Remote Teaching

I choose to title this post as teaching versus learning the focus is on what the facilitator or teacher does in the learning environment. The remote learning experiences post-Covid-19 were online learning experiences. The goal of this article is to improve the learning experiences for those participating at a distance. In part, teaching is about managing expectations. Tufts University’s article titled, Preparing for Your First Day of Remote Teaching,

Communicate and acknowledge the difficulty of the situation.
Conduct a mindfulness exercise. [May also be conducted online as a class discussion or personal reflection].
Clearly communicate any new expectations.
Give students a chance to reconnect with you and one another [If a recent disruption].
Have students complete a pre-rest-of-semester survey [If a recent disruption].
Try conducting a small portion of class as you plan to conduct it day-to-day. [Test technology tools like Poll Everywhere or Kahoot! for synchronous sessions or PlayPosit or Quizlet for asynchronous sessions.]

In addition, remember to simulate first day activities in the in-person classroom. For example,

You need to introduce yourself (personal, education and career bio, etc.) and provide an opportunity for learners to introduce themselves. Research ice-breakers.
If you take time in the face-to-face (F2F) space to talk about the course overview, syllabus, schedule and expectations (of learners and of the instructor), remember to provide this for your online class. Reading materials on their own and answering a quiz or survey is not the same. If possible, allow some choice. Discuss and vote on a final exam or final project, for example.

Central Information Resource

Use your College’s Learning Management System (LMS) for all courses. Students will use this resource as a distribution center for essential course information and student support services. Ideally, the course shell should be standardized (use a template format). The LMS houses key course components. For example, the Lecture is the mechanism to deliver the lesson contents from overview, to information, to hopefully the call to act or reflect. This may be a formal lecture (sage on stage) an HTML lecture in the LMS (sage on page) or something interactive as a video with embedded questions or a slideshow accompanied by skeletal notes or partial note handouts for learners to complete while viewing or reading. A lecture that includes questions and demonstration as appropriate is better than just a lecture. Practice activity or reflection activity is needed for learners to process information. These may be quizzes, projects, worksheets, discussions or labs. Assessments are how you measure learner master of the content. There are low- and high-stakes assessments.

Synchronous versus Asynchronous

Consider offering the most flexible learning environment as possible to accommodate learner’s changing needs. HyFlex course design and delivery promotes learner choice about how to participate in class. There are many models. Keeping with the flexibility focus, use required synchronous online sparingly, if at all as an alternate to in-person participation. Where possible, consider a course requiring asynchronous work and peer interaction complemented by optionalsynchronous activities for engagement. Synchronous teaching can provide a social experience. However, is can also create barriers to learning for learners with disabilities, competing time responsibilities or living in different time zones.

Asynchronous Learning

Asynchronous learning experiences are not synonymous with self-paced. They should be intentionally designed to promote learner success. Asynchronous content may include on-demand videos, just-in-time remediation, knowledge self-checks. Videos should have closed captions and transcripts. Captions do not only support learners with special needs but also may improve reading skills. Captions allow for learning late at night, early in the morning or at the office without disturbing others. Regardless of the delivery mode, be present in your course at least several times per week. If your learners are new to online, consider multiple forms of presence. Advantages of asynchronous learning are increased learner access to education and the ability for learners to review the lecture content again (especially of the lecture is recorded). Because the class time is not limited to 50-minutes, 75-minutes or 3-hours, learners can pace themselves, complete embedded questions, take notes and conduct just-in-time remediation as needed regardless of how much time it takes to complete a lesson.

Interactivity – Synchronous

Clicking a mouse is activity, not interactivity. Build-in informal, opt-in synchronous (via conferencing tools) social opportunities. For example, online office hours, discussions (small and large group), study groups, team projects or even peer review. During COVID-19, some communities of practice set up social hours to hang with community members. Discussion design depends on several factors. In a large class, you might break the class into small groups. Depending on the goal of the group, you may keep the same members or change membership periodically. You might set up the members based on criteria to promote learner success. You might let learners form their own groups but cap the membership number so that each group has a similar number of members.

Interactivity – Asynchronous

For discussion boards and discussion that may have a limited number of responses, you might require learners post before viewing and commenting. Select meaningful topics and offer prompts, if possible, especially if you require learners to respond to one or two peer posts. Discussions that require a response from personal experience will promote richer conversations. Remember, discussion is no longer text-based. Learners and instructors may post audio and video comments. You may also set up a virtual hang out or “café” where learners my post questions, answers, share stories, tips, etc. The forum is for non-course related content.

Interactions should support course learning goals

On observation learners make regarding asynchronous online versus same time classes (in-person or synchronous online) is that there seems to be less work for same time classes. There is an allocated time in which to complete the lesson. Online, the learner may want to research or revise before submitting work. They may work independently more often during a same-time class. As you seek ways to infuse interaction opportunities into your course, remember to align activities with program, course and lesson outcomes. Doing so may help you think of strategies that promote interactivity.

Interactivity Rubric

An older but still relevant rubric for Assessing Interaction in Distance Learning by Drs. M. Roblyer and L. Ekhaml, State University of West Georgia may be used to help you identify opportunities to add interactivity and interaction into your courses. The rubric ranks 4 qualities as low, medium or highly interactive. The qualities are (1) Social Rapport-building activities created by the instructor, (2) Instructinoal Design for learning created by the instructor, (3) levels of interactivity of technology resources, and (4) Impact of interactive qualities as reflected in learner response. Noting the 4 interaction qualities (elements) at the high level, a course would have the following:

In addition to providing for exchanges of personal information among students, the instructor provides a variety of in-class and outside-class activities designed to increase social rapport among students.
In addition to the requiring students to communicate with the instructor, instructional activities require students to work with one another (e. g., in pairs or small groups) and outside experts and share results with one another and the rest of the class.
In addition to technologies to allow two-way exchanges of text information, visual technologies such as two-way video or videoconferencing technologies allow synchronous voice & visual communications between instructor and students and among students.
By the end of the course, over 75% of students in the class are initiating interaction with the instructor and other students on a voluntary basis (i.e., other than when required).

Of course, there exist other instruments that contain sub-categories that include student interaction.

Assessment

A challenge when moving some courses from in-person (face-to-face) to online is assessment. Creating authentic assessments is difficult enough without adding equivalence in a different delivery mode. Performance-based authentic assessment decreases the likelihood of cheating and are often a better measurement of learner progress. Just as instructors may provide demonstrations online, simulations and labs may be completed online. Electronic (e) portfolios for course artifacts are a way for learners to create evidence of progress. As always, aligning your assessments to your learning outcomes will help you identify (curate) and create appropriate assessments. It is important to provide opportunities for learners to practice prior to a final or high-stakes assessment. Practice should be low-stakes. Low-stakes is less stressful for learners and less likely to encourage learner cheating. Tufts provides a great flowchart to aid in the decision-making process when moving courses to remote delivery. The graphic is credited to Giulia Forsythe, Associate Director Center for Pedagogical Innovation, Brock University.

If your learning outcomes have been met without an exam, you might consider re-weighting assessments. If your learning outcomes have not been met without an exam, you might consider re-designing the final exam to meet the learning outcomes in an alternate assessment. Alternate formats might include learner presentations, learner reflection, a paper or projects. If you cannot re-design the final exam to meet the learning outcomes in an alternate assessment, consider breaking your exam into different parts delivered in different formats: LMS assignments, multiple-choice and short response quiz. Sometimes, you have to keep the exam.

Rubrics

Using rubric is relevant for all learning modes. Instructors grade objectively and learners know what is expected of them to earn grades or points. In addition, instructors who save their feedback from term to term, can easily copy and paste appropriate feedback, yet save time. Sometimes, the feedback can be used to improve the quality of the rubric. Other times, they may be used to create a lesson or assignment Frequently Asked Questions announcement or post (FAQ) for future learners.

Ensure all of your course materials to ensure they are accessible.

Thought Zoo