Inspiration as an Online Educator

I am once again feeling inspired as an online educator.  Much like many University faculty, I am spending the early weeks in December, collecting final papers and assignments, hunkering down in a comfy spot and grading. Grading is, for me, the least rewarding part of being a teacher. Luckily, my students this semester are making it worth my time. I have asked students in my Disabilities in Society course to demonstrate their learning by writing a 'summary of  learning.' In addition to summarizing their learning they are asked to identify five meaningful pieces of content or activities from the semester that impacted their learning. Not only does this provide me with the opportunity to better understand how they see their learning, it also provides insight into how deeply they engaged with the material in the course.  Surprisingly, many students have also chosen to comment on the mode of instruction. The fact that they see the mode in which they learned as a contributing factor is fascinating to me. It indicates that they are not only thinking about what they learned, but how they learned. This online course is designed to be highly interactive using tools such as Voicethread, G+ Community and video to help students connect to one another and the content. Who knows why they chose to do this, but their insights provide a great data point for me about the possibilities in online learning. Below are just a few of the numerous comments that stood out to me. 

            "I felt that this (voicethread) was a very important part of class because it brought the class together to share thoughts and ideas on the subject. I find even in classes where you are physically present you do not always participate with others inside class. I have gone whole course semesters without talking to a single person about the course material or anything in the class. I feel this technique of having Voice Threads is incredibly crucial to an online class. The idea of getting the class together to discuss topics and their ideas is very important. The Voice Threads provided an area where we as students and our instructor could get together and discuss the issues and learn off each other. I feel that in all classes not just subject to online courses it is important to get the group involved on the issues and course work. This would better provide students and the instructors the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the content of the course." 

“The fifth activity that was important was the voice threads. These were incredibly important because it was where most of our information was summed up. It also allowed all of the classmates to interact with each other and share opinions. I particularly like the voice threads because we had a few options to respond via text, voice or video. Also the way the voice thread was set up allowed me to take notes on slide but also participate in my own time manner. The hard thing with lectures in person is that the teacher either goes very fast or conversation goes off topic. The voice thread allowed us to all stay on topic and get to the underlying questions. Lastly, every voice thread was accessible at all times. This was very important to go back and find out information.”

 "Individuals with disabilities is a class that I have enjoyed and learned a lot from. It is the most interactive online class I have ever taken using Google plus, emails, videos, Voicethreads and fishbowls to help engage all of the students. Usually when you take an online class, I never even know what the teacher looks or sounds like, let along what all of the other students look like."  

"I never expected to receive such a deep understanding of disabilities from an online class." 


With that, I will close the semester feeling successful as an online educator.

 

Reflections about Being an Online Educator

I have been an educator for over two decades and have never faced a challenge as great as the challenge of teaching online. Although, I have never been challenged to ensure learning without the ability to: modify on the spot, redirect students’ questions, and control the environment in which my students learn. I am challenged with teaching online after 20 years of teaching in a classroom. I took this challenge willingly, but I truly had no idea how dramatically it would impact me as an educator. My teaching experience ranges in grade levels taught K-University, content taught and ability levels of students. I have taught, first grade in Guatemala, special education students in middle school and freshman to graduate University students.

 All of these experiences had one thing in common, I had a classroom or classroom like environment where students looked at me, nodded their heads and in general acted like students are supposed to act. Teaching, to me, has always been something shared with students in the confines of a classroom or educational setting. Students came to class, I assumed learning took place and then they went on their merry way. In this framework, teaching was an intimate experience shared between teacher and student, the relationship was central. I knew who my student was and I knew, to some degree, if they learned what I intended to teach in the moment it was taught. I am now faced with a new kind of teaching; this mode of teaching provides a dimension to learning that challenges the core of who I am as an educator. This type of teaching is less about the act of teaching and more about the act of learning. In the past, I was an effective educator because I was good at being responsive in the moment, I could guide a conversation to deeper levels on the spot and I could redo and reteach based on in-the-moment assessments. But I am now facing a kind of teaching that doesn’t make use of the teaching skills I have developed and refined over the years.

In the online environment the relationships built with students are equally if not more important, but require an entirely different approach. When a student isn’t in the room to see your expressions and enthusiasm a different approach to connecting with students is imperative. This understanding forced me out of my comfort zone and I began creating and sending video message and exploring online communities. I also realized my email communication needed to be thoughtful, clear and consistent. Surprisingly, online teaching has made me more aware each student because I hear each students voice and read each students’ words every week. As an online teacher I have learned the tremendous importance of preparation. In the online environment there is no redo button or space for spontaneous corrections to directions. It takes at least one full week to recover from a miscommunication, so clarity is a must. This has pushed me to think through my expectations and assignments, write clear directions and develop effective rubrics for grading. It has caused me to think about the learning first and the doing second. In other words, I don’t think about what I need to tell the students, I think about what the student needs to learn. I then structure the materials available on a given topic. I look for open access materials, I create materials and I develop environments for students to explore and research topics. After structuring the learning opportunities I must know if they learned the material or not, gone is the assumption that they came to class, I spoke, therefore they learned. I must have evidence that this learning took place. This evidence must not all be in writing, because well, quite frankly expressing learning through writing is really only one piece to this puzzle. I must find a way to hear my students’ ideas and see their understanding. Due to technology I am able to easily check my students learning through assignments that include, voice, video, text and other creative outlets along with the more traditional academic assessments. Much of the demonstration of learning I require is done in public or open class avenues. I do this so students can learn from one another and share in the experience of learning. Becoming an online teacher has been hard, it has challenged me as an educator to think more deeply about learning from my students’ perspective and it has challenged me to redefine what it means to teach. Online teaching has forever changed the way I interact with my students, for the better.

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Google Moderator: Discussion Board Alternative

In my role as Director of Teaching and Learning Innovation, I regularly get asked about Discussion Boards. Faculty regularly wonder,  how they can get their students to participate meaningfully in an online discussion. Discussion boards are often blamed for much of what is wrong with online learning. In my humble opinion the reason traditional discussion boards are failing to grab students attention is because they are difficult to navigate and tedious to view. Not too long ago discussion boards took the world by storm and were thought to be revolutionizing how students communicated outside of class. Since then, things have changed dramatically in the last few years, we now live in the world of social media where communication is fast, short and simple to view. I believe that what many faculty are looking for in a discussion board is something that allows students to quickly engage in a meaningful and public way outside of the classroom. One option I like to suggest is Google Moderator.

Google Moderator allows students to  engage in Q & A, debates and/or brief reflections and responses. Moderator allows students to post questions, statements (250 characters or less) or videos. Other students may write a response (no character limit) and vote the question/statement up or down. This allows the instructor to quickly see which students have participated and which questions/statements are most important to the class as a whole. 

I have personally used Google Moderator to begin debates in my classroom.  After I have asked students to read, watch or otherwise consume new material on a controversial issue, I like to know where they stand on this issue. To do this, I have students write a brief statement taking one side of an issue using Google Moderator. Other students must then respond to posts they feel most strongly about (at least 3). I ask students to include citations in their responses to increase the academic nature of the interactions. After responding to three entries, they then vote on the posts,  voting up the posts they most agree with and voting down the posts they disagree with. This activity prepares students for engaging in a discussion in class about an important topic or provides a good jumping off point for students writing an position statement on the issue being debated. 

Another instructor at CSUCI, Melissa Stone, has also used Google Moderator to engage students outside of the classroom. Melissa has her students create a short introduction video, post it to YouTube and share the link on a Google Moderator page. Students are then able to view their classmates videos and comment on them. The easy integration of YouTube to Google Moderator makes the use of student videos very easy. This idea could be expanded to students creating a video on a stated topic while the other students in the class vote on the impact of the video and comment on what they learned from it.

If you choose to use Google Moderator you will need to assure your students all have a gmail account.  Also, when setting up Moderator, be sure to turn on the ability for students to post responses and if needed post a YouTube video.

Let me know if you try this out or have other uses for Google Moderator.

Starting a Blog

I have been struggling for the last year thinking about how to start this blog. I know starting should be the easy part, but I have gotten stuck wondering what the theme or topic for this blog should be. I have even had a few false starts. Today is the day I will stop thinking about the overarching goal of this blog and start writing.  As Director of Teaching and Learning Innovation at CSU Channel Islands, I am regularly inspired by my colleagues. I am inspired by their teaching, their passion and their questions. These inspirations will provide me with the topics and content for this blog. It is my hope that I can, in turn, inspire others to delve into the world of emerging technologies and deepen the engagement in learning of their students.