Tag Archives: instructional design

Shifting a multi-section course to remote delivery

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One of my regular roles is supervising faculty member of a multi-section undergraduate course taught by doctoral students. It’s my job to hire and train the instructors, and I also set the syllabus, assignments, baseline course materials (OER that we have developed), etc. with the feedback and assistance of the instructors. I do the latter because (a) we don’t pay them enough to ask them to design their own courses; (b) it provides consistency across course sections; and (c) it’s useful for mentoring these instructors on course design. They then choose how to address the required topics during each course meeting and add personalization or embellish their courses as they see fit. I’ve done this for a decade, and I love mentoring these course instructors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that the four sections of the course being taught this term have had to shift online. I realized immediately that while all of the student instructors had taken online courses (graduate level), and had served as an online TA in our program (assisting a professor in a graduate level online course), teaching online was new to them. Rather than leave them to convert their courses to an alternate format on their own, I stepped in to help out, roll up my sleeves, and be an active part of the course team.

We started with a meeting on zoom, and looked at what remained to be done this term (screenshot included with permission of instructors).

Team2040

We then created a plan. We sent out a survey with a version of these questions tailored specifically for this course. It’s a technology course, so we had some specific concerns about software and computer access. We learned that our students are pretty stressed out. They’re stressed about COVID-19 and family members, about being away from campus and friends, and about taking ALL of their coursework remotely right now. They all have sufficient computers to complete the coursework. Most are pretty well set up in terms of internet and housing, but a few are in unstable situations or in rural areas with sketchy internet access. A few are watching younger siblings, or feel generally distracted in a household full of people. Several are uncertain about their ability to learn right now.

We decided to work as a team for the rest of the term. The task of shifting online felt huge for any one instructor, but manageable when we divide and conquer. We also decided to be there for the students as a team. Each instructor is holding zoom office hours on a different day of the week, and all are welcome.

EME2040 Office Hours

Each instructor (me included!) is monitoring a slack channel where the students can seek text-based help. We’ve adjusted assignment parameters and removed a few minor assignments (this class has A LOT of moving parts). We’re creating weekly checklists to keep the students organized. We’ve split up responsibilities for completing different tasks right now.

In terms of instruction, we’re offering zoom sessions for those who want live interaction while learning, recorded videos for folks who can’t make those sessions (focused tutorials, not zoom recordings), and paper-based tutorials for the folks who don’t have the tech access. Having a team approach really helps!

Finally, we created a video to greet our students upon the return from spring break. Our goal was to introduce the whole team, project a sense of calm, and let the students know that we were making adjustments to the course.

I’m super proud of our team effort, and the response from students so far has been really positive. I decided to share our story because maybe it would inspire others to team up whenever possible. And the social connection has been positive for our instructional team, too — it has provided a sense of normalcy during a decidedly not normal time.

Don’t forget your online class!

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TL;DR — don’t forget your online class in the great COVID-19 mid-semester course redesign challenge of 2020. Online classes may need adjusting too, and (depending on what you teach) you may even find a way to make changes that encourage your students to be on the front lines, helping with crisis response in whatever field you teach.

This semester I’m teaching a campus-based class and an online class.

I bet you’re thinking I have one class that was all systems go, ready to handle COVID-19, and one class that needed reworking. If you are, you’re correct. However, I bet you’ve got the two confused with each other.

In my case, it’s my online class that needs some rethinking. Just because it was already online doesn’t mean that my students aren’t affected by COVID-19.

Let me explain:

My campus class is a PhD seminar. Each Friday morning, 14 of us sit around a seminar table for 2.5 hours and discuss. Invariably we have a few folks who zoom in because they’re not in town or they’re sick. No big deal. We have a meeting owl, we screen share from the instructor station and project that on the screen in the classroom, and it’s pretty seamless. We function well this way. I don’t anticipate any of these students struggling to join a zoom session from home in the upcoming weeks — and we discussed this during our last face to face meeting, on the last Friday that campus was open. In fact, half stayed home and opted to join via zoom that week. And so our “Friday morning coffee club” class will continue as planned, meeting in real time, covering the same material and doing the same assignments. Not a big deal, no real change. Heck, I already set up the weekly zoom link back in January!

EME5250 banner

My online class is full of MS and PhD students who are learning about open educational resources. The class contains a mix of campus and online students. Most of the online students and some of the campus ones work full time, and many of them are educators or instructional designers in the K-12, higher ed, and corporate sectors. I’ve communicated with a few of them this week (it’s spring break) … and they are slammed with work! It’s not surprising. They’re either shifting their own classes to a temporary remote format or helping others make the shift.

It’s clear that some of my online students will struggle to return to class as normal next week. They have other top priorities. It doesn’t matter that they are students who signed up to be online students, and it doesn’t matter that the class was already running online with no real issues. They may have the access, experience, and mindset to be successful online learners, but many of them are experiencing extra job stress and duties right now.

I’m fortunate that the online class relates to instructional design and the on-the-job issues that these students are now facing. With that in mind, I’m making a modified final project option for them which would allow them to apply what we’re learning in class to their job and provide me with a portfolio that documents and explains it. This is in lieu of a similar project on a non-work-related topic. And for the other students, I’ll give them the option to continue as planned or to provide help to others on a volunteer basis right now and build their portfolio accordingly. Win-win, right?

 

 

Thoughts on online course design, teaching, and learning

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I was recently notified — appropriately enough while at the e-Learn conference — that I have been selected to receive an award from my university’s Office of Distance Learning. This award, for Excellence in Online Course Design, will be made during National Distance Learning Week.

One of the award’s criteria involves being evaluated against the Quality Matters rubric. I’m proud to say that I met the criteria despite having designed the course without ever having reviewed them. But then again I teach instructional design, so that would (ideally) be the case, right?

As part of the award experience, I was asked to come in for a video shoot and answer some questions about my experiences with online learning. I believe there will be a video of the awards winners (and perhaps others?) playing at some point during the award ceremony.

I was provided with the questions the week before the video was shot. To prepare for the video, I sat down and typed out my answers to the questions. I enjoyed the process, which gave me a chance to really reflect on my own experiences. I’m not sure how effectively I hit these points on the video itself (I wasn’t reading my answers, but rather giving a live, unscripted response), but since I actually had my responses typed up I figured I might as well post them here:

How did you utilize the online course environment to engage your online students?

I focus heavily on communication and interaction in my online courses.

Although I don’t think the online and face-to-face classrooms should really be compared – they’re like apples and oranges – for me the essence of the face-to-face classroom has always been that it’s a space to work through ideas and engage with others. I want my online course environment to be the same kind of space.

I require students to interact with me and with each other through discussion. Together, we work through core concepts related to the course. We construct and deconstruct examples. We clarify muddy points, and intentionally muddy points that on the surface seemed clear. I require students to share work and provide each other with feedback. I communicate with them on the discussion board, taking the role of an expert co-learner. I share, I probe, and when necessary I provide extra bits of instruction.

I use bi-weekly synchronous sessions, which are recorded for those who can’t make it live, to give students the chance to interact with me in real time. Rather than giving a standard lecture during those sessions, I tend to speak about relevant current events, work through examples, or address misunderstandings or interesting tangents that pop up on the discussion board.

Note that I’ve not yet mentioned course materials. That’s intentional. In my view, course materials are just that – materials. They provide information, and give us a starting baseline for learning. They provide fodder for discussion. Some texts, graphics, or videos may communicate concepts better than others, and ideally I’d like to think that I choose or design (whatever the case may be) the best of them to incorporate into my classes. However, sometimes there is no “best” or “ideal” that is readily accessible. Also, “best” can, itself, be rather subjective and context-specific, and “not great” can often provide a superb launching point for discussion. So, whether the materials used in a class are the best or the worst, what matters most to me is the way that we use those materials in the class.

What is the most challenging aspect of teaching online? What is the most rewarding?

For me, the most challenging aspect is the silent students. I am, by nature, a communicator. In a face-to-face class, the students who do not speak much at least provide visual cues – body positions, glances, and gestures – that show how they feel and whether they’re paying attention, struggling to understand a concept, etc. Online, it’s much more difficult to differentiate the quiet student who understands the course material quite well from the disengaged student from the student who is struggling but fearful of saying something.

The other challenging aspect – and this may be magnified by teaching instructional design students – is what I call design laid bare. In other words, your course design is visibly posted from the start of the class in front of the students, where it can readily be critiqued and questioned. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It pushes me to plan my courses thoroughly and at times raises some interesting discussions of alternate ways in which a course topic might be taught online.

The most rewarding part of teaching online is getting to know my students so well and see their learning process unfold week after week, documented via our course interaction and communication tools. The discussion board is like a window into their minds in some ways. I get to know the students so well by reading their ideas in the discussion, and I believe strongly that the process of writing out their ideas – as opposed to speaking off the cuff in a synchronous setting – really pushes a deeper understanding of the course material for some students.

I also find that I’m more readily able to individualize courses for online students, or track them in groups with like interests. So, a class with 30 students who have interests in K-12, higher ed, and corporate learning can be split into conference-like tracks and have more focused discussions each week.

Finally, the biggest reward is when an online learning skeptic tells me that after taking my course he or she understands the value of online learning.

Please describe the project or course that was recognized for the award you’ve received (Excellence in Online Course Design)

The course is Mobile Learning, EME5077. In this course, student learn about the basic definitions, pedagogies, and technologies used to support mobile learning and the process to design mobile learning activities. Through the assignments, they get to design ebooks and QR-code based learning activities and create prototypes of a learning app.

Discuss some of your methods for designing your online course. How did organization and design impact the quality of your course?

When I design a course I focus on four main things:

  1. Alignment of objectives, course content, learning activities and assessments
  2. Opportunities for peer feedback and interaction
  3. Opportunities to interact with the instructor
  4. Consistency from week to week and assignment to assignment

Typically I create both a content roadmap and communications plan for the course.

The content roadmap helps me get an overview of how the content, learning activities, and assignments fit together and helps me determine the best sequencing for the course.

The communications plan helps me visualize the overall participation workload, the points at which students become interdependent for completing assignments, and the ways in which I plan to interact with the students.

In the Mobile Learning course, for example, I included:

  • weekly announcements
  • weekly discussions for most weeks of the course
  • bi-weekly synchronous sessions
  • student contributed “tech smackdowns” during some of the bi-weekly sessions
  • personalized pulse-check emails at the 1/3 and 2/3 points
  • peer critiques using VoiceThread

The key is to find the right amount of interaction and communication, knowing that students will desire and take advantage of it to varying extents and that it has be manageable or it cannot be sustained.

There’s also a small bit of my courses that I consider to be designed for serendipity or intentionally undesigned. I find this to be particularly important when teaching adult learners. In other words, I want to be prepared to incorporate my students’ interests and experiences, events and opportunities that arise, and current events into the class experience to keep it as up-to-date and relevant as possible. That intentionally undersigned element also keeps the course really interesting for me each time I teach it.

Did the design process cause you to rethink any strategies in your other classes?

Every course design and teaching experience influences the subsequent ones, whether face-to-face or online.

One thing I’ve clearly learned in the context of teaching online is the value of planning personal pulse-checks with the students. In a campus class, just as in an online class, students can feel isolated or as if they lack a connection to the professor. They may be shy about articulating the challenges or struggles they’re experiencing. My pulse-check emails invite students to share with me what’s working and not working for them personally. It takes far less time to do this than you might think. Most students indicate they’re doing fine and the conversation goes no further. The others, who say more, either provide me with positive feedback, which motivates me to keep going, or indicate areas where they need help or the course might be improved. Those messages open dialogues through which I can help students identify strategies that will improve their course performance or explain why the course is designed in a particular way. Sometimes they give me ideas for ways in which I might change course materials, activities, assessments or policies. I get far more useful feedback in this format than I do on end-of-course evaluations.