pedagogy

Reflections on “6 Steps to Prepare for an Online Fall Semester” [Villasenor]

On 04/11/2020, in 24x7x365 access, accreditation, adjunct faculty, business side of he, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education, education reform, education technology, elearning, funding / grants, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, Michigan, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, parents/guardians, participation, pedagogy, platforms, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, teaching online, telepresence, television, traditional / tradition, United States, universities, videoconferencing, virtual K-12 schools, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
On the positive side…

What I appreciate about John Villasenor‘s article is that it’s asking us to think about future scenarios in regards to higher education. Then, it’s proposing some potential action steps to take now to address those potential scenarios if they come to fruition. It isn’t looking at the hood when we’re traveling 180 mph. Rather, it’s looking out into the horizon to see what’s coming down the pike.

6 Steps to Prepare for an Online Fall Semester — from chronicle.com by John Villasenor

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Plan for a multiyear impact. If colleges are forced to maintain online-only instruction in the fall and to defer reopening their campuses to in-person instruction to January 2021, the impact will be felt for years. College leaders should start thinking now about how to manage and potentially adjust spring-2021 (and beyond) course offerings, course sequencing, and degree requirements to avoid saddling students with graduation delays and the accompanying direct and indirect financial costs. In addition, colleges should anticipate a smaller-than-normal entering first-year class in fall 2020 (and thus a larger-than-normal enrollment a year later) and devise strategies to help mitigate the resulting stresses on admission rates and classroom and dorm capacity for first-year students entering in fall 2021 and beyond.

If instruction remains online-only in the fall, colleges won’t be able to afford that sort of inefficiency. College departments should start now to identify opportunities for collaborations that would draw on the collective wisdom and labor of faculty members from multiple institutions who are teaching similar courses. This would lessen the burden of migrating teaching materials and techniques to an online format.

From DSC:
I’ve often wondered about the place of consortiums within higher ed…i.e., pooling resources. Will the impacts of the Coronavirus change this area of higher ed? Not sure. Perhaps.

On the negative side…

I take issue with some of John’s perspectives, which are so common amongst the writers and academics out there. For example:

Conversely, an entire generation of current college students is now learning that it can be pretty boring to be one of several hundred people simultaneously watching a Zoom lecture.

You know what? I did that very same thing — over and over again — at Northwestern University (NU), but in a face-to-face format. And quite frankly, it’s a better view on videoconferencing. It’s far more close up, more intimate online. I agree it’s a different experience. But our auditoriums were large and having 100-200+ students in a classroom was common. There was no interaction amongst the students. There were no breakout groups. The faculty members didn’t know most of our names and I highly doubt that the well-paid researchers at Northwestern — who were never taught how to teach in the first place nor did they or NU regard the practice of teaching and learning highly anyway — gave a rat’s ass about body language. Reading the confusion in the auditorium? Really? I highly doubt it. And those TA’s that we paid good money for? Most likely, they were never taught how to teach either. The well-paid researchers often offloaded much of the teaching responsibilities onto the teacher assistants’ backs.

Bottom line:
Face-to-face learning is getting waaaay more credit than it sometimes deserves — though sometimes it IS warranted. And online-based learning — especially when it’s done right — isn’t getting nearly enough credit.

Addendum: Another example of practicing futures thinking in higher ed:

Campuses Might Still Be Closed in the Fall. How Should Universities Prepare? — from diverseeducation.com by Sara Weissman

4 reasons to build choice into classroom design — and how to make it work for students [Lock]

On 04/09/2020, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, attention, blended learning, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, informal learning, innovation, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, participation, pedagogy, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, universities, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The article below is meant as fodder for thought for us now…until we get back to holding class in physical learning spaces again. But it caught my attention because I’d like to see us give students “More choice. More Control.” in all areas of their learning — whether that be in the physical realm or in the digital/virtual realm.

4 reasons to build choice into classroom design — and how to make it work for students — from spaces4learning.com by Deanna Marie Lock
A look at the key elements of a modern and highly engaging learning space

Achieving a quick “Pair & Share” method of teaching using the Cisco Webex Meeting Center [Christian]

On 04/07/2020, in active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, faculty, ideas, innovation, instructional design, interactivity, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, online learning, participation, pedagogy, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, social learning / networks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, tools, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual K-12 schools, webinars, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The “Pair & Share” method allows students to find a fellow student to talk about the question/topic at hand. Then, depending upon time and your learning objectives/lesson plans, some students can report back to the larger classroom about what they discussed. In the digital, synchronous realm, one can achieve this with private chat rooms — given that you’ve changed a setting to allow this to occur. Posting the pairings ahead of time should help establish a quick, smooth transition.

(The graphic below is for the Cisco Webex Meeting Center on a MacBook Pro).

The shift to remote learning: The human element — from insidehighered.com by Doug Lederman & Company

The current response is triage. We are adapting to maintain as much of the familiar learning and community engagement as we can in the short term. Yes, we should adopt the technologies and strategies that support effective online learning. To that end, we will benefit from the excellent prior work of online education researchers. Right now, we need the simplest and most effective methods for our students to achieve the resolution they desire, as we seek to sustain the community and connections we have formed in residence.

It’s one thing to do this online when you are already starting from that premise — where your community has self-selected for that environment. It’s quite another when your community hasn’t.

Kristen Eshleman

Making change in higher ed is typically a daunting prospect because of these silos, but they have been broken down now in ways that I hope will be long lasting and will lead to effective responses, programs, policies and networks in the future.

Joshua R. Eyler

It will be interesting to see if this embrace of flexibility sparks a broader shift in higher education. For too long we have mistaken rigor for academic integrity when in fact, from a definitional standpoint, rigor simply means rigidity, severity and harshness — the exact opposite of the flexibility we so need during this crisis.

Penelope Adams Moon

A solid “Remote Teaching” page from Utah State University

7/
Our #remoteteaching page was influenced in part by: @actualham, @joshua_r_eyler, @ToddZakrajsek, @ThomasJTobin, @karenraycosta, @brocansky, @BarbiHoneycutt, @LangOnCourse, @shannonriggs, @Katie__Linder https://t.co/OZbBEKOtUB pic.twitter.com/0nYgle7p1h

— Travis N Thurston, PhD ?? (@travesty328) April 4, 2020

From DSC:
Very nice! “The Contemplative Commons at the University of Virginia” — from csc.virginia.edu
The Contemplative Commons embodies a new model of higher education at the University of Virginia that is based upon immersive, experiential, and participatory modes of deep learning that facilitate student flourishing.

Learning ecosystems across the globe are going through massive changes! [Christian]

On 03/25/2020, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business side of he, Canada, change, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, Europe, face-to-face, faculty, flipping -- inverted learning, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, Michigan, mobile learning, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online media, online tutoring, parents/guardians, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, smart/connected TV, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, UK, United States, universities, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Due to the impacts of the Coronavirus, learning ecosystems across the globe are going through massive changes!

Each of us has our own learning ecosystem, and the organizations that we work for have their own learning ecosystems as well. Numerous teachers, professors, and trainers around the world are now teaching online. Their toolboxes are expanding with the addition of several new tools and some new knowledge. I believe that will be one of the silver linings from the very tough situations/times that we find ourselves in.

Expanding our teaching toolboxes

At the WMU-Cooley Law School, our learning ecosystem is also fluid and continues to morph. This blog posting speaks to those changes.

Learning from the Living [Class] Room: Due to the impacts from the Coronavirus, this is happening today across many countries. But this vision is just beginning to develop. We haven’t seen anything yet.

QM Emergency Remote Instruction (ERI) Checklists: For K-12 & for Higher Education

On 03/18/2020, in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, digital learning, distance education, elearning, higher education, instructional design, learning, online learning, pedagogy, remote teaching and learning, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, by Daniel Christian

Also see:

QM Emergency Remote Instruction (ERI) Checklist for K-12 and for Higher Education

Coronavirus has led to a rush of online teaching. Here’s some advice for newly remote instructors — from edsurge.com by Jeff Young & Bonni Stachowiak

Excerpt:

The simplest way to go online is to shift to a video conference platform
Stachowiak says that just lecturing to a webcam instead of an in-person class isn’t the best way to teach online, but it is the easiest way to switch. Under the circumstances, it is better than nothing. “I’d rather that you do that for your students, for yourself than to cancel all the classes,” she argues.

Think shorter
If it’s hard to hold students’ attention in person, it’s even harder online, says Stachowiak: “You’ll want to think about shortening that experience. The online environment tends to have shorter, more-compact opportunities and then other things to do that are more engaging than just sitting and listening.”

For those of you who teach and/or give presentations, you might be interested in this new video regarding what’s called “cognitive load” [Christian]

On 03/10/2020, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, attention, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education, elearning, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, multimedia, online learning, pedagogy, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, United States, universities, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For those of you who teach and/or give presentations, you might be interested in a new video that I put together regarding cognitive load. It addresses at least two main questions:

What is cognitive load?
and
Why should I care about it?

Transcript here.

How do I put it into practice?

Simplify the explanations of what you’re presenting as much as possible and break down complex tasks into smaller parts
Don’t place a large amount of text on a slide and then talk about it at the same time — doing so requires much more processing than most people can deal with.
Consider creating two versions of your PowerPoint files:
- A text-light version that can be used for presenting that content to students
- A text-heavy version — which can be posted to your LMS for the learners to go through at their own pace — and without trying to process so much information (voice and text, for example) at one time.
Design-wise:
- Don’t use decorative graphics — everything on a slide should be there for a reason
- Don’t use too many fonts or colors — this can be distracting
- Don’t use background music when you are trying to explain something

How online education went from teaching reform to economic necessity for colleges — from edsurge.com by Robert Ubell

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

When online was first introduced as a pedagogical advance, faculty members often rose up against it—or more often, just ignored it, the most devastating form of resistance. If it weren’t for economic necessity, online might not have grown to the force it has today—these days a third of the nation’s higher ed students take courses online.
…
Millions of working adults must turn to digital degrees to improve their employability in a post-industrial economy that demands higher-level skills than on the assembly line. Corporations are being pressed to find agile, high-tech workers for their digital processes and products. Powerful new digital-recruitment techniques now make massive global markets open to any college with deep enough pockets.

From DSC:
The market will decide how colleges and universities will change — and which ones will survive. Presidents, provosts, members of administration, board members, and faculty members do not control this anymore (if they ever did).

#heutagogy For those with some time to spare, here is my Keynote at the SOTEL Symposium in Auckland a couple of weeks ago. https://t.co/5xj9Km2q3s

— Stewart Hase (@stewarthase) February 29, 2020

Notes from Stewart Hase’s keynote (Feb 2020) — with thanks to Dr. Lisa Marie Blaschke in Germany for her Tweet on this

The commodification of education – turns out sausages
or
Are we creating more Greta Thunbergs?

Creating learning experiences where people are not sausages. Policymakers don’t get it. Practitioners do.

~11:00 mark –> Learner agency; have control over what they can learn about (inserted graphic from DSC below)

Heutagogy (self-determined learning)

…the learner is a partner (agent) in designing and realizing their own learning (Hase & Kenyon, 2000)

PAH continuum – Pedagogy –> Andragogy –> Heutagogy

Hobby – learned to do it but didn’t go to school for it. How did you go about learning it?

Listened to radio, watched YouTube videos, watched other people, trial and error, repeated activity, conversations/reflections/group learning, read books, break things down into smaller parts, seek out a mentor, exploring, testing hypothesis, fail, get stuck and find a way through

Kids know how to do heutagogy – very natural; self-determined learning.

~21:45 To what extent do we incorporate heutagogy into our classrooms?

Context and experience – the neurons you bring to the learning table
Competence and capability
Negotiated learning; let the learner contextualize stuff for you
Experiential learning
Flexible assessment
Chunking the learning
Chunk the assessment
Flipped classroom
Project-based learning

The learning leader: New skills

Happy with ambiguity – have to give up control and power
Have to trust people
Relationship oriented
Process not content oriented
Coach and guide
Scientist
Facilitator

The Dangers of “Teaching the Way We Best Learn” [Zakrajsek]

On 02/27/2020, in active learning, adjunct faculty, blended learning, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, faculty, online learning, participation, pedagogy, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

The Dangers of “Teaching the Way We Best Learn” — from scholarlyteacher.com by Todd Zakrajsek

Excerpts:

Not everyone sees the world as I do, and not everyone learns the way I do. Thinking of the implications of implicit bias is scary, but there is freedom in knowledge. Using evidence-based teaching allows faculty to overcome the adverse effects of teaching as we were taught.

We, as faculty members, are not passive recipients who choose a pedagogical strategy because we have no choice. We may select teaching approaches that work for ourselves as learners, not because we are consciously deciding to ignore the needs of others, but more so because we fail to understand effective alternatives exist.
…
This need not be an admonishment on our professional responsibility to educate others. It is merely a recognition that when we look at the world, we tend to see it from our perspective, the one with which we are most familiar. It takes effort to consider other perspectives.
…

The challenge is that teaching is not about our learning; it is about our learners. It is not the job of the server in a restaurant to offer only the food they most prefer, but instead to help you to navigate the menu to identify what works best for you, food allergies, preferences, and all.
…
I should not always “teach the way I best learned.” To do so will disadvantage students who are least like me, and those students deserve an opportunity to be successful.

If I primarily use the lecture method of teaching, I should add a “think-pair-share” at times. Perhaps even a jigsaw and problem-based learning sprinkled throughout the semester. If I get bold, I might also try a role-play in class.

From DSC:
I appreciate Todd’s reflections and insights in the above posting. I’d like to sprinkle in a couple of graphics to it.

For those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces as they relate to pedagogies

On 02/22/2020, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, attention, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, expectations, face-to-face, faculty, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pedagogy, platforms, smart classrooms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, tools, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC — and with a shout out to Brad Sousa for this resource:
For those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces as they relate to pedagogies:

How Has Technology Impacted Higher Education?
In part one of this three-part series, AVI Systems CTO Brad Sousa talks with Jeff Day, Founder of North of 10 Advisors, to discuss the key ways education and, specifically, pedagogy differs from 10, 5, even 3 years ago.

Discussion Topics

The impact of active learning and the introduction of the internet of things (IoT) in the classroom
Recommendations for deploying modern learning environments with technology partners
Classroom systems design, then and now

Some timestamps (roughly speaking)

5:15 — changes in pedagogy
7:15 or so — active learning
15:30 design needs around active learning
17:15 DE rooms and active learning — software-controlled platform
21:30 — advice; look to outcomes & expectations that want to achieve/meet; uses cases

Media controller w/ intuitive interface to mimic the way someone teaches / way a classroom goes:

“Class start” — chaotic; mics on everywhere
“Lecture” — gates /mics closed and focus shifts to the professor
“Class interaction” — presents roster of who’s there (20:00 mark roughly)

Also see this introductory posting re: the implications of active learning in the higher ed market.

“The teacher isn’t teaching and I’m having to teach myself the material” has three embedded misconceptions that need to be addressed. [Talbert]

On 02/18/2020, in active learning, adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, higher education, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, pedagogy, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, universities, by Daniel Christian

Three thoughts on active learning and self-teaching — from rtalbert.org Robert Talbert
“The teacher isn’t teaching and I’m having to teach myself the material” has three embedded misconceptions that need to be addressed.

Excerpts:

First: Learning is a process, not an action that one person performs on another.
…
But in the end, an outside person cannot cause you to learn. This isn’t how learning works. Learning instead is a process that moves back and forth, sometimes focused on an instructor but other times focused on the learner or a group of learners together.
…
Second: Not being lectured to all the time is not the same thing as having to teach yourself.
…
Third: In any event, the skill of self-teaching is essential in college and needs to be developed.

But in general, we need to see — and we have work to do in communicating this to students — that self-teaching is a feature, not a bug.

Learning Ecosystems

QM Emergency Remote Instruction (ERI) Checklists: For K-12 & for Higher Education

How online education went from teaching reform to economic necessity for colleges [Ubell]

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