Running head: TRAINING PROGRAM PLAN

Training Program Plan

Kim McIntyre
AET570
April 20, 2015
Natasha Spellman

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Training Program Plan

Part I Training Program Description

Blended course instruction involves taking current face-to-face curriculum and blending
synchronous variables to create a successful learning platform for faculty to apply with the
attending students. Blended course (also known as hybrid courses) training provides current
faculty the knowledge and improvement of existing skills when developing blended course
content for learners. The course provides techniques of implementing technology for content
delivery of the currently offered college courses provided to collegiate students that align with
the colleges mission statement and strategy for increasing the current student population. The
training program design provides faculty the developmental skills and knowledge for the
application and use of optimizing current and future learning outcomes using the blended
technology platform of delivery, while providing maximized authentic assessments capabilities.
The training design also focuses on successfully combining the asynchronous learning
aspects with the synchronous environment to improve learning delivery, which places a higher
degree of emphasis on the learning process in an active/interactive way rather than a passive
process. The training program provides faculty with critical knowledge for producing a positive
impact on adult learning.
Scope of the Training Program
The intention and purpose for this training program is to improve knowledge and skills of
current instructors to increase the availability for asynchronous and synchronous learning for
students. The training covers critical areas that address providing timely feedback, the
incorporation of technology, such as podcasts, and videos, and the processes available for

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implementation of required coursework materials in the online format that improves accessibility
for students.
Additionally, formative and summative assessment methods and ways of maximizing use
of these assessments provide faculty with information that will provide identifiers for existing
learning gaps. The training also focuses on the importance of timely feedback required for
student success.
Intended Audience
The intended audience for this training program consists of the colleges current
instructors that have basic knowledge and skills for offering students online interaction for
classes. These faculty members currently provide classes with online access to the syllabus, and
use the computer and Internet to engage students.
Program Goals

Improve the use of online coursework availability for students

Improve learner engagement for required coursework

To improve coursework design capabilities for faculty

To provide student feedback in a timely manner that improves student engagement and
knowledge

To provide alternative methods of class engagement that save instructors time

To provide the college a higher degree of attractiveness for new students

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Program Objectives

The trainee will understand the importance of promoting student learning using the
method of blended instructional strategies that encourages active engagement, meeting
set organizational guidelines.

The trainee will understand and effectively develop and engage in the blended course
strategy using technology, meeting instructional guidelines.

The trainee will understand and effectively create and conduct assessment strategies for
the blended courseware design, meeting instructional policy and guidelines.

The trainee will understand and apply effective and timely communication techniques for
student interaction and feedback requirements, meeting the institutional set policy and
guidelines.

Part II Needs or Gap Analysis

Formal needs and gap assessments were conducted with the purpose of analyzing
information to determine what types of learning areas are currently below the organizational
standards or would benefit from changes within the current processes preformed. The selected
techniques used to identify the need and gaps involved four of the 10 key techniques. The four
techniques chosen were Questionnaires, Observations, Interviews, and Informal
interactions.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires were developed to ascertain how current students viewed face-to-face
classes. Students were also asked questions related to comparing classes that utilized the online
blended technology for part of the class format. Additionally, the questionnaire focused on current
feedback practices for all courses currently offered at the college. The final focus of the

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questionnaire involved how students viewed courses with online and face-to-face interaction,
versus the method of strictly face-to-face interaction.
Observations
The observation technique was implemented by interacting with classrooms,
students, and student services. The direct observation with each of the described platforms
revealed issues that affected students overall satisfaction of timely feedback processes, the
students desire to have access to course materials and the ability to submit assignments in an
alternative manner in the event that an individual student was unable to attend the structured class
because of unforeseen circumstances.
Interviews
Interviews were conducted with several faculty members, academic counselors,
and student services to provide an additional view of needs or gaps occurring within the current
course structure. The overall information provided information related to three basic issues
consisting of time-constraints for instructors, academic counselors and student services disclosed
that one of the highest complaints from students involved instructors providing timely feedback.
Additionally, faculty members disclosed that a lack of KSAs has hindered the implementation of
hybrid course format for classes.
Informal Interaction
Informal interaction with students and faculty continued to provide further
evidence that the issues occurring involved time constraints for faculty, timely feedback for
students (feedback in many cases was not return to students for three to five week spans, often no
feedback provided that assisted with mid-terms exams or assignments). The final area consisted of

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online course work that allowed both students and faculty an alternative method for offering and
completing coursework.
Part II Summary
These techniques provided support for the determination that offering more courses to new
and current students utilizing the hybrid (e.g. blending the traditional face-to-face with online
course environments) course availability; will provide a positive impact on the adult learning
process. Addressing KSAs gaps and transferability to implement hybrid courseware will alleviate
the time constraint issue occurring for faculty and improve the overall attractiveness of the college
for new students. Finally, with the time constraints for faculty addressed the weekly feedback
policy requirements are attainable, having a positive impact on the adult learning process.
Part III Budget
Projected Yearly Program Budget for 2015
Personnel

Amount

Based on

Administrative Program Manager

$42,000 Yearly Salary

Instructional Design Team Lead

$38,000 Yearly Salary

Instructional Design Team Member

$34,000 x 52 = $653.84 weekly

Yearly Salary

Instructional Design Team Member

$653.84 x 26 weeks = $16,999.84

Based on 6 mo.

Instructional Design Team Member

$16,999.84 x 3 =$50,999.52

$51,000

Subject Matter Expert

$11,000 Part Time

Subject Matter Expert

$11,000 Part Time

External Evaluation Specialist

Program Facilitator
Technical Support
Fringe Benefits
Personnel Totals

$150 per hr. x 350 hrs. =

$52,500

Hourly

$40,000 Yearly Salary

(Internal resource)

$17,000 Yearly
$52,000 x 20%
$314,500

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Materials

$15,000 Yearly

Equipment

$20,000 Yearly

Supplies

$18,000 Yearly

Miscellaneous (LMS)

$1500

$125 - Monthly

Travel

$10,000 Yearly

Facilities

$10,000 Yearly

Total

$74,500

Program Total

$389,000 Yearly
Income Sources

Sources

Expected Amount

Parent Company

$30,000

Grants

$200,000

Government

$50,000

Miscellaneous (Foundation)
Total Income from all sources

$109,000
For 2015
$389,000

Part IV Staffing Plan

Staff planning is a critical part of the program developmental process. Developing a
program requires strategic planning to ensure that the program has the necessary staff for the
developmental process. Each staff member should also have the required knowledge, skills, and
experience to ensure that the program is successfully implemented. When developing a staffing
plan there are many factors to consider. These factors include hiring staff that meet required
qualifications. This ensures that the individuals have the skills, knowledge and abilities.

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Additionally, each staff position consists of one or more open positions required to meet each
skill set involved. The staffing plan also addresses whether internal, external, or other resources
are required for the program. Finally, the plan will discuss strategies to fill resource gaps and the
processes that will be used to evaluate staff performance.
The first staffing position consists of one position for an Administrative Program
Manager. This position requires the individual to have excellent managerial skills, the ability to
budget effectively, have marketing knowledge and skills for developing and implementing
marketing plans, as well as knowledge, skills, and experience for strategic planning processes.
The duration of most of these staffing positions will exist until the program is no in effect. The
second staffing position consists of three to five positions for an Instructional Design Team.
These individuals must have skills, knowledge, and previous experience with developing
distance learning models, adult learning and teaching theories, interactive technology processes
and application, Internet instructional techniques and application, Web 2.0 programming
knowledge and skills, Learning Management Systems (LMS) knowledge and skills.
Staffing will require Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). This area consists of at least one or
more positions. This individual(s) filling this/these position(s) must have knowledge, skills, and
experience in developing distance learning programs for accredited institutions. The next staff
position will consist of and External Evaluation Specialist. This individual must have
experience and extensive knowledge of theories related to general educational processes. This
position will run for one year and then be reassessed. The position for Program Facilitator will
be another staffing need. This individual must have extensive understanding of teaching models,
understanding of the application of educational theories. Knowledge and experience with the use
of LMSs. This individual will possess a Masters Degree in Adult Education, with previous

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experience with facilitating distance learning courses.

Another important staff position consists of Technical Support Services, which is already
employed by the college and is considered an internal staffing resource for the program. Other
internal resources consists of technicians for maintaining the distance learning platform for the
program. Additional resource needs involve mentors for the program. Any resource gaps
encountered will be brought to the attention of the planning specialist where internal or external
sources will be discussed and agreed upon with stakeholders before implementing.
Staff performance will consist of an observational process that will be performed by the
external Evaluation Specialist. The observational process will cover the four stages of evaluation.
This process will provide measurable information to gage the programs overall success.
Part V Stakeholders and Goals

University of Phoenix Material

Stakeholders and Goals
Complete the following chart by identifying the stakeholders or business partners, goals, and
methods of building support for your learning program.

Stakeholders (minimum of five)

Partnership goal

Ways to build support

The Colleges Board of

Education

To create an effective
distance learning program
that aligns with the colleges
vision and mission to
promote and provide lifelong
learning to the community.

Engage the Board in the

decision making process.
Provide timely, honest, and
open communication. Listen
and respect the Boards
diverse opinions and
concerns. Work towards
creating mutually beneficial
solutions.

The Colleges Foundation

To observe, maintain, and

Engage the Foundations

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Board

Faculty

Students/Learners

10

improve the Foundations

mission for promotion of
philanthropy to improve
peoples lives socially,
culturally, economically and
educationally (Southwestern
Oregon Community College,
1998-2015, para. 1).

Board in the decision making

process. Provide timely,
honest, and open
communication. Listen and
respect the Foundations
diverse opinions and
concerns. Work towards
creating mutually beneficial
solutions.

To create a program that is

articulate and concise,
meeting diverse Faculty
needs encompassing
Knowledge, Skills, and
Attitudes that will seamlessly
transfer to the facilitation
process of the distance
learning environment that
effectively supports learners.

Create a learning
environment that supports
facilitation excellence,
strengthens the colleges
structure promoting the
various theories of learning,
and provide understandable
and effective evaluation
processes that promote the
active use and application by
facilitators. Provide methods
that allow timely feedback
requirements to be met.
Provide a communication
environment that allows
faculty to provide feedback
for the programs overall
objectives, goals, strengths,
weaknesses, or any other
relevant information.

To provide learning
processes that observe and
match the diverse needs of
learners. To provide
knowledgeable and skilled
faculty who articulate
learning processes in an
engaging manner that excites
the students in the learning
process.

Create a learning
environment that supports
learning excellence,
strengthening the learners
understanding, promoting the
desire for learners to actively
engage while learning and
completing courses and
programs. To provide timely
feedback which improves
learner understanding and
overall satisfaction of course

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requirements. Offering
alternative methods for
completion of programs and
courses. Provide an avenue
for communication of ideas
or needs that may not have
been addressed.
The Community

University of Phoenix (2014)

To enhance the colleges

mission for offering distance
learning courses for lifelong learning and personal
enrichment opportunities to
the community
(Southwestern Oregon
Community College, 19982015, para. 1).

Create a distance learning

environment that supports the
life-long learning process and
personal enrichment
opportunities for the
community. Provide a
communication outlet with
the community to determine
what types of individual
courses would be appealing.

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Part VI Communication Plan

Marketing Message

Hybrid Courses
Hybrid courses bring a new dimension into the traditional course environment. Providing
faculty training to incorporate the e-learning process leads to overcoming current issues
surrounding time-constraint that is impacting provision of important timely-feedback.
Distance Learning
Distance learning is a trend that is here to stay! For colleges to remain competitive
institutions and faculty require a plan to blend face-to-face teaching with an online e-learning
environment.
Training
Offering faculty a course that builds the necessary skills and knowledge for incorporating
the hybrid learning format, provides alternative methods for engaging learners. Transcend to
facilitator, creating a learner-centered environment for students.
Objectives
Objectives for the hybrid training program include developing new methods for engaging
learners, providing solutions to instructors for time constraint issues, promote life-long learning
processes by offering learners a new method of participating in the learning process.
Community
Offering hybrid and distance-learning opportunities to the community increases the
colleges ability to attract and retain learners of all ages.
Advantages
Offering hybrid platforms for courses allows instructors to offer dynamic and a more
personalized method of teaching. The hybrid format provides a higher degree of flexibility for
both the instructor and students in comparison to the traditional face-to-face classroom. The use
of computers within the workplace and everyday environment of most individuals also makes the
use of hybrid learning a method of improving Internet and technology use.
Evaluation
The evaluation process for learning is a critical part of the learning process. Evaluations
given, collected, and measured quickly with accuracy, contributing further to improving timeconstraint issues that faculty often encounter.

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Training to Become a Facilitator of Life-long Learning Begins Today!

Benefits of Training
The benefits of this new program consist of providing alternative methods for the
teaching process that successfully engage learners and allow faculty to overcome problematic
issues of providing learners timely and necessary feedback that improves knowledge and skills
being presented in the course environment. Blending the synchronous and asynchronous methods
of learning with the traditional face-to-face environment alleviate some of the time constraint
issues that faculty currently face.
Instructional practices for the program assists with maintaining the learning
accountability factor for students as well as faculty members. Faculty will find that offering a
hybrid method of learning for students invigorates the learning process. The learning process that
may have reached some stagnated point will seem fresh, new, and interesting for learners.
Learners require feedback to understand if objectives are understood and the learning goals for
the course are being met successfully. Feedback is a critical part of the learning process.
Providing feedback in a timely manner produces a positive impact on the adult learning process.
Promotional Channels and Materials
Finding and using the right Promotional Channels and materials for organizing,
planning, and promoting a new program can ultimately mean success or failure for the program.
The intention for promotional channels for a program is marketing to potential participants. The
promotional channels help to inform and relate important information and ultimately networking
to improve participation rates. The promotional channels that will be utilized for this program
will consist of the utilization of the Internet and Social Media outlets. These choices of channels
involves the ability to reach a larger target audience that may become program participants, in a

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more efficient and effective manner. Social media outlets such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and
YouTube provide inexpensive methods for the marketing process.
Facebook provides an area that allows information to be conveyed regarding upcoming
events that allow potential participants to request to join or be specifically invited. Developing a
Facebook page can assist with the overall marketing process for a program by offering specific
information regarding the where, why, how, who of the program. Another social media outlet
such as YouTube provides methods for broadcasting events (Caffarella & Ratcliff Daffron,
2013). Videos of previous programs can provide potential participants with an idea of what takes
place as well as conveying the specific importance for the program. YouTube offers an element
of interactivity with any viewers.
LinkedIn provides another avenue for reaching potential participants. LinkedIn provides
a professional networking element to the marketing process. Additionally, LinkedIn Groups
provides a smaller networking environment where past participants can interact with new
program participants. Each promotional channel allows the program to convey important to
larger audiences when time constraints requires information to be delivered quickly.
Part VII Program Evaluation
Training Program Purpose and Goals
Evaluation is the heart and soul of gaging the effectiveness of the training program and
the overall success of each element that surrounds the training process. The training program
focuses on providing the necessary skills for facilitating hybrid course environments,
improvement of timely feedback for learners that improves the learners understanding for
course related materials, and leads to improvement in current time constraint issues that faculty
is encountering.

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Evaluation Responsibilities
When implementing the evaluation processes for a program responsibilities for gathering
information fall to several individuals involved in the program. The evaluation process requires
that almost all of the individuals involved with the developmental and implementation processes
will have some type of responsibility that involves the gathering relevant information that is
required to evaluate the programs effectiveness. However, the individuals responsible for
overseeing the evaluation process for the program are the Administrative Program Manager, the
External Evaluator, and the Instructional Design Team Leader.
Evaluation Purpose
There are many purposes for evaluation. These purposes involve evaluating the training
process to determine if learning is taking place, if skills are being transferred and used efficiently
and effectively, is an organizational improvement occurring, is a positive impact occurring at the
student/learner level after training is complete, are gaps occurring within training and a cause for
revision evident, are stakeholders happy with the overall program results occurring, do the
individual objectives and goals for the program need redefined or revised? Without the process
of evaluation, ascertaining and addressing these areas would be difficult or impossible.
Metrics
The specific metrics involved for the program consist of determining the percentage of
participation. There are two major levels that the metrics for participation will cover. The first is
participation of faculty within the new program for hybrid class development and application.
The second participation metric involves the previous student ratios for classes offering hybrid or
distance learning qualities with the specific intent to determine how many new students have
begun to participate in hybrid classes.

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Another two-part metric consists of measuring the satisfaction at the faculty level as well
as the student level of feedback satisfaction. This metric provides information relevant to how
effective the program was for addressing time-constraint issues for faculty and at the student
level, the metric provides what changes are occurring and how effective the program was for
addressing feedback issues for students.
Evaluations
The types of evaluation methods used for the program consist of Donald L. Kirkpatricks
four levels of evaluation and the Dick and Carey model. Kirkpatricks four levels of evaluation
involve: Evaluation Level 1: Reaction - Level 1 criteria: Evaluation focuses on the reaction of
participants to the training program and if learner needs are being adequately met. This type of
evaluation will include smile sheets with open-ended questions and collected as formative and
summative techniques at the start and end of the program course.
Evaluation Level 2: Learning Level 2 criteria: Evaluations conducted provide
information to determine if the participants are learning effectively as a result of the course.
Specific measurements include participants achievement of cognitive knowledge or behavioral
skills. Optimal collection time for this area of evaluation is at the end of the program course.
Level 3: Behavior Level 3 criteria involves determining the degree that course
participants were able to transfer new Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes (KSAs) to the teaching
environment to provide a positive impact on the adult learning process. The observational
technique is the primary source for gathering this information. The optimal time for applying this
portion of the evaluation process is after the course is completed and faculty begin applying the
new KSAs within the classroom environment.

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Level 4: Results Level 4 criteria: This level of evaluation provides information that
allows results to be assessed of the overall effect the course had on organizational performances
such as the overall Return on Investment (ROI) (Kristiansen, 2008). Data collection techniques
involve analyzing all the relevant data involved with the program and generating actual numbers
in regards to the programs impact on improved student satisfaction, a positive outcome for
faculty feedback improvement, and the overall ROI for stakeholders and the organization.
The Dick and Carey model will also be implemented in the evaluation process. The
procedural system evaluation allows areas such as design, development, implementation, and
evaluation of instruction. It adopted and adapted the views of behaviorist, cognitivist, and
constructivism (bamboo, 2014, para. 2). Another evaluation process that will be used consists of
the Observational method. This process is implemented from the beginning of the program
development and continues throughout the entire process and includes the transferal of KSAs
that provide observational data regarding the impact on the colleges learners taking part in the
hybrid courses.
Conclusion
Creating a training program requires the planner to consider many things during the
development process. The process begins with determining that a need or gap exists and training
is necessary to create a positive impact on the adult learning process. Training programs require
the planner to develop a plan of action that incorporates a budget analysis, staffing plan, address
stakeholder goals while promoting engagement, the development of a communication plan for
promotional marketing, and a process for evaluation to determine how effective the program was
in meeting the need or gap that inspired the program from the beginning.

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References
bamboo. (2014). Eastbound remember - home bamboo. Retrieved from
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Boulos, L. (2015) [Picture of blended learning concepts]. http://raine6.blogspot.com/2013/04/onblended-learning.html#.VTADTvnF8bM http://www.heidisiwak.com/
Caffarella, R. S., & Ratcliff Daffron, S. (2013). Planning programs for adult learners: A
practical guide (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Kristiansen, N. (2008). Chapter 28: Level 1: Reaction Evaluation ASTD handbook for workplace
learning professionals. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.
Southwestern Oregon Community College. (1998-2015). SWOCC Foundation. Retrieved from
http://www.socc.edu/foundation
University of Phoenix. (2014). Stakeholders and Goals. Retrieved from University of Phoenix,
AET570 website.