An Evaluation of a Collaborative, Blended Learning Course for Staff at Monash University Library

Monash University Library contributes to learning and teaching within the curriculum through its information research and learning skills programs. The Library is aligned with the University’s digital education strategic goals; and thus considers the development and delivery of e-learning resources for blended and online learning environments an important strategic undertaking. With complex and dispersed Library, faculty and cross-campus activities, increasing e-learning staff development opportunities is challenging. This paper reports on the second iteration of a blended learning staff development course designed and conducted by the Library. A pragmatic approach was taken, using predominantly social constructivist learning and a mixed methods methodology to gather feedback to make informed design decisions for the third iteration of the course. The course evaluation showed that the course was effective overall, but can be improved in several ways, such as re-evaluating staff time for completion of tasks and increasing the ratio of synchronous versus asynchronous learning activities.