for Harmonisation training. Lastly, Prof. Auclair serves as the Technical Supervisor for the Life Science Testing Center at Northeastern University, which is a state and CLIA-certified lab. Dr. Auclair collaborates with both academic researchers, industry, and government in the area of biopharmaceutical and cell/gene therapy development and analysis. He has expertise in mol. biology, protein biochemistry, analytical chemistry, protein crystallography, and biological mass spectrometry; and is interested in use-inspired research for the biotechnology industry. Prior to joining Northeastern, Dr. Auclair received his bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a PhD in Biomedical Science from the University of Massachusetts Medical. Upon graduating with his PhD, he did a post-doc under Greg Petsko, Dagmar Ringe and Jeffrey Agar at Brandeis

Extended Abstract

As screens rapidly replace classrooms and technology revamps traditional learning modules, a vital and yet unanswered question lingers: are teachers being provided with the tools they need to keep up? O’Donnell Learn has, over the last 3 years, conducted exploratory research aimed at answering how much time are instructors spending on learning design? Where are they spending their time – and how effective is it? What are instructor-stated needs for learning design support? Finally, how do instructor needs align with administrator perceived needs for faculty learning design support?

O’Donnell Learn and Northeastern University will share how the outcomes of this research framed the development of a personalized faculty support solution for creating contextualized and humanized learning while simultaneously simplifying and reducing instructor course development time. Further, Northeastern will share how this service, Faculty Concierge, and complementary technology platform, Nectar, has successfully increased the University’s capacity for providing personalized faculty development and learning design support.

Engagement: Brief discussion around the need for humanizing learning; the current condition of faculty, staff, and students and why students seek better learning experiences. Discussion on research of how much time instructors spend on online course development. We will also be sharing research on what instructors are interested in improving while also inviting the audience to add their ideas for classroom improvements.