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A wealth of online teaching resources – ON

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coins indicating wealth

I’ve been watching the generous outpouring of tips, webinars, workshops, resources from the US and Canada, aimed at helping teachers pivoting to online teaching.

Check out the page of curated resources offered by ecampus Ontario (official name Ontario Online Learning Consortium): Supporting Remote Teaching and Learning During COVID-19. You will find webinar recordings, all kinds of open-licensed resources, and thoughtful dialogues about assessment. Nice to see David Porter (formerly of BCcampus, now representing Humber College) and Giulia Forsythe, Brock University sharing as both educators have an amazing depth and breadth of knowledge related to engaging learners and teaching online.

Like BCcampus open resources, all the materials on this website (unless otherwise noted) are shared under a wide open Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike International 4.0. Kudos to them as sharing with this license encourages others to do the same AND may result in repurposed or improved offerings as we move through the next year or so.

Several of the resources highlighted in the pivot page offer instructors a chance to develop their digital fluencies by digging into the open, self-paced modules that are part of the popular OntarioExtend self-paced, customizable, bilingual, professional learning online series. This series has been on my bucket list for a while as I have watched some of the social media posts that are spawned by enthusiastic participants. If you are lucky you can time your participation to coincide with a facilitated event; one seems to be coming up from Conestoga soon.

Beehive of badges: Ontario Extend

I took a quick dive into Brock University’s Centre for Pedagogical Innovation. Lots of great ideas, resources, teaching and evaluation techniques; I did have to dig a bit for OER but found OER at Brock in the library research guides. As I anticipated, Giulia Forsythe (Special Projects Faciliator and amazing doodler and proponent of open) has been busy helping Brock faculty to produce OER.

You can also check out the Centre’s useful Guide to Teaching and Learning with Technology.

Ontario’s other online teaching resources are neatly organized by Institution and Department thanks to teachonline.ca. If you check out Ontario Faculty & Instructor Training Resources, you’re sure to find something that develops and expands your online teaching skills and confidence.

Thanks to the recent BCcampus newsletter, I’ve discovered a new OER that contains lots of useful examples of how to produce learning content with the amazing tool – H5P! Check out the Catalogue of H5P Content from ecampusOntario.

Lots of help available online and probably within your institution as well. Let me know if I missed something your college or university is offering to help instructors during this challenging time (contact me sylvia r at educomm dot ca)

Diversifying design – exploring culturally responsive online design

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Setting the Scene

Last year I spent a fair bit of time reviewing my understanding of foundational ideas and research that provide “us” (teachers and instructional designers) with guiding theories, principles, frameworks and guidelines to design “quality” programs, courses, lessons and learning activities. What I found was that, the closer I looked, the more it seemed as though there was no “best way” to recommend. The different ideas or theories each seemed to provide some value, in different learning contexts, for different learning outcomes, to address different kinds of knowledge or thinking/learning process.
I tried to incorporate that perspective in a four week online design workshop I developed for BCcampus and provided a quick review of the major (persistent and/or supported by a significant body of evidence) theories, etc. I selected three design approaches for participants to select (constructive alignment/reverse design, design thinking for education, open education) and asked each of them to think about their own beliefs about teaching and learning and to try to identify the reasons for their choices in their project design.

diversitySparks for Diversity

When we talked about facilitating, teaching, designing for online learners, we considered various perspectives on diversity. One major aspect of diversity that all educators seemed to be wrestling with is how to address the increasing diversity of cultural perspectives that students bring into online learning experiences. And, another challenging aspect identified by participants – how to deal respectfully and authentically with the issues of decolonization and “indigenizing the curriculum.” Although I had acknowledged diversity in my workshop design, I had sidestepped issues of decolonization, intercultural learning and indigenization, as I was uncertain how to address these issues meaningfully in a four week workshop.

One of my participants was Donna Desbiens, an intercultural learning expert currently with Royal Roads University. She shared a recent journal article she had co-authored with Gail Morong “Culturally responsive online design: learning at intercultural intersections”  The paper incorporates some thoughtful ideas about “internationalisation” and “indigenisation” and introduced me to some current thinking about “culturally competent facilitation” and “participatory intercultural learning”. Donna and Gail reviewed a wide range of research and provided some recommendations for learning design within online environments, from an intercultural and indigenous perspective. Their Culturally Responsive Online Design Guidelines list the “most critical research-indicated supports” and show how they can be integrated into course design. Although my main focus was to find new ideas for designing culturally sensitive (inclusive?) online learning, the article also introduced me to some new terminology and intercultural concepts that I’ll follow up over the summer to improve my understanding. Various references to AAC&U VALUE rubrics seem to indicate they could be a good place to start identifying ways to update our online facilitation practices as well.

Next Steps

  1. Review the treatment of quality/accessibility rubrics in FLO-Design workshop – find a simple way to introduce the basic tenets of intercultural learning and suggestions from Culturally Responsive Online Design Guidelines.
  2. Review the ideas and recommendations for creating culturally safe online environments and intercultural competencies in facilitation techniques – find a way to update “online community” and “collaboration” section in FLO-Fundamental workshop. Current thinking, as explained in Morong and Desbiens’ article is to clarify role of collaborative and cooperative work and allow space for individual learning and cultural contributions.
  3. Further exploration of recommended “crucial supports for intercultural learning” (suggested by research):
    – critical and holistic pedagogies;
    – explicit intercultural learning outcomes and assessments that address cultural knowledge;
    – affective learning;
    – relational skills; and,
    – intentional diversity group work
  4. Further exploration of “idiocultures” and potential impact on structuring and supporting online collaborative/cooperative groupwork or knowledge building.

Note:  idiocultures:  refers to unique small group realities,”a system of knowledge, beliefs, behaviors and customs shared by members of an interacting group to which members can refer and employ as a basis of further interaction (derives from G.A. Fine’s analysis of small groups and culture creation 1979)

Reference

Morong, G., & DesBiens, D. (2016). Culturally responsive online design: learning at intercultural intersections. Intercultural Education, 27(5), 474-492. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2016.1240901

 

 

Launching a “NEW FLO” workshop

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Well…we’re underway – today we launched the April 2016 offering of Facilitating Learning Online (offered through BCcampus). It’s an exciting new approach and some significant changes in content and facilitation – at least that’s what Beth Cougler-Blom, Sylvia Currie, Leonne Beebe and Myra Rhodes will be testing and supporting in the next five weeks!Warm-up

Back in early February, BCCampus and Royal Roads University invited FLO afficionados (Faclitating Learning Online workshop) and FDO grads (Facilitator Development Online) to participate in a two-day Design Sprint at the beautiful RRU campus, tucked into the trees and overlooking the water on the northwest side of Victoria. What a place to disconnect from regular work demands and focus on improvement and innovation! A bit of an overview can be found here: https://proflearn.bccampus.ca/flo-design-sprint/

Sustained by the awesome snacks, lunches and beverages organized by the Professional Learning Team from BCcampus, we did a “deep dive” into the collected FLO feedback and our own experiences of Facilitating Learning Online – the five week workshop that RRU developed in-house and then shared through an OER contract and BCcampus took to the educators of BC and adapted and molded and reshaped since early 2015. We all recognized that we had to address the “overload” issues reported by facilitators and participants – despite the enthusiastic feedback about the transformational learning that occurred for many students, we wanted to make it better and more “do-able” for teachers who needed a chance to practice and develop their skills as online instructors.

So, what are we able to test this time? What’s different?FLO Themes

  • removed the cursory consideration of online design – set aside for future development into a stand-alone (or complementary model) so that people could really focus and learn about issues of online design/development in terms of learner success;
  • agreed on a primary focus/purpose:  to develop a foundation of skills and knowledge about facilitating learning online;
  • reduced workload and start-up anxiety for facilitation teams by scripting examples of instructions and scheduling and ideas for structuring learning activities for peers within FLO;
  • eliminated duelling sessions within a week – reduced weekly facilitated learning activities to three – Week 2,3,4;
  • converted the two weekly mini-sessions to “stream team” activities and added one (workload and time management) – facilitation tasks will be spread out over the five weeks (raises potential questions about “noise” for learners – we’re going slowly with this model);
  • test drive one of the “new” types of facilitating activities – a “stream” team supported by LeonneB, that will encourage and support a specific topic throughout the five weeks of the workshop (in contrast to the “weekly” boundaries around the other facilitated sessions).
  • other changes to reduce confusion and allow participants to focus and build community and practice facilitation techniques and strategies!

Wheww!  We’ve taken on a lot but it should make this an amazing and constructive learning experience for participants – and for all of us. So many possibilities and richness of learning. I’ll be keeping a personal journal and trying to report regularly in these blog posts. We hope to have a lot to debrief and share with our guiding Committee and others.

Stay tuned!

SylviaR

 

Immersed, challenged, stretched by LS workshop…

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It's just so great when your high expectations are fulfilled! I was intrigued by the Liberating Structures activity (micro-structure) that Leva Lee and Tracy Kelly tried out during ETUG's Fall Workshop (25-10 Crowd-sourcing) and even more curious after I read the explanation:

"Liberating Structures are a collection of powerful facilitation strategies that can be used in our classrooms, everyday meetings, strategic planning sessions, workshops, presentations, etc.  They are seriously fun methods to engage  and work together."

I just returned from an energizing and challenging 2.5 days in the beautiful new Robert H Lee Alumni Centre at UBC, participating in the Liberating Structures workshop that BCcampus Professional Learning and UBC's Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology organized. I'm glad I signed up.

During the 2.5 days, we talked, shared, networked (ate delicious food!) and did the "deep dive", immersing ourselves in testing different variations of many of the 33 micro-structures that are defined and described on the Liberating Structures website. 

And I'm going to begin my "15% Solution" by doing what I can with the resources I have right now and walking myself (and you 😉 through a "W3 debrief". (Note:  W3 = What, So What, Now What?)

What??

What stood out for me? What did I notice?

Day 1, immersive learning, high energy, shared reflections, bravery required.
Keith McCandless and his "Dream Team" of assistants took turns presenting "invitations" to an activity – monitoring and managing the time, clarifying confusions. I noticed that activities were kept brief BUT we took time to listen to insights about what worked and what didn't from participants, augmented by brief deepening questions from one of the LS facilitators. I never saw anyone sitting out any of the activities; never saw glazed eyes or tapping fingers or feet. I heard lots of chatter, laughter and yet quiet, intense listening when an invitation was presented to yet another micro-structure. For 100 or more participants – that's pretty amazing.

Day 2, barriers down, clusters of participants sharing scribbled notes or just talking and listening. While still active, this day was a bit of a "dog-and-pony" show. Keith and his Dream Team assistant, Fletcher spent a lot of time clarifying which structure they used and why in different situations. We experienced the planning and linking of micro-structures to achieve different purposes. It became really clear that LS micro-structures were about letting go of control while still guiding direction; about repeatedly examining "purpose" and thinking about "why" and outcomes. While there were times when the metallic chimes that moved us between activities were annoying, we got through an amazing number of wide-ranging discussions and activities in a day – and never missed a break when it was necessary. By end of day, energy level dropped, tired faces, but lots of writing and sharing still happening.

Day 3 – focus on personal or group challenges, lots of breakout groups forming around self-identified areas of interest but people were starting to scatter their attention as their focus turned to leaving. One last engaging structure – a circle within a circle – can't remember what it was called but it was great. Snapped back the energy (just tamped down) and got people smiling and interacting before the final summary and good-byes

So What??

What was important?

Tight timing, well-managed – chiming mini-cymbals – annoying but attention catching – used persistently kept the group moving towards outcomes, moving between activities/reflections/questions/etc. Appreciated the respect for time more and more during the workshop.

Repetitive mini-cycles – interesting to experience the effects through different microstructures – having to revisit a statement, an outline, and idea, several times – by myself, with another participant, with a small group and within the large group debriefings – made my own purposes and next steps much clearer and, often more possible.

Inclusion was powerful – activities are structured to integrate this and it was reinforced by the actions of the LS facilitators. I'd think that all the participants felt included and, if they didn't speak out during group debriefings, it was because they didn't want to – not that there wasn't an open invitation and support to speak out.  Lots of opportunities to feel "heard" during various activities – either one-to-one or small group. Interesting how much it helped to have others share their insights and add them to the explanations of the facilitators.

Flexibility – modularization and demonstration of possible connections into various strings or "mosaics", use of a detailed storyboarding example, lots of fishbowl opportunities meant that you could really see how you might use the microstructures in every situation – from the personal to the professional.

The Power of Invitations! – crafting these became a real challenge. Great to have examples presented by different members of Dream Team and presented by different participants in our group activities. Framing the invitations well results in greater participation, clarity of purpose, positive approaches to the task at hand, inclusiveness, etc.

Honesty, bravery, openness in sharing – the generosity of spirit and bravery that most participants exhibited, supported and encouraged by the LS facilitators, was inspiring and part of the positive energy in the room. So much easier to come to meaningful outcomes when no-one seemed to be pursuing hidden agendas.

So What??

What will I do next?

My 15% solution was to apply a microstructure to this blog post. But I have upcoming challenges to address – potential of broadening my network of potential clients and getting involved in interesting initiatives – perhaps by helping organizations or institutions look at how to use LS micro-structures to engage learners or focus their instructional/learning design initatives?

– preparing a presentation for two upcoming events and ensuring that I blow apart the "presentation by expert" expectation to distribute control and broaden involvement with a judiciously selected "string" of microstructures – starting with a storyboard to guide and gain "buy-in" frrom my co-presenters!

Longer terms – apply some of the micro-structures to revisiting the design of some of the online learning activities we've designed for FLO workshops (Facilitating Learning Online). How can we translate the power of LS micro-structures to the onlne synchronous and asynchronous experience! (and share it with others 😉

Lots to do! I'll report back!  Sylvia

So long, and thanks for all the fish…

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goodbyeSix weeks has just flown by and I received the final notice from the UNSW MOOC – Learning to Teach Online on Sunday, August 16th ! Although I wasn’t able to be as involved as I had hoped, I gathered some great ideas, contributed some good resources back, and participated (lightly) in the online forums.

The primary “nuggets” I’ll take away from this MOOC are:

  • dealing with students questions by having them post in a forum and vote on which questions were of most interest – then the instructors responded to the top questions in short discussion-based videos emailed out to registered participants each week (very helpful);
  • well-organized and structured course (never felt lost – could always find forums, assignments, videos quickly);
  • collaborative Googledoc to accumulate suggested resources to support the weekly topics (easy way to involve participants!);
  • criterion (and explanatory videos) to support peer-grading of optional assignment (interesting to listen to why and how); and, finally,
  • the friendly, open supportive instructor presence established by Simon McIntyre and Dr. Negin Mirriahi!

Learning to teach online MOOCI enjoyed the flexible design of this MOOC and, although I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to complete activities and participate in the peer-feedback cycle, I found the process interesting to observe. I would think that the resulting feedback would have been very helpful but can’t be sure. I’ve been reading more about the efforts at improving the quality of peer assessments or self-evaluation in MOOCs and in the UK (Re-engineering Assessment Practices in Higher Education). I’d be curious to hear how the participants in the process felt about any improvement in their ability to assess and share?

During the final week of LTTO, Simon and Negin shared some of the demographic stats they’d collected. This MOOC (2nd one) was much more successful than the first; more participants who stayed involved (7,000) and a broader range of countries. There were:

  • 11,727 participants from 167 different countries
  • 36% were from emerging economics
  • top five countries – USA, Australia, India, United Kingdom, Russian Federation
  • most (90%) participants had at least a bachelor’s degree
They anticipate publishing future journal articles once they’ve had a chance to analyze the data they’ve collected. And it sounds as though they plan to offer the MOOC again so keep an eye on their Twitter feed UNSW ltto – (probably same time next year?)

If you haven’t already found UNSW’s COFA Learning to Teach Online project site – see http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/learning-to-teach-online/about-the-project  or their Youtube channel – https://youtu.be/SIgK2cHwD_g