Learning with and from Faculty…
This past week I had the chance to learn a lot from our faculty. On Friday we held the second Faculty Talking Circle. While the first Talking Circle focused on “Making a Community Online” (Belonging), the second circle dealt with “Learning about Teaching – courtesy of COVID” (Mastery). Eighteen faculty participated in the exchange of teaching ideas, tips and tools. A business instructor said that she builds community in her classes through the use of WhatsApp (instant messaging). Many of our students are already very familiar with this app and creating groups so you can share ideas, remind students of deadline, and just chat has proved invaluable. As one participant remarked: “Email is something that old people use to communicate, if you want to connect with students - you need something instant”. Several other instructors suggested just picking up the phone and calling individual students; the time investment pays off in the relationships built. One nursing instructor shared that she promotes engagement through Mentimeter (an interactive presentation app). She said that Mentimeter was easy to use and was not as competitive in nature as some other programs like Quizlet. Other applications and tech tools shared were Jeopardy Labs, VoiceThread and Loom. If you don’t know what these are or how you might use them, just google them. Or send me an email and I will connect you to a faculty member using them! But a significant part of the conversation just circled back to practices we know to be effective in both face-to-face teaching and online environments. Connections are built and interest sustained when you engage emotions, inject humor, and promote creativity. And the care and attention paid to setting expectations, clarifying roles, giving intermediate and overall deadlines, and ensuring contributions are just as important when putting student into online groups, as when we put students in group in our classrooms. In fact, perhaps even more important. It is easier to “supervise” groups in a classroom than it is to do so online. Joan shared that it is helpful to develop some simple “participant guidelines” for many different online tasks (wikis, forums, breakout groups, group project work, etc.), in order to avoid confusion and promote effective, on-task work. Last week I was also able to participate in Allison Fieldberg’s “Teaching Wheel” presentation for FSCS. Allison used the four main characters from “the Golden Girls” (a sitcom from the 80’s) to explain four different zones of online teaching. While teaching synchronously using Blackboard Ultra, Microsoft Teams, or other presentation programs seems to be “sexy” (like Blanche Devereaux), it can be difficult to get full participation, it can be hard to schedule, and it takes a fair bit of preparation. Alison advocated a more balanced approach so that teaching isn’t just concentrated presentations and Moodle assignments. Students can be supported through layers and levels of activities such as independent readings, online activities, collaborative documents, group chat, asynchronous discussion (forums and blogs), and pre-recorded audio and video. These activities were compared to the other three golden girls (Sophia, Rose and Dorothy), they may not be sexy, but they are golden all the same! Taking the challenge extended by Allison’s presentation (not everything needs to be sexy and synchronous!), and the need to “engage emotions, inject humor, and promote creativity” I decided to make a simple little music video using PPT and saving it as an MP4. The task would allow me to explore how best to share recordings (Dropbox, Google Drive or YouTube) and, at the same time, act on the Culture Q our that team was focusing on for the week (“Work at play and play at work”). The result was “Empty Chairs & Empty Classrooms” my cheesy interpretation of a song from Les Miserables. Here’s the link, https://youtu.be/9IfE_PiPoLs. Let me know what you think! I hope that it brings a wistful smile to your face. By the way, the best way that I found to share a big file like this is through personal YouTube accounts and making sure that students control their links. Other ways can work, but this is simplest.
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From your friendly neighborhood faculty developer… Last week, I sent out a meeting request to faculty for a Friday morning MSTEAMS meeting; a Faculty Talking Circle on Creating Community Online. It was a bit of an experiment, based upon some suggestions from Bev Suntjens and a couple of others. In the end 43 faculty joined us for an informal sharing session. It was a big group, but somehow we managed to share and compare quite a number of ways that instructors work to make their online environments a little less sterile and a little more connected. People suggested scavenger hunts (LINC students run and find object in their homes), chat cafes (leaving the link open before and after class so students can catch up), breakout rooms, chat board competitions, offline groups (through what’s app or Facebook Messenger), forums and wikis, and a whole host of other ideas. The Faculty Talking Circle was great, and I am thankful for the help of Joan and Sarah, especially when I had to shut my computer down and restart partly through the session. And that’s the reality of online teaching that just keeps coming back. Sometimes the technology works for us and sometimes it throws curve balls and we have to react quickly. Sometimes the WIFI works and sometimes we come across as garbled or as modern day equivalents of Max Headroom (for those of us who remember the 1980’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt56RMbpq_0). Instructors have shared some of the challenges they faced in the past few weeks: 1) uneven attendance, 2) students who have limited or shared access to computers, 3) students who have financial or familial pressures that trump their schoolwork, 4) students who have little aptitude for technology, and 5) instructors (themselves) who are uncertain and unfamiliar with many of the online learning possibilities. Now, with the semester coming to a close for many of the programs, people are challenged with making sense of the experience and of assessment evidence that calls into question the hallmarks of quality: fairness, reliability, reliability, and rigor. Did my students get a fair deal this term? Can I confidently stand behind my assessment measures? Can I trust that the judgements I make about student progress are sound and reward diligence, understanding and the development of professional judgement? Of course, these are issues we struggle with every term, but the online environments have challenged us to look at assessments in new ways and has further raised concerns about academic integrity, honesty, fairness, and trust. And as I reflected on all of this, this past weekend, I kept coming back to three words: perseverance, resilience and thankfulness. I am constantly amazed at how most of our instructors and students have persevered through the challenges, and in the past week I heard from many who said they were ready to take the “next step”. They were interested in intentionally and pro-actively planning out their online experiences for the coming term, learning about and leveraging the online tools and the teaching strategies that they and their colleagues were discovering. As NorQuesters, we have shown a measure of resilience and determination, and that has served us well. Does that mean that there aren’t those who are struggling with the uncertainties brought about by this new reality? Certainly not! I’ve been hearing that students and staff alike have been accessing many of the supports found in NorQuest for both academic and mental health support. And I wonder how many more are just hunkering down and hiding their anxieties. I hope each of us, as NorQuesters, can keep a “weather-eye” out for colleagues and students who may be showing signs of the strain and stress and to find ways to support these people or help connect them to services that might assist them. But most of all, this weekend I found myself thinking about thankfulness. At this point, Alberta is not experiencing the wave of hospitalizations and ICU admittances that were initially predicted. Our province and our Chief Medical Health Officer (Deena Henshaw) have done an admirable job in limiting the effect of the virus. Having two front-liners in my house (a nurse and an HCA) I am especially thankful for that! And at NorQuest, we have, so far, managed to stay clear of the kinds of outbreaks that are plaguing various institutions and businesses across this province. And, as my week continues, I think I want to continue to focus on that, on thankfulness, and not on the moment-by-moment frustrations and fears brought on by the virus or changing technologies. In light of the short week, I’ll keep my message short!
Over the weekend I have been reflecting on the importance of community. Holiday weekends like this past one, really bring home the need for people to reach out to family, friends and faith groups. We gain strength and hope from each other. This weekend, I was blessed to celebrate Easter and the 90th birthday of my mother – albeit in a much different way than was originally planned. Perhaps we took community for granted, when much of our teaching was face-to-face and we all had lives to go to after classes. Now, with all the COVID restrictions in place, many have re-discovered how important community, also in online teaching. Instructors have told me that they set aside time each class for sharing and re-connecting, and that their students are hungry for it. They miss each other. And, from what I can tell in my chats with NorQuest Faculty, we are also hungry for community as well. From your friendly neighbourhood Faculty Developer. It’s weird being at home and trying to be of service to the faculty. I already miss the daily interactions with all of you and I sincerely hope that this Covid crisis will come and go quickly. This email is my way of trying to keep and touch and keep you informed. I know that you are probably being bombarded with messages, but hopefully there are some bits of information that you might find useful in this note. First some thoughts on where we are at with Online Learning:
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AuthorJeff Kuntz Ph.D. ImagesExcept where indicated, images used in the blog posts are personal photos, images from NorQuest College or images from Pixabay. Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images, videos and music. https://pixabay.com/ Archives
March 2024
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