LIT2T Leadership Guide

15 TO: TABLE OF CONTENTS the TESL Canada Conference, TESL Ontario affiliate conferences, institutional events and other settlement and language learning events. In addition to these face-to-face sessions, project participants receive the monthly digital newsletter. We use social media, such as Twitter, YouTube and audio podcasts to provide project updates and additional professional development opportunities. These also allow the community members to feed back their thoughts and ideas related to the project. Within the instructor training courses, forums, wikis, contributory glossaries and blogs also serve to strengthen community. LearnIT2teach mentors monitor instructor progress throughout their training, providing individualized and timely support. The community also benefits from our settlement focused publications These have included articles in TESL Canada Share and TESL Ontario Contact magazine. Publications include: The Narrative and Evaluation Report: Blended Learning Innovation for IRCC Settlement Language Training, and The Adult Settlement Blended Language Learning Selected Annotated Bibliography available online at (http://learnit2teach.ca/wpnew/an-adult-settlement-blended-language-training- selected-annotated-bibliography/). Each article in the bibliography is pertinent to online or blended language learning. Users can review summaries of each article and follow web links for direct access. 3.1.6 Portal The portal at http://www.learnit2teach.ca connects to all of the online project resources. This includes other servers which host courseware, instructor training courses and support documents. It also functions as a social hub for the LearnIT2teach community. All of the training tutorials, both animations and documents, are available at the LearnIT2teach portal, along with a comprehensive support section. In addition, it provides organizational features such as future events and contact details. 3.1.7 Project Evaluation Having established a project mission, goals and values (See the statement at the beginning of this document), the project evaluation activities serve two important objectives: continuous improvement of our products and services and assessment of the impact of the project on teaching and learning. To ensure continuous improvement, we survey every training participant at each stage. We have gathered information during both the piloting stage and the regular workshops, as feedback for the workshop developers and facilitators. In addition, the evaluation activities include an assessment of the project outcomes, the effectiveness of and client satisfaction with the training workshops, and the general impact of the training on the way language training instructors use learning technologies in their practice. Two complementary evaluation approaches have been used in the LearnIT2teach Project. PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH (PAR) was used in the development of the design of professional development. GUSKEY’S MODEL OF EVALUATION OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT is being used to determine and articulate the success of the delivery of the professional development training workshops in terms of overall impact and effectiveness. While PAR is especially good when consensus is the goal or when results need to be interpreted, providing a model for vetting interpretations and inviting the input of others, Guskey’s Model is especially useful for assessing impact. PAR has been mainly used to support the instructional design cycle and provide information for the decision-making process during the planning, development, and piloting stages. On