The teacher becomes the learner: Paving a strong curricular path and humanizing

Continuing my intentional path to explore what I can learn to become a better teacher in a remote synchronous online learning environment, here's part 2. I am participating in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) sponsored by the Division of Online and Strategic Learning of Ball State University. I will periodically post my reflections in this blog to document my progress, and to serve as a resource for a future me, as I come back to review these posts. Perhaps there will be something of use for other readers that aren't me.

Module 2: Paving a strong curricular path and humanizing

This module focused on paving a strong curricular path and humanizing yourself and the course. The following notes summarize what I gleaned from the module.

Paving the path...

• Failure is good provided you take the time to embrace and learn from it
  • This needs to be conveyed to learners as well
• Communication is essential
  • Do so regularly and consistently
  • Communicate expectations and due dates, etc.
  • Must be clear
• Community building is critical
  • A potential benefit of teaching synchronously online has been my ability to use Zoom’s breakout room random assignment feature. This has forced learners to meet and interact with many more learners in the class than they might have otherwise. if I had them form small groups in an on-campus class, they likely would just interact with those sitting around them, and since they generally sit in the same place every time, that’s the same learners.

Humanizing...

I've discovered in this module that I already do a lot of things to help humanize myself and the course. Here's a brief list of many of those activities.

• Welcome video: For some courses I’ve created an introductory video of myself and the course and made it available in Canvas.
• Introductions: During the first week of the semester, I ask the learners to each tell us a couple things about themselves, and then end that activity by allowing the learners to ask me anything they want, and commit to answering (virtually) all of them.
• Learner choice: In virtually all of my courses, I give learners choice. During the first week of the semester, I always allow them to help set some of the course evaluation criteria by which their final course grade will be determined. As often as I can, I allow the learners to make choices between possible assignments, or how to express their submission for an assignment.
•  Collaboration: I often provide opportunities for collaboration between learners, either in class or as outside of class assignments.
• Clear expectations: I’ve been using Specifications Grading for a few years. To do this well, I have to be very clear about the specifications, that is, what I expect of them for a given assignment.
• Instructional videos: I’ve created many short instructional videos for some of my course, and always include a video of myself in the corner, when capturing the screen.
• Breakout rooms: I’ve used breakout rooms in my synchronous remote sessions to facilitate small group discussions. Especially during the start of the semester, I randomly assigned learners to the room, and encouraged them to use the first minute of their discussion time for introductions, so they’d start to meet people in class.
• Music: For years, I’ve played music which I enjoy (AKA primarily from 1960s-1980s) while the learners gather at the start of class, and have continued this in my Zoom-based classes. Every semester, I receive a few comments from the learners that they really like the music, and that I’ve introduced them to a group of which they were not aware.
• Department video: This summer, I facilitated and produced a “welcome back” video for the department, featuring most of the department faculty. A link to the video was emailed, along with a welcome (back) message,  to all new and returning department majors and minors the week before classes started this fall. If you'd like to watch the video, you may.

Summary

Overall, this was a rather reassuring module for me. It helped me realize I am already doing a lot of things right, and don't need to make any drastic changes in this area.

The teacher becomes the learner: part 1

On August 12 of this year, I embarked on an intentional path to explore what I can learn to become a better teacher in a remote synchronous online learning environment. I am participating in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) sponsored by the Division of Online and Strategic Learning of Ball State University. I will periodically post my reflections in this blog to document my progress, and to serve as a resource for a future me, as I come back to review these posts. Perhaps there will be something of use for other readers that aren't me.

This FLC is a semester-long professional development opportunity that consists of a series of modules containing readings, worksheets, and reflections to help us understand and focus on the best practices to remotely teach online in a synchronous fashion. Every three weeks, we meet (synchronously online--how appropriate!) as a cohort of thirteen learners, mentored by three facilitators. In between meetings, we are to complete the readings and activities in a module.

Module 1: Why synchronous learning?

The first module focused our attention on why we'd want to consider synchronous learning, and things to consider when starting a semester. The following notes summarize what I gleaned from the module.

Key things I need to consider

• Send a message to learners before each class (or maybe each week) setting expectations and letting them know what they'll be doing
• Building community is critical

Affirmation of what I already do

• Having used Flipped Learning for many years, I was encouraged to see it suggested, which opens the door for active learning during the synchronous learning classes

I feel good about

• Creating/sharing meeting info w/ learners
• Reminding learners and myself about the upcoming class
• Basic to moderate features of Zoom/WebEx
• Tech needs: camera, etc.
• Technical use of breakout rooms
• My flexibility

I'm not sure/worried about

• Not worried, per se, but need to constantly remind myself about accessibility challenges
• Advanced features of Zoom/WebEx
• Effective use of breakout rooms
• Tech issues the students will have

Welcome letter

I prepared a welcome letter for each class explaining my remote synchronous modality, and how I envision synchronous learning in the course. I also drafted a student survey to go along with your letter. The letter was substantially the same as what I've been using for many semesters, with the addition of the following.

This semester, the course will be conducted synchronously online. This means we’ll meet as a class online, using the Zoom platform, at specific times and days. You are expected to attend each of these class sessions, just the same as if class were being held in a campus classroom.

The survey sought to uncover challenges the learner might have with remote synchronous learning, in particular, focusing on technology-related issues. Due to my poor time-management, I did not implement the survey this semester.

Summary

Overall, nothing monstrous appears to be looming on the horizon. I do need to pay attention to technology and access issues for students, and continue to explore how best to utilize the time I will have with the learners in each course, but the latter is no different than normal.