You’re not the Boss of Me: How to Entice Reluctant Faculty to Use the LMS

Presented by: Laurie Fox, SUNY Geneseo

SUNY Geneseo recently transitioned to a new LMS and thus was required to do a lot of faculty training. Laurie offered advice on how to both get faculty to use the new LMS, and how to get them to training. One piece of advice is as simple as the naming of the training – Canvas Essentials instead of Canvas Basics. What faculty member wants to admit that they need “basic” training? Laurie also made use of web training offered by Canvas; however faculty did not watch these on their own, instead they came to sessions hosted by Laurie to watch as a group. This offered them the opportunity to ask questions of a live person.

Other advice for getting faculty to use the LMS included enticing faculty to start small and try new things, as well as showcasing use of the LMS from other faculty in training sessions. She also had advice for working with different types of faculty – those that love the old LMS, those that hated the old LMS, and those who have never used the LMS and still don’t want to!

Slides available at: http://schd.ws/hosted_files/siguccs2017/4d/You%27re%20Not%20the%20Boss%20of%20Me.pdf

Takeaways:

Lots of training approaches – Allan Chen

I think that the “personal” approach that Laurie highlights where she had different approaches for different types of faculty makes great sense and reminds us that not all problems can be approached in just one way. – Lisa Brown