Elearning! August - September

2013

Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.

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Learning!100 Defense Acquisition University: Learning Technology Lab Despite a setback that would throw most managers into a tailspin, the U.S. Defense Acquisition University (DAU) successfully forged ahead in 2013 with development of its Teaching and Learning Laboratory (TALL). Tat new lab was the deciding factor in DAU being named to the No.1 spot on our list of 2013's best learning programs in the public sector. Last August, the original TALL facility burned to the ground. But the DAU learning team, led by Dr. Chris Hardy, immediately went to work re-establishing its mission and making a pitch to superiors to fund a new lab. Hardy's team members were so thorough in selling the original TALL concept that they received almost immediate funding for the new facility. "We're constructing a new TALL out of the ashes of the fire," says Hardy, the director of DAU's Global Learning and Technology Center. Undertaking the original TALL was no small project in itself. "A couple years ago, we wanted to keep up with emerging technology and best practices," Hardy remembers "We benchmarked various organizations, and it allowed us to move quickly." But at the start, the group didn't have a process, a facility, a way to easily test developing technologies or diferent teaching methods and formats of deliveries. In other words, they didn't really have a disciplined work-fow feshed out or even a business case for the over-all TALL initiative. "Basically, we'd get an great idea, fgure out what it would cost, and then try to deploy it," says Hardy. "Tis resulted in some early failures in successfully de20 August / September 2013 Elearning! ploying new technologies, and with the amount of things that were changing, we had to do something diferent, so we started looking around at dedicated labs. We visited some higher-ed teaching and learning labs at M.I.T. and some others. Tey were mainly teaching their faculty to use the new technology for the classroom. Katrina McFarland (right foreground), DAU president before being promoted to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, cuts the ceremonial opening ribbon for DAU's Teaching and Learning Lab. Dr. Chris Hardy is left background. (Photo courtesy DAU) "But as a premier corporate university, we needed to go beyond that. We have everything from adult learning to course development, faculty technology and workshops. We also needed a structured business case and workfow process with defned requirements (so we wouldn't just jump to a shiny toy that titillated us)." Certainly, team members hoped that lab experiments would have a high return on investment, and that failures in the lab would not be near as costly as an unsuccessful implementation to the DAU's entire body of learners. So they investigated what would be the drivers to something like the TALL concept and formed an integrated product team. "Tat type of approach also promotes a collaborative chain with buy-in from the users and the faculty," says Hardy. "Te structured process itself is almost more important than just a facility." THE CHALLENGES 1. Building a strong business case for investing resources in the lab and convincing senior leadership that this was a good, credible return on investment. Risk assessment and security issues were of utmost importance. 2. Getting and retaining funding and dedicated facilities for the lab. 3. And facilitating the "hand-of," including change management and implementation. "We have 500 faculty members that have day jobs — teaching and facilitating some 1,600 oferings a year," Hardy observes. "As with any change, you really have to not underestimate the communication needs and the training of the faculty. To get their buy-in and support, they need to be a part of the process and participate in the pilots." Besides Dr. Hardy, key people responsible for the continuing success of the Teaching and Learning Lab include the original center director Dr. Judith Bayliss (who won the 2012 Federal Government Distance Learning Association Pioneer Award); new center director Luis Ramirez; TALL project manager Janine Leboeuf; Learning Capabilites and Integration Center director Tim Shannon; and DAU CIO Tim Hamm. DAU is a three-time winner of the Learning! 100, and frst time as #1. AREA OF COLLABORATION EXCELLENCE

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