The Future of Faculty In the past few weeks, I have been part of a NQ Futurist group tasked with opening up conversations and getting feedback regarding the future of teaching and learning at NorQuest. More specifically, gauging how ready our instructors are for the rapidly changing nature of post-secondary education. It was kinda fun. I ended up working with a small group (Heather, Justine, Farah and Rasoul) and we did some reading and research, considered the various scenarios that were already part of the Reimagine Higher Education document and tried to design an interactive workshop that might also secure meaningful data and suggestions. Then our little group went “on the road” (digitally) and did seven presentations in two weeks, reaching a sizable number of NorQuesters (126 responded in the Mentimeter polls!) All the same, I think we broadsided some instructors. Very early in our presentation, we asked participants to gauge how ready they were for current and emerging trends in post-secondary learning. For many, who focus mainly on supporting their students on a daily basis, the terms may have been a bit unfamiliar. I thought I might use this MMM to tackle these terms and provide helpful, reader-friendly links for those who want to know more. (No dry research articles in this lot!) Overall Trends https://thebestschools.org/magazine/current-trends-online-education/ Personalized Learning As the name suggests, this kind of learning allows students to complete an individualized or “customized” course/study that adapts and adjusts in light of their prior learning and experience, their specific learning strengths and needs, and their program and professional goals. This is a major shift from the standardized, one-size-fits-all courses and programs that most of us have encountered in post-secondary or at least, undergraduate education. For a better understanding of how personalized learning might look at the college level check out these links:
Students as Co-Creators This idea takes personalized learning and agency to the next level. From what I could learn, this approach asks students to help frame and build their own educational programs. Initially it reminded me of a couple of courses I designed for myself when completing my doctorate. My supervisors had to step aside from being the “experts” and facilitate my learning through coaching and check-ins while I tackled concepts and models that were unfamiliar to them. However, these co-creations seem to be more of an instructor-student collaborative study that has connections to research and designs for learning. While students collaborate with other students and instructors to do research In the process they learn and get credit for it. Moreover, there are co-creator programs that involve partnerships with organizations or industries. Although I could find could find many “references” to the idea of student co-creation being employed at a college level, I had a tough time finding short, summary-type articles on this. Instead, I pass on to you several examples of programs that use a co-creation model.
Online Facilitation Online facilitation is nothing new. We’ve been taking and hosting online courses for a couple of decades already. What is new is the extent to which we are now teaching online (it’s 2020!) and they way in which online teaching has evolved in terms of course design, flexibility, student engagement, OERs, interactivity, assessment, synchronous and asynchronous delivery, and online platforms, tools, and apps. Here’s a few articles and links that explore the advantages and disadvantages of learning in this way and some of the recent developments in online facilitation.
Micro Credentialing
A micro-credential is a certification or badge of assessed learning. It allows students and employers the flexibility to take small and targeted studies to develop a specific skill or competency without having to spend time in a comprehensive program. Micro-credentials can help prospective students effectively address learning gaps or continuing employees acquire immediately required training. In post-secondary, These credentials can be bundled to provide equivalencies for courses and programs. At this moment, many Canadian colleges and Universities are using microcredentialing to attract more part-time students and are looking at how to make these micro-credentials transferrable from institution to institution. Here are some more detailed explanations of micro credentialing from some institutions you may know:
HyFlex Learning At our Teaching and Learning Day last Friday, Jenni Hayman shared the HyFlex approach to course design. Unfortunately, I had to run my own session so I was unable to attend! However, with a little surfing on the net, I was able to gain a better understanding of this approach. HyFlex courses allow students to choose how they want to participate in their courses. One day they might attend class in person, another they could choose to join synchronously online, and on a third day they might watch the class asynchronously when it was more convenient. It is the “hybrid” or “blended” approach taken to another level of flexibility. HyFlex allows students to choose when and how they might go through their course, allowing students to stay engaged (f they have self-discipline). However, HyFlex requires a lot! Instructors must become very familiar with their program outcomes and to be extremely adaptive using in-person and online strategies and structures to construct a learning experience that is complex (multi-layered and varied) yet consistent in learning expectations and overall assessment. More information on the HyFlex approach is here:
Virtual and Augmented Reality Virtual and augmented reality is something that our college has been experimenting with for a little while. In the Innovation Studio, we had a VR set up where nursing students could put on the VR goggles and attend to a patient in a hospital setting virtually. On the other side of the retractable wall, students learned about human body systems by using the Z Boards, which allowed students to explore various parts of the body through 3-D interaction. This fall, NorQuest is investigating VR models and systems with an eye to helping students learn professional judgement through simulated interactions. More information on how VR and AR are changing the face of education can be found here:
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The Future is Now! When I first started teaching, many years ago, the world of teaching was a much different place (I know, I know, but I have changed very little!). I began my career in a small school on the outskirts of Chatham, Ontario. I taught multiple grades in the same classroom (7/8/9 and 9/10) and many of my resources (readers and texts) were from the 1950’s. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I taught typing on the old, manual machines (earplugs anyone?). There were only a couple of computers in the school, and I did not own one at the time. The school had one photocopy machine and it was expensive to use. The copies had a slippery surface and the kids liked to sniff the pages, there was kind of a chemical druggy type smell. Instead, we were encouraged to use the spirit duplicator and recycled green or pink papers, if we wanted to make handouts or worksheets. Spirit duplicators worked by applying alcohol to a carbon sheet and then cranking the drum so that the ink might transfer to individually fed sheets. Unfortunately, it could be a messy process. I often arrived to class with soggy copies and blue fingertips. The recycled paper did not hold up very well, but it was much faster than having students copy notes from the board. We were a little behind the other schools in terms of technology, but we did have cassette players and filmstrip machines. I put these to good use when I was teaching French - dimming the lights and having the all the students “Repetez, après moi!” If I was organized, I could request feature and documentary films from the local school board’s resource center. However, certain resources were popular, and you had to stake your claim well in advance and make sure you were at the right point in your curricula, when the films actually arrived. Our projector was a complicated beast, but you could run the film backward (a frequent request from the students) if you had a bit of time at the end of the period. Now jump forward 40 years. We’ve seen tremendous change. Affordable computers, the availability of resources through the internet, the influx of interactive whiteboards, Wi-Fi, the ever-presence of smartphones, and a constantly changing smorgasbord of learning apps has changed the way we teach and learn. And yet, with all that change in our lifetimes, it was still hard to make the leap to online teaching as a result of Covid. Many of us were stretched in ways we were not prepared for, pushed to learn new technologies and systems in a moment of near crisis, in what I like to call “the great hack of 2020”. That said, times of crisis could sometimes bring forth great leaps of progress. The Second World War necessitated tremendous advances in manufacturing and similarly, our year of Covid has seen tremendous improvements in online conferencing tools and teaching apps. You and I have learned a great deal about engaging and supporting learners in ways that we’ve never learned ourselves, and we continue to learn! In the next couple of weeks we continue on a visioning process for NorQuest, its learners and the people who make the place go (you and me)! There are sessions being offered by both the futurist group and the culture team. I’m very much involved in the Futurist work as a member of the group looking at “the role of faculty” and we will be connecting with you through LRN sessions as well as through presentations to individual faculties and departments. These presentations really won’t be “presentations”, we’re hoping to provide a few things to think about, ask several big questions, gather your thoughts and hopes, and continue to envision and prepare for the future of post-secondary learning. Some questions you might want to consider are:
Have a great week! Jeff |
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
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