Adult Learning

After the shutdown of their campuses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia Piedmont Technical College required a partner that could help standardize distance learning, provide a resource that is accessible to all students, and provide reporting at the administrative level.

Dr. McBride sought a solution that would support distance learning efforts both during the pandemic and in the long term. Without support from her current vendors, she needed a partner who could fill a major gap.

“When the program shut down, we didn’t have a way to reach our students online. We had a supplemental program that allowed students to learn asynchronously on their own, but it was only a supplement, not a real way to reach students. While our teachers put together an a-la-carte toolkit for teaching online, we didn’t have a means of gauging the instructional quality or running reports. Eventually, it became apparent this would be a long-term effort, so we started using Blackboard, but we quickly realized we didn’t have anything that we could put into Blackboard to help our teachers teach. Everything we did prior to the pandemic was traditional. We had nothing that we could import into our learning management system.”

“We looked everywhere for content, but none of the vendors we typically use could help. It quickly became apparent we would need to buy something as the time required to create new content for Blackboard was prohibitive, especially since most of our teachers had never taught online before. I was determined to buy something to make it easier for the teachers.”

“Over the course of the pandemic, my vision became to create a robust, permanent distance learning footprint. We were putting all this effort into it. If the pandemic ever goes away, we aren’t going to let all of our hard work go to waste. So we wanted something that was permanent and interactive and that would relieve the burden for our teachers, but also be quality content for our students.”

“There are companies that exist just to serve the adult education field, and we do buy things from those companies, but when the pandemic hit, they didn’t have products appropriate for our students. That’s where Boardworks filled a huge need for us. Those other companies are starting to catch up, but there’s still nothing out there like Boardworks. At this stage, you either make your own content, or you get Boardworks. For us, it wasn’t even a question.”

Dr. McBride and her team evaluated and selected Boardworks as a resource to fill the content gap that had developed during distance learning.

“96% of our students are still learning remotely. So our teachers are here in the classroom and students are wherever they are on their own devices. And when the teacher shares a Boardworks presentation, students can manipulate the interactive pieces of the lesson on their computer. It really allows the students to touch and feel the content, rather than just watching the teacher. To me, this is vital to formalize and help them internalize what they’re learning.”

“My expectation is that, even when we do come back to campus, we have enough computers to set up labs in our classrooms that allow teachers to leverage Boardworks. Students sitting at their desks can manipulate the presentation rather than coming up to the board. The teacher can have the live lesson displayed on her screen and the students can engage with whatever they’re working on, on their own computers. This is a very exciting new feature for us in the new online Boardworks.”