Adult Education & Optimal Online Learning - Krissy & David
5:44PM Jul 26, 2021
Speakers:
Travis Thurston
David Noffs
Krissy Wilson
Keywords:
students
online
community
learning
designing
thinking
week
question
travis
pedagogy
activity
david
inclusivity
classroom
teacher
critical thinking
pandemic
resilient
peer review
learner
The Resilient Pedagogy podcast with your host Travis Thurston. On this episode, we discuss adult education and optimal online learning with authors from resilient pedagogy. This is the space where we discuss practical teaching strategies to overcome distance disruption and distraction. We also explore how our purchasing course design, classroom communities and pedagogies of care can humanize our learning environments. Today, we will come to guests, David Noffs currently works as a learning designer, faculty developer and lecturer at Northwestern School of Professional Studies, planning and designing transformative learning experiences has become his life's work. Krissy Wilson currently works as a senior learning designer at Northwestern School of Professional Studies. She also teaches professional writing for business online at DePaul University. She's an advocate for curricular excellence, innovation in design and technology, Universal Design for Learning, and superior student engagement and experience. Welcome to the show.
Thanks, Travis.
Thanks for having us.
I'm really looking forward to discussing some of the ideas from your chapter, but before we get into that, I want to ask you the question that we ask all of our guests. So as an emerging term, resilient pedagogy has been defined in a number of different ways, and it continues to be applied in varying contexts. But what does resilient pedagogy mean to you?
Well, I'll go first, Krissy, if you don't mind. You know, to me, it really means that we're empowering students to be adaptive to be able to navigate the, you know, the course, the course environment, and particularly in the context of an online course environment. Despite distractions, despite technical problems, despite even, you know, teacher interaction problems, all sorts of things, designing a course, or designing a curriculum in such a way that students can navigate can work their way around obstacles. And not only that, but provide them with incentive, I think, to do that. So alternative routes to success would be a good way of describing it.
Yeah, I completely agree with you, David. And I, I would build on that also to add kind of a flexibility or, you know, kind of an ability to more for the oft used term lately as pivot right, but to, to take an activity that you'd already had planned, and be able to think critically about it, reflect on your experience using it in a different context. And think, what can I do to adjust this a little bit to make it more appropriate for the context we now find ourselves in and whether that's on a course level, or even on the level of an individual student, who's coming to you and your email and asking for a change, a needed change. So, for me, there's an aspect of speed there with resilient pedagogy. You know, there's a lot you can do with planning. But also, what can you do when you're thinking quickly on your feet to make that a sudden change?
I like that making quick adjustments? Also, David, you pointing out the kind of different pathways for students?
Right.
Yeah, I love that. So as we've experienced in 2020, when disruptions occurred, you know, many have described that there was a lapse in quality or there was a change in educational experience for both students and for instructors. In your chapter, you point to some specific ideas on the differences between emergency remote teaching, and and maybe what we would traditionally do in online. So how are emergency remote teaching and optimal online learning? Different?
Krissy, you want to jump in?
Sure, sure. I think there are a lot of facets to this, but just from rereading the chapter earlier, I was thinking about the preponderance of zoom lectures that we saw early on, that that was seen as the the clear equivalent of a lecture and discussion in the classroom was Yes, let's move this to a lecture and discussion in Zoom format. And so knowing that is not a really effective practice, as you know, as adult educators who are developing asynchronous online courses, you know, our our department's policy is that synchronous sessions are value add, it's an optional, it's an optional active learning opportunity or a q&a session or office hours as opposed to a uni-directional banking model. Like you mentioned earlier, Travis, I have this information and when the words come out of my mouth that is deposited into your, into your mind. So in contrast, you know, an optimal online learning model would maybe chunk out video lectures into small pieces, or use a variety of different resources to help students achieve the, their their goal, excuse me achieve their learning goals for that week or for the course. Rather than you immediately thinking I need to change my content. You're thinking, what, what resources do students need to achieve their, the goals that I've set out for them and demonstrate the competencies that they need to demonstrate? That's just one one of the little facets that came to mind. David, if you want to jump in, and we have like, many, many examples in our chapter.
Yeah, I think the overriding thing that you hit on, though that's really important is that the difference is really one between user centered and, you know, teacher centered, that zoom lectures really signify a lecture style environment, which is, you know, teacher to student, teacher to student, and despite the fact that a lot of instructors thought they were changing their delivery by uploading materials, and placing videos in their, you know, PowerPoint slide decks online, that really, that ultimately the, the approach had not changed, they were still directing, they were still teaching the students only via zoom. And so our approach in that, that we've advocated for long before the pandemic, obviously, and what we were trying to get across to teachers during this transition to online learning was that there's a, there's a overarching change in emphasis when you go online from teacher center to user centered, so we want the students to drive the conversations we want them to, to drive the asynchronous discussions, we want you to prompt the students to think for themselves and to teach themselves online. And this is this was not only difficult during the pandemic transition, it's still difficult to this day.
Oh, absolutely. And you're, you're speaking to my heart here as an instructional designer who, who who's designed, you know, I've been working at Utah State for over seven years designing online courses. And it's not something that you do in three days or in seven days, you know, transitioning a face to face class to an online environment, it requires a process and there's a lot of intentionality behind it. And so, yeah, when we, when we did make that that shift to emergency remote teaching, having that term, I think, first of all was helpful, rather than saying we were just going online. But yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you. I love I love how you frame that in the this Friere's banking banking model, rather than being teacher centered, thinking of ways where we can be more user centered or learner centered in our approaches. My colleague, Dr. Mitchel Colver, he talks about this also in terms of, you know, if we picture our classroom, as a box, and we invite our students into that box, it should change the box, right, that the students that are coming in should be impacting what's happening in that classroom. And it should be an integral piece of how we view our classroom. So kind of on that point of being learner centered, what are what are maybe some specific examples in discussions or other ways that you can suggest to help support even that community building?
Sure, in my course that I teach In the School of Professional Studies, I teach learning environment design. And the very first activity that we do in our course is actually a team charter. It's not a new idea, it's been around for a long time. However, it's it's an idea that I think a lot of people sort of pay lip service to and overlook, and it can have a tremendously powerful impact on on not just building your community, but transforming the way that your students think about online communities and what that means. So so you know, as an example, I have the students work on a community charter for two weeks, I give them no instructions, I tell them to create a charter, and they have to develop it online. And it's difficult hard work. But after two weeks, they really understand what it means to look at different roles and to work with each other and to negotiate and to build a document together a working document. Krissy's got some other ideas I know, but you know, we have other ways of doing it that are that are easier, perhaps just a lot of different creative icebreakers really could be very, very effective in helping to build a community. Krissy, I think you have some ideas.
Yeah, I was thinking about this earlier, Travis, and you were kind of we were talking about the way the shape of the classroom and I was thinking about proportionally, how much more time we spend in introductions in an online course than we would in a face to face course. You might be there in the room with students, you have a limited amount of time. There's usually kind of a corny icebreaker. What's your name? What's your major? Why did you want to take this course? What's your favorite...? You know, the trivia question like "what's your favorite breakfast cereal?" or something, right. And with an online course, you really have the opportunity to ask metacognitive or reflective questions at this stage where as students are just joining the course to access prior knowledge that they may have on this topic. Or to it to think metacognitively about think things like, you might ask a question, like, what part of this course are you really excited about that you feel like you already know a little bit about that you might want to take the lead on and other parts of the course that you feel like Actually, that's, that's pretty unfamiliar. To me, I feel like I'm gonna have a tough time in week seven with this unfamiliar topic. Right. So proportionally, I really love with online courses, how much time you get to spend at the edges of the beginning, getting to know each student but thinking of an example from, from the course I teach, which is a as you mentioned, Travis, a professional writing class for undergraduate students. It's a five week course, so building community quickly is kind of it's important. We've got a peer review that's happening in the fourth week of the class. And I'm trying from the first day to build enough community that they trust each other going into this peer review, to not just provide each other with, with feedback. But to but to take that feedback, you know, it doesn't make sense to do a peer review, if they're just gonna skate over each other's opinions and continue moving on, right? So. So it's really important to me to have activities where they're reflecting on past experience and sharing that with each other. Prior to coming into a higher stakes activity, that depends on them being a member of a course community.
I just want to add one other thing as well. You know, there's this simple thing that you can do as well, which is just to refer to the class as a community rather than referring it to... I call my class a community, I don't refer to it as a class or a course, I say, Well, what have we learned from the community this week, and I refer to, you know, to it that way, throughout that, in itself, helps us sort of set the stage for our community.
Yeah, I like that idea of framing, framing it as a community. That really does, at least in my experience that really does help us to connect. And when we, if we do have some, some trust built there, it is easier to engage, you know, make yourself a little more vulnerable as a learner and engage in some of those peer review type activities and self reflection. I want to I want to push this a little bit further on this. How, how do you see building that community up front and building some of those things that you were just talking about... How Does that lead more into, like critical thinking and some of the other work that you do in your courses?
I was just thinking, you know, the first thing that comes to mind, Travis is when you've built some trust in your community, I think students are more willing to take risks, which is so critical for critical thinking, right, you were approached with a situation. And you could approach it in a really conservative, safe, tried and true kind of way. Or you could say, you know, what, I think I trust the folks in my community to workshop, this kind of 'out there idea' with me, let's give this a try. So I think you're gonna see benefits for just more exciting and diverse critical thinking if you've spent time and energy building a community in your course.
Yeah, and I think that it turns into, it changes the week's dynamics from once again, that that kind of height, you know, a huge amount of activity at the beginning of the week, to kind of, you know, tapering off every week, you sort of have this shape of a course, if it's online, and it's going week to week like that, it changes that to a kind of, you know, more of a regular flow of information between the community members. So, as a community, students start to feel more like their voice matters, that, that they have a voice in the class, and that if they uncover an idea later in the week, that, you know, they're more likely to announce it to the class. And, and so, you know, there's more of this level of activity that's consistently higher than just this, the the community waiting to hear from the teacher, that sort of thing.
One of the things that I also really enjoyed from your chapter is the fact that sometimes, either distance learning or online learning kind of gets a bad rap. And I think, especially when the shift to emergency remote teaching happened, there was a there was a lot of that talk, right that, you know, oh, you know, distance learning doesn't work, or, you know, online learning doesn't work. And, and as someone who has spent quite a few years working in that field, and you know, and as someone who, as a student, I did a master's degree that was completely online. And my, my instructors were fantastic. And they, you know, they made sure that it was a rich experience for me, they did the types of activities, that that did help us as students feel like we were part of a community and those courses. And, and so, for me, that that gives me hope, that as we continue to share these ideas, and we continue to be self reflective in our own practices, that we can create these learning environments that can help support our learners and really help them feel part of part of the community within our courses.
Yeah, you know, I dug up, an announcement that I made to my class was a from from a year ago, just as we were moving online, and I was in the middle of, of working with my learning environment designers. And I, my announcement was, was simply that I said to the whole community, I said, we can all say exactly where we were when university education quite literally entered a new era. We will see how it turns out and I wish all of us The Very Best of luck being there for our own teams and clients and teachers and students through this challenge. Oh, and yes, take lots of notes. So you know, I was talking to my students, even though this is asynchronously we were all in tune with one another when this was happening in our online online course. And people were scared. People were exhilarated. They were, you know, excited about it. They were curious. But it was it was truly a feeling of community and being online. We were going to weather the storm. So it was truly a feeling of resiliency.
Yeah, there's a there's a I've been teaching this course on the course that I teach online prior to the pandemic as well. And I'd had this statement in my course that was called a note about online learning because many of the students in the program, this may be the first online course that they take, it's sort of offered on face to face and online for flexibility options for students. So this this note was kind of tips about returning to the course site frequently and, you know, making the most out of being a part of this online community. And in winter, that statement worked great. In spring, the first section, that statement worked great. And for the second section in spring, it needed some updating, you know, I needed to come to this and say, kind of, like you were saying, David, this is an extraordinary time. Even though this course was designed to be online, there are going to be things that will have to change. And including the way our community works, you may, you may be relying on it more than usual. And in one observation that I've had in the last, having taught the same course, now the eighth time, in the last year, I feel like students are really leaning into the community now, in a way that at the beginning of this, you know, taking online courses was new, and taking online, asynchronous online, and emergency remote teaching. At the same time, they're kind of juggling all of these different formats and expectations. But the discussions in my class this term are off the charts, I feel like students have had some experience with it and, and distance from each other, you know, I think they're being that much more generous with what they share with each other in an asynchronous discussion, more generous with their, with their time and detailed with their responses and reflective in a way that, you know, if we're trying to think about takeaways from from all of this, you know, I feel like the students who I have in my class have learned how to be part of an online community in the last year, in a way that they may not have the year prior.
I like that learning how to be part of an online community. That's, that that feels like such an important thing right now.
Yeah, it really does
they've had to lean on it for not just their academics, but for social and familial reasons. And, you know, for entertainment and for, for continued learning, just, you know, you want to do pottery class, you're doing it online now, you know? So, yeah, it's, it's been interesting to see how students have just, I don't know, there's an earnestness, this real earnestness to engage and connect with their peers in a meaningful way. I think they've seen it work. You know, if they were skeptical in the beginning, they're like, I agree, I was a freshman starting in fall. And this is how I've made my connections with friends, I wouldn't have guessed it was possible. But here we are.
My last question for you today, I kind of want to shift focus looking forward. I've been thinking a lot about, you know, changes that I've made, in my own practice, changes have made in the way that, you know, I work with my colleagues, all these sorts of things over this past year. And thinking about, about moving forward, you know, there's a lot of talk about going going back to normal. Right. And, but, but I feel like there are some things that I've changed that I don't want to let go of that have actually improved the way that I that I operate, you know, for example, as a, as a faculty developer, providing all of our services in a virtual format, has actually provided more inclusivity in in bringing in instructors and faculty from from across our state. You know, we have different campuses all over the state. And, and that's something that I'm not going to let go of we've, we've done a lot of, I feel like we have done a better job at building community in that virtual format than, you know, hosting just our face to face events. So So I'm curious to kind of pose that question to you, what are some things that that you change in your practice or in, you know, in the way that you've been working, maybe changes you've seen others make that you would like to see continue moving forward?
I think that you hit the nail on the head when you said inclusivity, I've found myself really reaching out more to a broader community in trying to connect my students virtually, to other, you know, educators, thinkers, practitioners, and so I've what I've done is I really expanded my guest speaker, my, that that synchronous part of my course where I do, you know, bring students together into a synchronous session. And I've let the students kind of run that as their, their own venue, and just, you know, invited guest speakers in. And so, you know, that it's interesting that I think that's been very, very successful. The students have really enjoyed using that Zoom space that synch-space as their own, you know, q&a time, their question time, their time to speak, you know, they say, David, can you, you know, pull in a speaker from the industry to talk about, you know, this, this area, and I do that. And so, you know, we've really expanded that a lot. So I think that's one thing that's changed dramatically for me is that it's become more inclusive. And the other thing, you know, I have to say is that everything changed, not just with the pandemic, but with the social unrest that, you know, that occurred in, in this country over the past year. And our students are different online, and they want to feel that they're part of a real democratic process that everybody has a voice. So your, your use of the term inclusivity is is is timely, it's meaningful. And it really indicates that that's a permanent fixture of our online communities from now on.
Yeah, I completely agree, David. And I would add on top of that, too, that you're talking about social justice issues as a part of coursework. Prior to all of this was not a given, you know, you could teach professional writing and just be like, here's the textbook, here's the rules. And, and now, it's, you know, there's an expectation that as an instructor, you will be sharing personal and professional opinions and resources about movements, like Black Lives Matter, for example. And that is that is to a great benefit of our academic community that, you know, I was thinking, when you first asked a question, Travis, I thought, one thing that I really like that to take away from all of this is the informality that some of this that's been brought to some of this, right we, at our office, for example, we have a video studio with like a green screen and a teleprompter and we'd coach faculty to create, you know, welcome videos for their course using the space for example. And in lieu of a really formal situation and space like that. We're now all coming from our homes with pets and children and distractions and and I feel like a lot of that has been brought to teaching practice, you know, it's been brought to our work practice, but also to if I'm recording a video for students that week, I'm not trying to get a perfectly like plain background and my lighting, right? I'm not doing 20 takes to eliminate all my 'ums' and 'likes'. I'm kind of just sitting here and saying, Hey, everyone, it's week two, we are all like real stressed. I'm here for you, you know, there's just there's this more of a this informal tone that's come with that. And I think that has some of that has, let us talk about social justice topics, right? It's, I'm coming to you from a place of interpersonal connection rather than here I am a capital F faculty member and here you are capitalists student in this really formal power relationship. It's more of a more egalitarian and democratic like you're saying, David,
I'm gonna leave that there because I love that. Thank you so much, both of you for taking the time today to come and discuss these these important topics.
