Transitioning to online: Capitalizing on opportunity within chaos

Editor's Notes

• #2 We’ve made it through the emergency remote teaching phase. What next? This session will discuss some of the ways you can continue to improve on your online teaching practice as you enter the next phase of teaching online, as well as explore opportunities that can be maximized during this phase. Topics will include practical tips and guidance for engaging in this next phase of online teaching from designing your interaction with students and choosing technology to learner support and development. Examples and resources will also be shared, and ample time will be given for answering your questions about online teaching and learning. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. 
• #3 So, first a question: how have you experienced teaching during COVID-19?
• #4 I‘d like to start by sharing a graphic from Phil Hill, who has blogged for many years on EdTech. In his blog and in this graphic specifically, he outlines the phases we are moving through as we transition to online learning in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly everyone has already gone through Phase 1: the rapid transition to remote teaching and learning. What I prefer to call EMERGENCY remote teaching and learning. Most of us are now entering into phase 2 of (Re) adding basics and some are preparing for Phase 3: the extended transition during continued turmoil. Much depends on the leadership within our institutions, as this is a transition that is not done in a silo, but which impacts the entire system.
• #5 I hear a lot in education at the moment that online is a poo or deficient substitute but unescapable solution to the current situation in higher ed. Historically, distance and online education has had a tarnished reputation within higher education, often called the second choice when traditional forms of education are not available I believe that this is changing, and I personally disagree that it is a poor substitute. And so I’d like to focus on the opportunities we have within online learning and specifically within three areas where online learning can improve upon the student learning experience: Design, assessment, support and care What I’ve tried to do here is target specific areas and to provide practical tips for improving upon the online experience for both your students and for you as an instructor.
• #6 I‘ve structured each of the areas I will discuss so that I first give overall tips, then dig a bit deeper into each of the tips, identifiy the key opportunity, as well as identify resources that you can go to for more information. Some of these resources may not be available online, meaning you may need to get them from your local library. All full references are on the Google site that Thom and Vickel have put together. The first area is Design: how can we design and structure our courses to ensure that students are learning what we want them to learn and in the most effective way? Here are some ways I think we can do that in this second phase of our transition to online learning. Backward design Dialogue Self-directed learning Technology and Media choice Here my tip is to ... That is create an environment where students have agency and responsibility for their learning
• #7 As we move away from the emergency remote teaching situation to a place, we‘re now entering a place where we can start thinking about how best to help our students learn. One way of doing this is to apply backward design to your online course. First step is to define the desired learning outcomes: what do you want students to learn and to achieve? Next step, how will you assess whether they have achieved it? Finally, you choose your learning content and actvities so that they align with desired ourcomes. End result is a strong focus on the learner. Some will say that this is basic good teaching practice. Yes, it is and is also applicable within the F2F classroom. The reason it fits well with online is because you define four or five specific outcomes, then design your classroom around these outcomes – which makes it easier to design an online course. Here you also have an opportunity to incorporate open education resources which help reduce cost to students, makes text available online, and it also gives you flexibility to switch out texts as a course topic evolves I‘ve included two resources: book and webinar...
• #8 My next piece of advice regarding design is to design for an environment that engages students in dialogue. Moore defines a dialogue as something that is purposeful, constructive and valued by each party. Each party in a dialogue is a respectful and active listener; each is a contributor, and builds on the contributions of the other party or parties.... (p. 24). A first step toward creating a dialogue jis to move your lectures out of the classroom. This practice, called flipped learning, lets you focus classroom time on engaging with students in a conversation, for example, in an online discussion forum, a classroom debate, or in a synchronous Q&A forum. The opportunity here is... Students are given a voice. There isn‘t that one student who dominates the conversation. Rather all students have the opportunity to be involved and to not only engage with you, but also with other students in class. So when you design, be sure to design for dialogue. A couple of resources here: one is an OER, one is a book
• #9 The next component that I think needs to be included in all designs of online classrooms, is development of self-directed learning skills. Knowles writes that the main purpose of education should be developing the skills of inquiry and to take the initiative in learning. This ties into the previous tip about dialogue and encouraging students to engage in inquiry. But it is also getting students to be more responsible for their learning and to make decisions about their learning. This can be achieved in different degrees, for example, by having students decide what they willl learn and how, in essence becoming co-designers of the curriculum and that tasks being carried out. As the instructor, you then become more of a „guide on the side“ rather than the „sage on the stage“. Challenging at first as students can shy away from taking responsibility; not accustomed to making decisions about learning Move away from the lecture and move toward more dialogue and discussion and more self-exploration by the student. The opportunity here is: And the resource I would recommend is: You may have noticed citations for the pictures on the slides, this is actually a picture of my daughter, learning to canoe for the first time. An interesting learning experience...
• #10 The next and probably one of the most important design tips is choosing your media carefully. Some of you may have been forced to use certain media, or you are going along with what your institution wants you to use. Some of you may have begun experimenting with new media and thinking about ways to incorporate it into the classroom. The important thing here is to Incorporate technology to support theory/practice: “…it is only in a complex dance between technologies and pedagogies that quality distance education emerges. The technology sets the beat and the timing. The pedagogy defines the moves.” (Anderson, 2009, p. 2) When choosing media to incorporate, consider the added pedagogical value. Is there pedagogical value? If there isn’t toss it. And be prepared to fail. Most online instructors have needed years and years of experience be to be good online instructors. I recommend maximizing use of the internet, because it helps students in developing their digital skills and gets them into a state of exploration that is learning related. If you are looking for a model: Bates’ SECTIONS model. Opportunity: Resources: (many and all OERs) – dated, but still highly relevant
• #11 Assessment has probably been one of the most challenging areas for teachers. Many of asked me: how can I be sure my students aren‘t cheating? Or that they are the actual students on the other end of the computer? What about using a proctoring service for exams or use a plagiarism tool like TII? To the first question: You can‘t always be sure students aren‘t cheating. In this case, my recommendation is to trust that they will not. If students want to cheat, they will always find a way whether in an online classroom or a F2F one. Also, you can‘t really be sure that the student is the one at the other end of the computer. This is why I think it is important to get to know who you are students are in a broader and deeper way through the assessments that you assign. I don‘t know a lot about proctoring exams; however, my advice is to be cautious in choosing a proctoring service. Many are exploiting the current situation, and you don‘t want to be „locked into“ anything right now; the same goes for „free“ textbooks that will suddenly be charged for once classes start F2F at a later date. I have used plagiarism tools, and yes, they help you find the plagiarists. Mostly you find students who have made citation mistakes or simply don‘t know how to cite. Most students cheat because they don‘t have time or are rushed; try to be flexible and give extensions and fewer students will plagiarize. Some of the tips I give here are on how to create assessments that minimize cheating in the classroom. Things like: And my tip here is:
• #12 The first tip I have about assessments is to define authentic assessments. These are assessments were students active participants in the assessment and are working on a task that is relevant to them. For example in one of my courses, I incorporated an assessment asking students to identify a problem area within their organization and to then prepare an “elevator pitch“ for their manager or CEO. In doing so, they had to outline the issues within the organization, why they thought these were issues, and then how they could be solved. In this way, the assessment was both contextual and relevant relevant Authentic assessment helps students see themselves as active participants, who are working on a task of relevance, rather than passive recipients of obscure facts. It helps teachers by encouraging them to reflect on the relevance of what they teach and provides results that are useful for improving instruction. Here you again, you can design so that the student‘s own experience and context is incorporated into the assignment or you can even have the student co-design the assignment with you. (Some instructors even ask students to design assignments themselve – heutagogy!). Skill-building: not only learning something, but also applying what they have learned in practice – these can be scaffolded as formative activities that build upon each other over the course. Opportunity here: A couple of OER as resources and on the next two slides will talk about some examples of authentica assessments.
• #13 One effective way that I’ve found to incorporate authentic assessments is to incorporate reflective learning journals. This isn’t just reflecting on what has been learned but also on how what has been learned can be applied to the students individual context – personal and/or professional. When journals are online (e.g. in the form of blogs), you can drop in any time to see how the student is doing. The journals can also give students an outlet – which many probably need right now – and give you an opportunity to see where students might be struggling and to offer support. As mentioned, you can use journals in the form of a blog – or even as a Word document in Google Drive. I try to give questions for reflection as a springboard to reflective thinking. Not all students are experience in reflective thinking, and will engage in a superficial form of reflection – reflecting back what they have read. Here it is critical to incorporate formative feedback to support the student in engaging more deeply with the reflective practice. Two resources (one from me) – and this pic is from the La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, a place I went to with …
• #14 The reflective journal can be part of a bigger form of authentic assessment, which is the e-portfolio. Barrett (OER resource listed) talks about the portfolio having two faces: one that is a repository of the students’ work, specifically used for gathering together and reflecting upon student work (a more inner-facing view) and the second face being more of a promotion of the students’ best work and accomplishments, specifically identifying and showcasing the student’s skills and competencies. The e-portfolio is a wonderful tool for demonstrating student development over time and gives students an opportunity to reflect on their new skills and competencies. If you are using online tools, then the e-portfolio can also be used to build digital literacy skills. The opportunity here is that you are helping the student build something highly relevant, individualized, and authentic – giving students… Resources are two more OER… And the e-portfolio is an example from a former student, who I later hired…
• #15 The last area I‘d like to talk about is support and care. Learner support is different for the online learner. To be honest, it can be tougher to support a student at a distance and much more challenging to establlsh relationships of trust and respect. You can do this in the classroom be being empathetic in all of your interactions with the students. (Holmberg writes about empathy in his book – a previous resource.) Doing so can help build trust and make the student feel safe and comfortable in the classroom. Taking care of yourself is also very important and giving yourself room to grow. My tip here is to:
• #16 As I said learner support can be challenging at a distance, and most of you have been providing it on an emergency basis. Support can, however, be built into the course design and delivery. Here are a few examples of how you can do that. Provide guidance …Make students aware of support that is available outside of the classroom (library, technical, advising). Students especially need help in understanding how to use the online learning environment. Examples of guidance and self-help are things like videos on how to use the learning environment or web links to information that could be helpful to the student. You may also want to develop posts that provide guidance on an as needed basis. In our courses, we have designated one special forum for learner support, where students can find out where they can get support, as well as to ask any questions that they might have. Another approach we’ve used is to develop writing tips that are aligned with course activities, for example, how to write a reflection post during the first week of class. Or how to write an annotation during the week that an annotation assignment is due. This examples leads me to the next advice of scaffolding learning activities. One way I have done this in the past is to design assignments to build upon each other. So I will have an assignment where they need to define a research question and do a literature scan, then another where they write annotations (and store and share them online). The next assignment is then writing a paper in response to the research question and using the annotations written. I’ll give them formative feedback along the way so they have an oportuntiy to improve with each assignment. It’s also critical to create an environment where students can make mistakes – and learn from them. I do this through providing formative feedback – and practicing ”ungrading” that is not giving letter grades but mostly formative feedback and a thumbs up or down. (Jesse Stommel gives great examples of this on his website.) Finally, let students learn from each other (sharing and connecting in online spaces) and learn from them. The opportunity… Resource…
• #17 As I mentioned earlier, we need to build safe environments of trust and respect online and part of that is by showing empathy and being flexible with students. In terms of own self-care, I’ve found that it’s important to learn to say no. And to go offline. Difficult to do in a pandemic and working from home, and finally… Opportunity: Resource: recent EDEN webinar
• #18 Take the time to learn and apply what you have learned Experiment with new technologies, new approaches whenever you can Read up on online and distance learning theory – all of the books I’ve listed in the resources talk about the theories and there are many: transactional distance (Moore), CoI (Garrison), (Holmberg) empathy, social constructivism, industrialization (Peters), andragogy (Knowles), connectivism (Siemens and Downes), and more… Most importantly, get connected: lots of opportunities on the web, my preference is Twitter and LinkedIn. Decide for yourself. Build a personal learning network and encourage students to do so, too. Get to know the instructional designer at your institution better. Ko & Rossen, best book I’ve read about online learning
• #19 So what’s ahead? Elizabeth Johnson described this well in her recent article. It will be a time to: Review our course designs (where can improvements be made in the short and long-term, how can we better utilize media and technology) Cultivate a culture for online education (emphasizing the benefits and opportunities) Reimagine student support, prepare students for learning online (empathy and care, formative feedback and flexibility, built-in support in the course design) And more for the leadership, but you can also take a role in advising them: Invest in technology (which technologies to use – see Bates’ SECTIONS model) and Focus on realizing those things that are sustainable and will provide a long term return on investment (not just low-hanging fruit)
• #20 Finally, I would like to leave you with the words of Neil Fassina, who spoke last week during an EDEN webinar about the way ahead.