By Ray Birch
HALIFAX, N.S., Canada–Credit union leaders know what’s been involved in the pivot to online professional education during the pandemic, but what about the educators? A program that has been online since long before the pandemic is offering some lessons in digital learning.
“Digital learning is not as easy as you might think,” said Karen Miner, managing director at the International Centre for Co-operative Management at St. Mary’s University. “Yes, we've all become such experts on Zoom, and then we think, ‘OK, doing professional education online is simple’…But being able to create a learning environment online is hard.”
For the International Centre for Co-operative Management, the online learning isn’t something new that was forced upon the program and its leaders by the pandemic. Rather, the Centre, which provides education worldwide to anyone involved in cooperatives, credit unions and mutuals, started more than two decades ago with its focus on distance learning.
“It's interesting. We started out doing online programming 20 years ago with the launch of our master’s degree program that was only available online. And it's been working. We knew well before the pandemic that distance learning, and having the capabilities to do it, was important,” Miner said.
As a new academic year approaches, Miner’s insights are part of a CUToday.info series themed “Back to School” that highlights credit union professional education programs.
The Right Tools
Miner said effective distance learning is often about choosing the correct digital “tools.”
“With online learning, and learning how to do it right, there is a learning curve,” explained Miner. “It’s about how do you use technology, depending on what you are doing in your program. And, maybe, that technology you’re using is not for everyone and maybe not even necessary. I have found that if you throw in fancy digital tools into much shorter courses—bringing together people for two to three days online—you can create frustration with your online activities, lose connections and so forth. So, we tend to go more simple when it comes to technology when we have shorter education programs. Simple can work. Don't over-engineer it.”
What Credit Unions Could Use
But there is one piece of engineering the credit union community could use, according to Miner, and that is greater cooperation in professional education.
professional education programs, said Miner.
“Credit unions are cooperatives, however there is absolutely not enough collaboration going on among the top professional education programs that serve the movement,” said Miner. “We need to work together more and we all should not be trying to reinvent the wheel. It’s an ironic and ongoing problem in an industry that is built on collaborative principles.”
Miner explained that what has changed quite a bit within the credit union professional education community over the last 10 years is that CUs leaders—and would-be leaders--have realized that distance is no longer an excuse to put aside continuing education.
“It's important that credit union people learn and refresh, adding knowledge to their paradigm,” said Miner. “With all of the programs that began to migrate to online in the past decade, and with the pandemic accelerating that shift, people can no longer say they can’t find the time to attend a professional education program.”
Changing Courses
Meanwhile, when it comes to the content of the educational programs, Miner said there has been growing demand for training around information technology, cybersecurity and compliance.
Miner advised credit union leaders to be careful about attending training programs from organizations that are not strictly focused on credit unions or cooperatives, noting a trend in recent years has been to use training sources outside the industry. She said her concerns lie with what CU professionals will learn from a course that has a blended audience of people from several industries. She said she worries the information will not be as effective as that which is taught from an educator focused on cooperatives.
“I have seen credit unions miss the mark here,” said Miner. “With these programs I have seen credit union leaders choosing the wrong courses to attend and just missing the mark—you are one credit union fish in a sea of other financial professionals, and you are not among like-minded people.”
Bringing the Lessons Home
Miner added she is also apprehensive about credit union leaders’ ability to pass along—throughout their organizations—the education they receive. She noted that has been shortcoming over the years.
“People might attend a program and say that was a great course, but they really need to also be taught how to bring what they learned back to the credit union and apply it appropriately,” she said. “That is an important skill set to have.”
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