CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITIES:

Starting and Sustaining Online Teaching and Learning at a Small Liberal Arts College

Dr. Kevin GannonDirector, Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, Professor of HistoryGrand View University

December 14-15, 2015Sweet Briar College

Flic

kr u

ser

Text

ure

X

What is online learning?What does it mean to learn online?

“You can go to college in your pajamas!”

We already do!

Fren

ch N

atio

nal

Lib

rary

Closer Than We Think, 1958

The Jetsons, 1963

Photo by Flickr user Arbyreed

“This mechanizes education and leaves the local teacher only the tasks of preparing…and keeping order in the classroom.”

Lloyd Allen Cook, On the radio-broadcast lecture

Community Backgrounds of Education: A Textbook in Educational Sociology. (McGraw-Hill, 1938), p. 249

Flickr user trevor.patt

Like any pedagogy, online teaching and learning is better imagined as a spectrum rather than a technique.

Web-enhanced Blended Learning Online

What does online learning mean for the Liberal Arts?

Does it render the liberal arts model obsolete? Is there no longer any room for the SLAC? Are we being “disrupted” out of existence?

Flickr user Zlemu@cracow

“A highly qualified faculty committed to the highest standards of teaching engages individuals on a human scale. In small classes, students receive the attention that encourages self-confidence and the improvement of skills for life and livelihood.”

Statement of Purpose in Support of the Mission, Sweet Briar Collegesbc.edu/about/our-mission

“A highly qualified faculty committed to the highest standards of teaching engages individuals on a human scale. In small classes, students receive the attention that encourages self-confidence and the improvement of skills for life and livelihood.”

Statement of Purpose in Support of the Mission, Sweet Briar Collegesbc.edu/about/our-mission

Online Learning means what we make it mean, in it most essential sense. Without an intentional commitment to take what makes our institutions matter and embody it online, online education will be nothing more than a reproduction of the worst parts of face-to-face education in a newer, shinier—and more expensive—place.

Flickr user Pailo Lottini

I’m often asked, “doesn’t online education threaten face-to-face learning?”I don’t think that’s the right question to be asking. I like to turn the question

around: Why do we assume that everything about face-to-face learning is inherently worth saving?

Flickr user Peter Samis

Flickr user Jams

We do better when we stop asking if online teaching and learning is “better” or “worse,” and understand that it’s just different.

At its best, online learning means:

• Active and Engaged Education

• Peer-Driven Learning• Flexibility and

Accountability• Emancipatory Potential• Student Success

Flickr user Tech Cocktail

The SLAC is the anti-MOOC. And our voices need to be at the online education table.Because if we don’t tell our story, somebody else will.

Flickr user Alan Levine

So how do we build it?

Flickr user Adam Meek

Cultivate campus Allies and Advocates• Administrators• IT staff (Instructional Designers)• Faculty Developers/Teaching and Learning Experts

Have a clear answer when someone asks “Why Are We Doing This?” (and “Who is doing this?” )

Flickr user Chris Havard

Most Importantly: Support your Faculty and Students!

Flickr user Theen Moy

Flickr user Thomas Gulgnard

There are a number of models for online teaching and learning. The key is to find the ideal nexus of institution and model. Which students will be learning online? Which faculty will be teaching online? Is curriculum and course design outsourced (this is different than accepting transfer courses)? What share of institutional resources do you wish to devote to online learning?

For small liberal arts colleges, the outsourcing model may contain more problems than solutions. Our strengths lie in authenticity and community.

Flickr user Richard Lambert

What story are you telling your students?

What story are you telling both current and potential instructors?

What story are you telling your community?

Are the same student success resources you’ve cultivated on campus available to online learners?

Flickr user Z

eltfaeng

er

Who are these online learners? 2.64 million students took online classes as their total enrollment(12.5% of total enrollments)

Another 2.81 million students took at least online class as part of their enrollment (13.3% of total enrollments)

Almost 26% of all college students are learning online.(Fall 2012 Title IV institutions)

Who are Sweet Briar’s online learners now? Who will they be later?

As we create an online class or program, we should ask ourselves what kind of pedagogical space we’re building. Is it a space that invites students, faculty, and staff into a venture with learning at its center?

Support faculty by recognizing the time commitment (and, for some, the “leap of faith”) involved. Recruiting faculty to teach online is best done by supporting those who already do.

Flickr user Thomas Hawk

Faculty Development should be consistently available:Stay Plugged In!

-Teaching Circles-Faculty Reading Groups-Faculty Learning Communities-Critique Sessions-SoTL

Flickr user Morgan Terry

Flickr user Dano2

Develop a Course Review Process that is collaborative, formative, and reflective. Ideally, review of online courses is an ongoing dialogue between instructors, technologists, and appropriate administrators. The intent here should be to provide a place for faculty to be critically reflective practitioners.

Like faculty, students need to be recruited, supported, and participate in development. We—institutions, programs, and individual faculty—all have a part to play in supporting our online learners.

Flickr user Betsy Weber

Effective online teaching and learning is made up of connections: students, faculty, institutions, technology, disciplinary scholarship, the vast repository of the web—all are connected to one another in varying degrees and frequencies.

Your turn:

What is in place? What should be in place?

What can be built?

How will we build them?

Flickr user Enkhtuvshin

Are you ready to teach online?Psst….you’re already kind of doing it.

Flickr user Irwin Scott

What are your “Big Rocks?”

Flickr user Alejandro Polanco

For effective course design, begin with the end in mind. What are the non-negotiables, the sine qua non for your students in this course? Once we define these, the rest of the process—goals, objectives, assessments, activities—falls into place.

Flickr user Alan Alfaro

Flickr user Chris

There are three types of presence that are vital to maintain in a blended or online course: Instructor Presence, Cognitive Presence, and Social Presence.

We define teaching presence as the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes. Teaching presence begins before the course commences as the teacher, acting as instructional designer, plans and prepares the course of studies, and it continues during the course, as the instructor facilitates the discourse and provides direct instruction when required -Anderson, et al.(2001)

To what degree is the instructor real and present in the course and its community?

Flickr user Zlemu@Cracow

By being cognitively present, students construct knowledge and meaning through collaboration and interaction. The course design, its content, and a community of discourse are essential for creating a cognitive presence.

Flickr user Bob M.

Flickr user Michael Heiss

Social presence is the ability of learners to project theirpersonal characteristics into the community of inquiry,thereby presenting themselves as ‘real people.’

-Rourke, et al. (2001).

Flickr user Nullfy

Creating effective presence—teaching, cognitive, and social—involves matters of both Time and Space.

What is my course telling students about what I think is important? We should ask this question not just about content and assessments, but design as well.

Flickr user Daniel Go

Helping students find their way—before and during the course—is a crucial element of instructor presence, and it builds students’ cognitive and social presences as well.

Flickr user Four Bricks High

Flickr user Mike Licht

Welcoming Students:• Before-class email• Tutorial/Walk-

Through• Virtual Office

Hours• Discussion Board

Introductions and “Parking Lot”

• Campus Resources

Flickr user Kenmalnr

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an intentional effort to address the diversity of learners we have in our courses, and to create opportunities for our students to learn (and for us to assess) in a variety of ways

Text is different when it’s just text. This is one of the most significant elements of the learning curve for both instructor and student.

Flickr user Juan Pablo Lauriente

Flickr user Calen Wagoner

As we’ve all learned in our own online experiences, asynchronous communication can have its pitfalls. An understanding and basic expectation of “netiquette” is crucial. From the instructor side, we need to be mindful of the need for Varied Representation.

The Need for Varied Representation

If balloons pop, the sound wouldn't be able to carry since everything would be too far away from the correct floor. A closed window would also prevent the sound from carrying, since most buildings tend to be well insulated. Since the whole operation depends on a steady flow of electricity, a break in the middle of the wire would also cause problems. Of course, the fellow could shout, but the human voice is not loud enough to carry that far. An additional problem is that a string could break on the instrument. Then there could be no accompaniment to the message. It is clear that the best situation would involve less distance. Then there would be fewer potential problems. With face to face contact, the least number of things could go wrong. (Bransford and Johnson, p. 719)

Now, try again:If the balloons popped, the sound wouldn't be able to carry since everything would be too far away from the correct floor. A closed window would also prevent the sound from carrying, since most buildings tend to be well insulated. Since the whole operation depends on a steady flow of electricity, a break in the middle of the wire would also cause problems. Of course, the fellow could shout, but the human voice is not loud enough to carry that far. An additional problem is that a string could break on the instrument. Then there could be no accompaniment to the message. It is clear that the best situation would involve less distance. Then there would be fewer potential problems. With face to face contact, the least number of things could go wrong. (Bransford and Johnson, 1972, p. 719)

Flickr user Trey Ratcliff

In addition to Varied Representation, Blended and Online Learning should provide students with opportunities to create Varied Expressions of their engagement with the material and one another.

Final Project DescriptionFor your final project in this course, you must demonstrate both your knowledge of gender studies and your critical reading, thinking, and creating skills. The medium through which you complete this project is up to you (some suggestions are below), but you must do the following:

1) Communicate a political, social, or cultural argument to a specific audience2) Demonstrate your knowledge of gender studies 3) Integrate reflections on your own ability to create social change

Potential Project Mediums: Write: a novella, essay, song, short screenplay, or set of poems

Create: short video, digital narrative (audio essay with pictures), comic strip

Design: an “app” for smart phones, a game for children or adults

Perform: a short play, interpretive dance, or monologue

What does Varied Expression Look Like?

Source: Kathryn Linder, Oregon State University

Flickr user Peter Corbett

PODCASTINGGoogle Docs

Second Life

“CLASSROOM”

Skype

ZOOM

Learning Management System Geocaching

Museums Libraries and Archives

WIKIS OERs

YouTube

Social Bookmarking

Blogging

Discussion Forums

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”-Abraham Maslow

Flickr user Alan L