Day: February 3, 2021

Reflecting on COE 691 – Teaching Online: Bringing Theory to Practice

Leigh

This past fall I had the privilege of teaching an online doctoral seminar – on teaching online. I’ve been sitting on a reflective blog post for quite a while, and, just want to get something out in the digital ether before I look at the clock and it’s fall 2021!

Here is the syllabus and schedule from the course. We developed the course and topics as we went week by week – and it was terrifying.  I’ve been accustomed to set content for the past three years in the online teaching I’ve been doing with the EdD program (and when I taught MAET online.) While there is room for spontaneity and flexibility with set content, it is a great comfort to know week to week, module to module where we are headed. (I honestly never thought I would find so much comfort in that mode.) Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t allow me to rest on my laurels, but provides much needed stability and structure. Eliminating that structure, during a pandemic, caused me quite a bit of stress.  With that said, I could not have asked for a better group of scholars to learn from and with.  They all embraced and welcomed the unknown directions and ultimately each found ways to connect to the content and the course. (For example, Mikey Hall created a fantastic assignment and site for his English 101 course (which you can visit here.)

There are lots of other posts that I could (and probably should) write – but – for now, I got something up here to share! Hopefully the schedule (which contains all of the readings) will be helpful for others. If not open source, the links go to ASU Library resources, but, should not be hard to find via other library systems.

I also have to give a special shout out to our amazing ASU education librarian Linda DeFato – she was instrumental in helping us get full online access to the following books via the library that came out as the seminar was being delivered:

Bayne, S. (2020). The Manifesto for Teaching Online. The MIT Press.

Blum, S., & Kohn, A. (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Press.

T&L Forum Recap – Presence in an Online Teaching Environment

Leigh

On January 20th I was delighted to visit (virtually) Munster Technological University (by invitation from the marvelous Tom Farrelly!) as a part of the National Forum T&L Seminar Series. If you’re not familiar with the series, take a moment to look through the upcoming offerings – all online now due to COVID-19, which, allows participation from a global audience.  It was such a joy to have participants from all over the globe (northern and southern hemispheres!) in my session.

You can view the recording of the session here:

And the slides with the links can be found here:

I tried something new with breakout sessions, that, I think went quite well. Often we’re jolted into breakouts in large online sessions/webinars when the time comes to collaborate or interact – with no choice or scaffolding. When I’m in a seminar and this happens, I find myself wanting to shut down and I didn’t want to do that to my participants. Luckily, Zoom now allows participants to select their own breakout rooms. SO, when it came time to discuss – I shared this document with participants which gave them an idea of what would be happening in each room along with some scaffolded directions for the comments and they could choose where they wanted to go (including a quiet room where they did not have expectations to interact with others.) The following rooms generated some fantastic lists and resources – all of which can be used as springboards for further conversations:

Learning from Failure

Instructional Designers 

Tertiary (Students & Faculty) 

I sincerely want to thank the participants for giving so generously of their time, the T&L National Forum for hosting the seminar, and Tom Farrelly for being an amazing collaborator and friend.

ShapingEDU Winter Games Recap – We Care a Lot: Humanizing Teaching through Technology

Leigh

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of presenting at the 2021 ShapingEDU Winter Games. The ShapingEDU community, spearheaded by Laura Geringer & Samantha Becker is incredible – be sure to check out all of the resources on the site and visit regularly as the site is a living repository!

My session was titled We Care a Lot: Humanizing Teaching through Technology

Session description:

Digital tools that were once at the periphery for some, are now central to our daily lives for all. This breakout session will start by sharing a curated list of possibilities, practices and promises for embedding analog care between the cold digital 0s and 1s in educational spaces. Then, we will move on to collectively engage in interactive brainstorm that models caring practices while simultaneously generating more possibilities and hope.

Here is the recording from the session:

And the session slides w/links:

Sincere thanks to all who attended and also to Sabrina Cervantes Villa who helped out on the back end of the zoom session!