Several times I’ve mentioned the Think-Pair-Share (TPS) strategy as one way to allow students time to process their thoughts and consolidate learning. This week I’d like to dive a little deeper into this strategy. The TPS is a very well-known strategy and one that is used extensively across the college, but some newer instructors might not have heard of it and some of the more experienced instructors may have forgotten just how powerful it can be and use it sparingly or ineffectively. The Think-Pair-Share teaching strategy is a very simple collaborative learning technique used to encourage active engagement and critical thinking. It consists of three distinct phases: Think, Pair, and Share. 1. Think: In this phase, students are given a specific question, prompt, or problem to consider individually. They are encouraged to reflect on the topic and generate their own thoughts or ideas without discussion with others. This step allows students to process information independently and develop their own understanding of the topic. Example: In a psychology class discussing theories of motivation, the instructor might ask students to think silently for a few minutes about what factors they believe motivate people to achieve their goals. What is important in this step is that students are given enough think time (Remember last week’s article?). Hurrying this phase will result in truncated thinking where students will simply take quick and superficial stabs at the problem and fail to unpack assumptions or discover complexities. 2. Pair: After the thinking phase, students are then paired up with a classmate to discuss their thoughts and ideas. This phase provides an opportunity for students to articulate their own understanding of the topic and to hear perspectives from their peers. By engaging in dialogue with a partner, students can clarify their own thoughts, gain new insights, and practice communication skills. Example: Continuing with the psychology class example, students might pair up and discuss their thoughts on motivation theories with a partner, comparing and contrasting different perspectives they came up with during the thinking phase. In this phase the quieter, more introverted students are given a safe place to share their ideas. Sharing thoughts will a class of seventy can be daunting, but talking to your elbow partner is a little less intimidating. This step is important because every student is expected to participate, not just the five or six that continually give feedback to the instructor. And it is helpful to remind students that listening is just as important as sharing! 3. Share: Finally, students are given the opportunity to share their ideas with the entire class. This phase allows for the consolidation of learning by synthesizing individual ideas into a collective understanding. It also provides an opportunity for the instructor to clarify any misconceptions and facilitate further discussion or exploration of the topic. Example: In the psychology class, each pair of students might share a summary of their discussion with the rest of the class, highlighting key points and insights. The instructor could then lead a class-wide discussion, drawing connections between different perspectives and providing additional context or examples. Often, I will ask students to share an insight that they heard from their elbow partner. This practice can tighten up the discussion (Students must remember and summarize, not pontificate!). Applying the Think-Pair-Share strategy in an online context requires some adjustments but can still be effective:
The Think-Pair-Share strategy encourages active learning, collaboration, and critical thinking, making it a valuable tool for both traditional and online instruction. NB: This article was a collaborative effort between Jeff and Chat GPT!
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The Central Purpose Question or Comprehension Purpose Question strategy (CPQ) challenges students to respond to an important and often complex question, to connect this question to their own background knowledge and beliefs, and then to read a relevant text or watch a short video with the CPQ in mind. This strategy presses students to read, listen, or watch with purpose and helps them to find, select and remember important details. Instructors may choose to deal with the CPQ in a variety of ways. One approach is to share the question on the whiteboard or a PPT slide and spend some time as a class talking about it before tackling the task (possibly as a think/pair/share activity). Other approaches might involve incorporating the CPQ into an anticipation guide, a quick write, a discussion web, a role play, a visualization exercise, or a case study. Regardless of how it is advanced, the CPQ is very important for the teacher as well as the student. It lends focus to the lesson and helps to provide relevancy. Some teachers have formalised the CPQ by developing an organizer and leading their students through the three stages in an active learning process (anticipation, consolidation, and extension). In this approach:
N.B. If the CPQ is one that can evoke a yes/no response that asks for reasons for and against (e.g., “Should 16-year-olds be given the opportunity to vote in municipal, provincial and federal elections?”), teachers should consider using a Discussion Web. Providing students with a central purpose question prior to assigning a short reading or video presentation serves several important functions:
If you are anything like me, you can become very focused on making sure that, within allocated class time, you get through the central concepts in a timely fashion. Because of this pressure, you might hurry through classroom questions, waiting only for a quick response that confirms the answer so you can get on with the lesson. And, since you already know the answer, you are ready to jump in just as soon as you feel the students have had time enough. Trouble is, it usually isn’t time enough. What can seem like an eternity of waiting can sometimes be only 10-15 seconds. This is barely enough time for an online student to hear and understand the question and perhaps raise an online hand! (If you think I am overstating this, re-watch some of your recent recordings! I did… I am very impatient!) Giving think time when asking questions is important. Students need the opportunity to process questions thoroughly and formulate thoughtful responses. If we fail to give enough think time, we will end up with very little interaction–only the very quick, auditory processors will be volunteering answers. The rest of the class may disengage or simply let others do the thinking for them. A class of seventy will quickly devolve into a back and forth from one teacher with 5 or 6 keener beaner students. Ultimately, we want to encourage deeper engagement with the material and critical thinking. We would also like it if all students had an equal opportunity to participate and contribute meaningfully to the discussion! So how do we go about doing this? Well, one way is by setting time limits and conditions. When you present your question, let the students know that they are not to answer immediately, but that you are giving them a certain amount of time to think about their response. Depending on the question, this could range from a minute to four or five minutes. During that set time, students might jot down their thoughts, make an illustration, or formulate an argument. The hardest part in giving think time is keeping yourself from interrupting! That’s why you need a timer! When the time elapses, you might engage the students in a think/pair/share activity (in-person) so that every student gets a chance to share their thoughts with someone before you pull back to a general classroom discussion (More on TPS in another musing!). Or, if you are working in an online environment like Class Collaborate (BBCU) or Kaltura, you might ask the students to type their thoughts into the chat feed and then “flood the chat” when the time limit elapses. Having students press submit at the same time means that everyone can contribute and prevents students from piggy backing on responses from those quick processors. Flood the chat also provides a rich trove to use as you further discuss the topic. Often students provide perspectives and insights that we never thought of. However, you need to be careful with this strategy because the chat is not anonymous. If you are discussing sensitive topics and want to safeguard students, you might choose to get their ideas through an online polling or posting tool (Padlet, Jamboard) that allows for anonymity. Giving think time fosters a supportive and inclusive learning environment by reducing pressure and anxiety associated with rapid-fire questioning. We’d like our students to be confident and willing to participate! We also want them to engage in more than just passive listening, we want them to do some of the work! This past week Viola Mankore and I were reviewing the data from our instructor surveys and interviews and we came across a sentiment voiced by more than one instructor. These instructors were frustrated with teaching in an online synchronous environment (BBCU, Zoom, Teams) and were especially frustrated by students who didn’t want to turn on their cameras. “How do you know if they are paying attention if you can’t see their face?”. In my role, I mainly work with instructors and other NorQuest personnel, so I hadn’t really given it much thought. So, I asked Viola if she had the same concern as those instructors. Viola has taught large classes in the nursing program and has moved between F2F and online instruction many times. For Viola, cameras on or cameras off is not something to be concerned about. She prefers to focus on whether or not the students are actually learning. As Viola was quick to point out, there are many other ways to find out if the students are following and understanding (chat, online games, polls, posting apps like Padlet or Jamboard, exit slips, surveys, one-on-one conversations, etc.). Expecting/demanding students to turn on their cameras just might be one way to damage classroom community rather than enhance it. Some of our students could see it as a needless invasion of their privacy. They didn’t sign up to be put on display, they signed up to learn, and perhaps they learn best when the camera is off. There are many reasons why a student might be reluctant to turn on their camera:
Ultimately, Viola asserted, we have to ask ourselves: “What is the educational purpose for turning on the camera?” There may be situations when it may be important to have a camera on. For instance, a business instructor might plan an activity where students take part in mock interviews. How the students present themselves on camera is an important consideration. However, such an assignment or lesson would be pre-planned. Students would know ahead of time and they would dress appropriately, choose the best location to partake in the interviews (Wi-Fi, ambient noise and backdrop considerations), and ask roommates to find an alternative space to work while they do the activity. None the less, I can still relate to those instructors who are frustrated by the no cameras and no microphone student “participants”. Often, when I run sessions or partake in meetings, I find myself wondering if I actually know the person behind the icon or initials at the bottom of the screen, especially if their name is unfamiliar! As one instructor shared, “I’ve taught them [the students] for several months, but I still wouldn’t be able to pick out many of my students if their photos were placed in a police blotter!" Some instructors told me that they have coped with this issue of student facelessness by making short welcome introductory videos themselves and then asking students to do the same and thereby introduce themselves to the group through text, pictures and/or videos. Having students write a short introduction and post an accompanying picture on a Padlet page or collecting short video introductions through an app like Flipgrid allows the students to control just when and how they share of themselves. If they want to make a recording in their messy bedroom wearing PJs, it is up to them. But some might choose to find a different venue and use a different approach. And some might choose not do the introductions for reasons we may not understand but we must respect. Several related readings on this topic of camera use can be found in the links provided below. The first is a blog post from Celia Ann Evans, the Associate Director of Engineering Learning Initiatives at Cornell. Celia unpacks some research that her colleagues did on the issue of camera use. The researchers concluded that it is best not to demand students put on their cameras for many of the reasons that Viola and I identified. If it is a major concern for the instructor, perhaps the instructor should be explicit about why camera use is encouraged (not expected) and reinforce the pedagogical value of this type of connection. Instructors might also use games, humour and even memes to encourage camera use, and show students how to upload profile pictures and backgrounds so they might guard their privacy while still having a presence in the online classroom. The second link is to an article from Karen Costa (a Faculty Developer) and her answer on this question of requiring students to keep their camera on is very clear: “The short answer is no, absolutely not, because requiring students to be on camera is contrary to everything we know about universal design for learning, about inclusive and trauma-aware teaching practices, and about making effective use of the affordances of online learning.” Karen suggests a number of ways we can connect with students, with or without cameras. Links: Lights! Camera!…Cameras? Navigating the Complex Issue of Visual Connection in Zoom - Celia Ann Evans https://englearning.engineering.cornell.edu/2021/04/19/lights-camera-cameras-navigating-the-complex-issue-of-visual-connection-in-zoom/ Cameras Be Damned – Karen Costa https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cameras-damned-karen-costa/ Let's get started...Several years ago, when I was teaching face to face, I would very often start class with a “Do Now”. This meant that, after attending to classroom set-up and after connecting with the early bird students who wanted to chat, I’d share a PowerPoint slide that would ask students to consider a quote, answer a question or solve a problem. The expectation was that they were to roll up their sleeves and get to work doing a bit of heavy thinking—thinking that would springboard us into the overall theme for the day’s lesson. I’ll give you an example. Here’s a Do Now from a lesson just after the students had finished reading/viewing A Streetcar Named Desire: Do Now: censorship and values! When this play was originally written and performed it was quite controversial. When the play was adapted for film, there were some significant changes (Consider the article posted in Moodle.). How do you feel about the way in which Streetcar deals with social issues like promiscuity, spousal abuse, homosexuality, and mental health? Would the play be as controversial (and relevant) if it opened on Broadway today? Take five to ten minutes to quietly write your response in your journal and then be prepared to share your observations with an elbow partner. The students dove into the topic. They were motivated; a number had confessed that the play had made them uneasy and even angry. Obviously, it was a huge topic—not one that could be properly addressed in five minutes. In fact, as I remember, I ended up letting them chew on these questions for a half an hour or longer (writing and discussing in pairs), before I brought them back and started our collective discussion. And it was exactly these individual student feelings that I was looking to leverage as we began to tackle some of the major themes in Tennessee Williams's play. Starting the lesson off with these big questions, and asking students to reflect and discuss—before we explored the questions together—provided students with an opportunity to voice their perspective, become more invested, and take an active role in the lessons that followed. Obviously not every lesson or topic will evoke the same kind of emotional response as the one above, but it is important to try and hook our students-to create an “anticipatory set”—and Do Nows certainly help with this. Over the years I have seen instructors ask students to:
In each case, the instructors used the Do Now for a variety of reasons:
Yes but, online?Some instructors have told me that they can no longer teach in this way. They’ve said that the kinds of activities they previously did (like Do Nows), just don’t transfer into an online environment. They feel like all they can do now is talk at the students and hope that they are listening. But I’m not sure I would agree. It’s just a matter of leveraging some of the tools afforded to us and learning to frame and scaffold meaningful online reflection and discussion. For instance, if we look at the example above from A Streetcar Named Desire or any of the other ideas I shared, I could see the same kinds of prompt and activity being used:
Now I know that some instructors would say that they can’t afford to give up this much class time for such an activity. Perhaps. But our job is not to simply regurgitate the curricula and cover all the concepts. Our job is to: 1) engage the students, 2) compel them to get invested in the topics, 3) see themselves as future professionals in their field, and 4) create educational opportunities that allow them to react, respond and employ critical judgement. Besides, not every Do Now has to be as involving as the one I shared on Streetcar. Most Do Nows can be done in 10 to 15 minutes – pricking interest, soliciting feedback and sharing a few perspectives. Do Nows might also provide a bit of spark for those who are looking to break up 2-3 hour online synchronous classes and make these classes interactive and “value added” rather than passive and draining (a synchronous lecture that might be watched later at 1.5 times speed). My greatest anxiety in synchronous online teaching a class of students is this feeling of being disconnected and not literally, but again socially, emotionally, epistemologically. I am facing my two-dimensional screen, telling myself that all is good and to stick to my plan—delivering content, directing activities, facilitating turns “to speak”—all the while wondering… Are you there? Can you ‘see’ me? Are you okay? Where are you? Are we okay? (Tarc, p. 121) This sentiment from Paul Tarc, an Associate Professor in Education at Western University, is echoed, over and over again, in the transcripts and survey answers from the research study that Viola Manakore and I are currently working through involving ACIFA partners. Here are just a few quotes I lifted from instructors we asked to relate their greatest challenge in moving to online instruction:
Last month, when our online engagement learning team began to meet as a small community of practice, I think this disconnect was our starting point. But after several meetings, we began to ask ourselves some different questions:
Engagement or Interactivity? As you might have guessed, after reading the first two installments on this topic (April 12 & 19), our faculty learning team concluded that, while engagement and interactivity may be linked, they are not synonymous. This is especially the case when we limit our notion of engagement to deeply connecting with the content and skill development in our coursework. Having students compete in online quizzing (Kahoot, Quizizz and the like), respond through the chat or status bar, use the online whiteboard, engage in virtual icebreakers, and indicate their opinions through polling software (Mentimeter, Polly, etc.) might break up tedious synchronous lessons, but these activities may or may not promote true engagement. For some of our students—who prefer independent, asynchronous learning—such work is just busy work, more of a distraction than a support. That is not to devalue these interactive activities. If such activities keep many students attending and alert, and give the instructors a sense that “the students are there”, effective instructors will find ways to integrate such interactivity into both the synchronous and asynchronous coursework. In fact, such activities can enhance a feeling of community and promote student to student connections. Quizzing apps help students to consolidate and remember concepts and terms and promote competition and even teaming (depending on the app being used). Having students regularly indicate their status in the chat (Let me know if you are with me… thumbs up or down?) or having them “flood the chat” (Type your answers into the chat but refrain from hitting enter until the instructor gives the signal!), can help turn the chat box from a nuisance into a powerful feedback and learning tool. Before class or gap time energizers (Scavenger hunts, people bingo, riddles, chair exercises, etc.) can provide some humour and wake up a sleepy cohort. And polling helps the instructor gain a sense of where students are at, and how they might adjust their presentations and activities based upon student readiness. In addition to some of the interactive activities suggested above (quizzing, chat, icebreakers, and polling) which provide immediate feedback, some more suggestions put forward by our engagement team to create energy and build community included:
Coping with the Disconnect But while all of the activities above might encourage more participation and even help improve attendance in synchronous classes, they may not help instructors overcome the unease of teaching to a computer screen and the bittersweet longing for things “as they were before Covid”. In a recent publication Paul Tarc, captures this sentiment quite eloquently: For me, as an educator in higher education with considerable autonomy of my curricular materials and teaching approaches, the greatest lack in the in the virtual classroom are the greatly diminished multi-sensory feedback loops. These feedback loops are crucial to the relational, and emotionally-laden, labour of educating. The capability to quickly read the body language, facial expressions, class dynamic and circulation of ideas and affects is greatly minimized in the virtual classroom; in turn, so is a spontaneity and capacity to engage and expand the intersections of teacher (identity, experience and knowledge), students (Identities, experiences and knowledge) and curriculum. (Tarc, p. 122) There’s something about teaching face to face that many educators find energizing and invigorating. Much like the professional hockey players that have been forced to compete without the roaring crowds and professional musicians who play without the appreciation and applause of their patrons, experienced classroom instructors are also missing such immediacy and intimacy. Imagine a stand-up comic doing their routine without the cues and clues of a live audience! How hard must that be! It is a bit like writing a blog never knowing if people are reading and appreciating it, or simply clicking on it and leaving... So, what can we do to cope with the kind of disconnect that many instructors (and students) are feeling in the wake of this year-long and continuing emergency remote online teaching? Here’s a few reminders that I keep telling myself:
Considering the needs of both students and instructors As we march forward to a post-Covid reality, there is considerable buzz around what we have learned and achieved as post secondaries in our rapid move to online learning. Institutions are looking at the past year as evidence that we are ready to move on from 19th and 20th models of learning. The 21st century learner wants more flexibility in how, when and where they learn – and we found ways to make that happen! And there are savings and opportunities to be had! Having many more students take their programming online, and having instructors teach from anywhere significantly cuts down on the physical requirements of a college or university and opens up student enrollment on an international scale. As a result, many institutions are committing to more asynchronous online, hybrid or Hyflex models of instruction; this is the way forward after Covid! And it may be so. However, before we rush off and sound the death knell for structured, scheduled, corporeal, in-class instruction, we also need to need to remember that not all of our students are comfortable with the requirements and trade-offs of learning online. At NorQuest, many of our students have struggled with their schooling, and they have come to our college for the community, routine, support, and structure that face to face learning offers. We must remember the needs of these students and build a blend of programming options that allows our students to succeed. In addition, we must also look to the needs of our instructional staff. Throughout this pandemic they have been asked to shift the way that they teach, and for some instructors the change came rather easily. But, just like our students, we are not all the same. For many instructors, it was a very steep learning curve. I know of many instructors who have felt isolated, helpless (tech and tools were challenging), and frustrated. Like Paul Tarc, they wondered if they were truly getting through and they were concerned for the learning (and even well-being) of their students. Some of these instructors have confessed to me that the past year has caused them to re-consider their work and worth as an educator, and to entertain the notion of a career change. They no longer have the zeal they used to have when preparing for their classes and sharing a community with their students. And this wrinkle around instructor engagement often gets lost, as we try to press our hot irons through issues related to student enrollment and engagement in our current teaching reality! Just how can we make sure that our instructors are also feeling engaged in their learning? Especially those instructors who hunger for the kind of interactions and “multi-sensory feedback loops” that previously gave them energy and connections. How do we continue to support these faculty in their professional growth? How can re-instill confidence and provide validation for their efforts? How do we build programs that allow these instructors to thrive alongside their students? These are questions program builders and instructional leaders cannot afford to ignore. And they are just a few of the questions that keep me up at night. I’ll end this blog with several questions for you. What has sustained and kept you engaged as you worked through the pandemic pressured teaching transitions this past year? And what will keep you engaged and energized as we transition to new ways of providing education and training to our students? Feel free to send in your responses or further questions through the reply feature below! Tarc, P. (2000). Education post-‘Covid-19’: Re-visioning the face-to-face classroom. Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE), 22(1), 121-124. In the first blog entry on this topic, I shared how the term “student engagement” is often used in very different contexts in and around post-secondary learning (active learning, curricula development, quality assurance, and institutional governance – to name a few). And even when we narrow down our focus to student learning and the connections made during this process, it seems as if it is easier to identify when engagement doesn’t happen, than to unpack what engagement actually is. This challenge gave rise to a set of three questions:
1. What is our definition of “student engagement”?In our NorQuest Online Engagement Learning Team (a small faculty community of practice), we are continuing to shape and refine our understanding of student engagement. In a chapter entitled: “The Meanings of Student Engagement: Implications for Policies and Practices”, Ashwin and McVitty share one definition that has promise: Within the community of academic practitioners, engagement by students is most commonly interpreted in relation to the psychology of individual learning: the degree at which students engage with their studies in terms of motivation, the depth of their intellectual perception or simply studiousness. Engaged students are viewed as taking ownership for their own learning, working together with staff on ensuring academic success and accepting the role of engaged and willing apprentice to an academic master (Velden 2013, p. 78). This definition makes me think of terms like: empowerment, inquiry, self-efficacy, perseverance, and personal accountability. As such it deals with the notion of engagement as something that may develop and grow as students partake in learning opportunities, and much of it will depend upon the students themselves. However, our learning team was looking more closely at engagement in direct response to specific learning activities, as a response to the lesson or course design of the instructors and the interactions and thinking that happens while such learning occurs. Another common definition of student engagement is “being in the zone” - to become so preoccupied with a task or challenge that time and other constraints fade to the background. I like this definition for its simplicity. This definition focuses on engagement from moment to moment, not over a semester or a year. I think it is every instructor’s hope that we can get our students so wrapped up in their activities that time seems to fly by. And it seems to me, that time flies by, not when students are simply trying to listen and remember, but when they are acting upon the content, skills and professional judgments that are the focus of their asynchronous or synchronous learning activities and assignments. However, if we accept this student engagement definition of “being in the zone”, we also have to ask, just how do we get our students to enter this zone? Experienced educators will tell us that it requires an artful mix of intriguing questions, humor, clear demonstrations, choice, opportunities to collaborate, challenge, feedback, personal connections, and a host of other classroom conditions and influences. Such artful teaching challenges our students to: ask questions, make inferences, compare and contrast, synthesize, role play, problem solve, build new frames of understanding for themselves and reflect (and many more - higher order - thinking skills). 2. How do we cultivate “in the zone” engagement?In an article published in 2011, Jim Parsons and Leah Taylor suggest that student engagement is directly related to how educators build learning experiences with sic different six different factors in mind:
While the work of Parsons and Taylor is perhaps a bit dated now, especially in light of how technology has transformed learning environments in the past couple of years, I still like this list. It points us away from the superficial (but often energy providing) things that we consider indicators of engagement; it is more than just eye-contact, body posture, question-asking and quick collaboration (in-class) or cameras, on clicks of the mouse and chat messages (online). Engagement is related to how a student connects to the learning outcomes, how they personalize learning, how they apply their gifts and abilities, and how we, as instructional designers, set up a context that allows them to do all of this. 3. Is there a difference between engagement in synchronous online environments compared to asynchronous work?In a word, no! And then again, yes! Engagement, as we’re coming to understand in our little learning team, is really more about thinking than it is about interactivity. Good questions, challenging tasks, and interesting readings and video recordings all contribute to student engagement – it matters not if these are situated through asynchronous or synchronous means. However, as Viola and I very quickly discovered when we started our research study on the rapid move to online instruction, asynchronous online instruction (which has a significant research base) is quite different from what most colleges, institutes and universities are now offering in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic. Tried and true asynchronous online instruction is dependent upon well-laid out course maps, where the activities, assignments and assessments are established well before the students take the course. Such courses attract students who welcome the flexibility offered and these students feel that they have the drive and self-discipline to engage in the learning and complete the work. While this learning can be enhanced by creating a community of inquiry (see CoI Framework AthabascaU), the success of individual students depends more upon the instructor’s selection and organization of the learning tasks than upon the instructor’s connection with the learners. What most of us are offering now is not that kind of online learning. Leading educators have said that our current Covid reality has pushed us into a “remote learning” model, where instructors are trying – to various levels of success - to emulate face-to-face learning in an online environment. Some have even gone so far as to call this “emergency remote teaching”, thereby conveying the notion that our efforts are reactive and responsive, rather than carefully mapped or based upon proven practices. (See excellent article at Educause: emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning ) We are learning as we go. And one year in, we are getting better at it. But many instructors are still struggling with striking the right balance and settling on practices that create interest, promote community/communication and provide enough support without frustrating or burning out the student or the teacher. So, using the frames and models that others have developed to describe engagement in online instruction to gauge and unpack what is happening now, has its limitations. We can apply some of the findings and principles from this scholarship in online learning to our new context, but we can only go so far. Most of our students at NorQuest, did not sign up for asynchronous online instruction and they certainly didn’t sign up emergency remote instruction. And while some students have thrived in this new, more flexible way of learning (they could more easily accommodate work responsibilities and could eliminate the commute), many more students lament the loss of the feeling that they are part of a classroom community with its shared pacing of learning activities, deadlines and camaraderie. And many of our instructors are missing this shared experience just as much as the students. In next week’s blog, part 3 of engagement, I hope to more closely explore the concepts of student engagement, interactivity, and student and instructor experience in our current Covid (remote learning) context and make some practical suggestions. References: Anderson, T. (2011). The theory and practice of online learning. (2nd Edition). Edmonton, AB: AU Press. Ashwin P., McVitty D. (2015) The Meanings of Student Engagement: Implications for Policies and Practices. In: Curaj A., Matei L., Pricopie R., Salmi J., Scott P. (eds) The European Higher Education Area. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20877-0_23 Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education model. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Taylor, L. & Parsons, J. (2011). Improving Student Engagement. Current Issues in Education, 14(1). Measuring student engagement? Quite a number of years ago, I was asked to champion a classroom walkthroughs program in a large school district. In this program school administrators would conduct “walkthroughs” as a way to assess how their school was implementing improvement goals. These administrators would get real data and a “feel” for how things were going in a quick and simple way. Principals and associate principals were to quickly pop into classrooms while teaching was taking place and, using a checklist with certain look-fors, make a five-minute assessment based on their observations of the lesson:
These and a number of other questions were all organized on a one-pager with checkboxes that administrators could quickly fill out. At the end of each day (or week) they would be expected to enter the data into an online database so they could combine all of their quick snapshots (crunch the numbers) and see “the big picture” for their school. A walkthrough mosaic, if you will. While I sympathized with the intent of the walkthroughs and was happy to get principals out of their offices and into the classrooms, I didn’t especially like the tool. It’s hard to reduce something as complex as a teaching environment into a series of “Yes I saw it!”, or “No I didn’t!” checklists. One question especially rankled me: Determine levels of class engagement:
The question was based upon a model for describing classroom engagement from the Phillip Schlechty (2002) which has five different levels of engagement: 1) Authentic Engagement, 2) Ritual Compliance, 3) Passive Compliance, 4) Retreatism, and 5) Rebellion. (for short summary of these levels check this document from Stockton University Center for Learning Design: levels) This question always bothered me. While the model professed to illustrate levels of “engagement”, there really was only one level where student were really engaged – the other levels just showed how disengaged they might be. The question elicited many questions from me. How do we know exactly what engagement looks like? Is it about eye-contact, question-asking, discussion, and busyness? Or could quiet students, who might be judged as day-dreamers, perhaps be more engaged than students who know how to “play the game”? Is a classroom of students quietly doodling as a teacher reads a story to them less engaged than those down the hall conducting a science experiment? Which group is merely compliant? I began to think about the types of engagement and considered a model of my own: 1) causing chaos, 2) confused or disconnected, 3) simple compliance, 4) making connections (personal or real world), 5) consolidating learning (building a frame for understanding), 6) challenging assumptions, and 7) creating new understandings or interpretations. Of course, most of this kind of engagement happens where we can’t observe it – inside the mind of the student. So, it wouldn’t work very well as a tool for quick observation (although it might work when reviewing student responses, written or recorded). After working with our district administrators for six months with what I thought was a flawed tool, I managed to convince the website builders to remake our walkthrough tool to expand the choices for observable engagement, and to better reflect our district improvement goals (for assessment, inquiry, and critical literacy). Then, only a year into the process, the district decided to drop the contract with the educational website designer, and walkthroughs - at least in our district - became a thing of the past. My fuss and bother about defining “student engagement” was put on hold. Student engagement as it is understood on college campuses After making the transition over ten years ago from k-12 education to post-secondary contexts, I quickly became re-acquainted with the term “student engagement”. I learned that the term “student engagement” is one that has taken on a lot of territory in and around the college scene in the past decade or so. As a result, the term itself has become rather “fuzzy”. On college and university campuses, student engagement is referred to when:
In our present post-secondary context, “student engagement” is something that is often used as a justification for many decisions made by learning institutions, but it is rarely defined and more often only fleetingly understood. More work is necessary in this field to clarify just what the students are to be engaged with and how, to help clear away the misconceptions and make decisions that most benefit our institutions, our students and our instructors. However, for the purposes of this series of blog entries, we will be focusing on only the first of those four notions of student engagement; engagement as it pertains to the kind of connection students make when involved in learning activities. Our immediate context at NorQuest At NorQuest, we currently have a faculty learning team considering how we might better engage our students in online activities, but even in this group of highly interested educators, we have had trouble pinning down what exactly we mean by student engagement. Just this past week we wrestled with a few critical questions:
Several of the instructors on the faculty learning team expressed frustration with their current online – Covid necessitated – teaching context. They lamented the loss of engagement from face-to-face contexts and the connection they always felt with their students. Now, because many students choose not to attend regularly (but might watch the recordings later), keep their cameras off, and only ask questions or use the chat box feature infrequently, these instructors feel like there is little to no engagement. And this feeling raised several more questions:
These six questions are going to become very important as we look to the future in teaching and learning at NorQuest. In next couple of blog entries, we’ll try to work though these questions with an eye to the college learning context. References: Schlechty, P.C. (2002) Working on the work: An action plan for teachers, principals, and superintendents. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Education Series. Ashwin P., McVitty D. (2015) The Meanings of Student Engagement: Implications for Policies and Practices. In: Curaj A., Matei L., Pricopie R., Salmi J., Scott P. (eds) The European Higher Education Area. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20877-0_23 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:
Bring Your Whole Self… Last Thursday and Friday, Sarah Apedaile hosted two faculty talking circles on “Learning Environments that Enhance Student Wellbeing”. The intention was to elicit ideas and strategies from NorQuest instructional staff so that we could learn from each other. Both circles were very rich in discussion and specifics and while the first seemed to focus on actions that you might do immediately, the other spent more time on proactively building a course and environment that creates a safe space. One of my favorite quotes came from an instructor on the first day, he said (and this is my paraphrase because I could not remember word for word), “Instructors need to bring their whole, authentic selves to the classroom (online or in person). This may mean sharing your own successes, missteps and failures as you have travelled through your educational journey.” Now I know this instructor, and I know that he isn’t saying that a teacher should dominate the classroom with personal anecdotes and ego-centric lessons. What he was getting at is the importance of being real, being vulnerable, and being approachable. On the weekend, I kept coming back to this thought, and I compared it to when I began teaching. In my first few placements, I came across many seasoned educators who were very willing to share their life lessons in teaching with me. Some of the most frequent messages I heard were:
Their advice was something more like an antiperspirant commercial: “Never let them see you sweat!” I remember feeling quite uncomfortable in “faking it”. I knew I had much to learn about time management, subject area content, lesson design, and relationship building and that I would make more than my share of mistakes. That said I quickly found that frequent apologizing was not the way to go. The teacher still needs to be the teacher. Just how does an educator, often given courses and materials that they have not mastered themselves, come across as “confidently human”? How do they effectively lead their students with passion, assurance and a good dose of humility? It is something that I continue to work on. One thing is for certain, in the past couple of decades the role of the educator has changed. We can longer be “experts”, the explosion of information and access has broken our shaky hold as the sole purveyors of truth! Moreover, while in many different countries the position is highly esteemed and one would never think of challenging their instructor, in North America we have learned to be less directive and more collegial, especially at the college level. We want open discussions in our classroom, where students are comfortable asking the hard questions and where we can be real in our responses and concerns. Nonetheless, as instructors we still have responsibilities that require some distancing. Ultimately, we are gatekeepers, for programs and professions. We also have high expectations, for our students and for ourselves. Moreover, as many of us have learned, there is a big difference between being friendly with our students and being friends with them. Sometimes our students can get a little too comfortable and then feel shocked or offended when we have to deliver news they don’t want to hear. So it can be very challenging for instructors to navigate and negotiate their role with each student group. Complicating all of this is the current and ongoing requirement to do most of our relationship building online. The Covid crisis has presented challenges, created distances, and generated feelings of isolation and anxiety. Our students, and many of us, need the subtle interactions and affirmations that came so easily to our in-person classes. As the instructor I quoted earlier also said, “Sometimes if you see students as students you might be missing the point in terms of supporting them. You have to see students as regular and normal human beings who go through ups and downs like all of us... and therefore, even if they are obligated to study or learn, you have to support them as much as you can to help them deal with their other challenges which are not classroom based.” Just as we bring our whole selves to class, our students should feel comfortable bringing their whole selves too. Covid has pushed this further, many of us now face listening and counseling challenges, we need to be available and “confidently human” as we deal with the new online environment and the continuing strain of pandemic and economic uncertainty. Thankfully, many of the participants in the talking circle had suggestions that might just help us in adapting to this environment, providing the support needed to our students, and finding ways to create a safe learning community. I’ve grouped and listed the thoughts of your colleagues below: Suggestions for daily or one-on-one interactions
Suggestions related to lesson design
Suggestions regarding course design
For many of our students, their studies have given them something to dive into, perhaps even as an escape from the rising Covid numbers, the imminent specter of a lockdown, and the isolation brought on by our “new normal”. Our job is to encourage, engage, support, guide and assess with an eye to the whole student. More information on ways to support students in the online environment can be found here: https://campusmentalhealth.ca/toolkits/faculty/how-to-recognize-when-a-student-may-need-support/in-the-virtual-classroom/ https://tatp.utoronto.ca/teaching-toolkit/teaching-with-technology-teaching-online/supporting-students-online |
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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