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!

Special Issue: Educational Technology in Higher Education: Emergent Practices for Teaching Future Educators

Leigh

Picture of Leigh & Linda I’m delighted to announce that the special issue of Special Issue of UTE. Universitas Tarraconensis: Revista de Ciències de l’Educació that I co-edited along with the amazing Linda Castañeda, has been published!  The special issue is titled: Educational Technology in Higher Education: Emergent Practices for Teaching Future Educators.

Our editorial (Tecnología educativa en la educación superior: prácticas emergentes para la enseñanza de futuros educadores – Educational Technology in Higher Education: Emergent Practices for Teaching Future Educators), can be found here (in both Spanish and English.) 

The issue features fantastic pieces from: Victoria I. Marín, Sara Lorena Villagra Sobrino, Iván Manuel Jorrín Abellán, Ainara Zubillaga del Río, Elia María Fernández Díaz, Lorea Fernández Olaskoaga, Prudencia Gutiérrez Esteban, Víctor Abella García, Cornelia Connolly, Sean O Gorman, Tony Hall, Raquel Hijón-Neira, Jodie Donner, Melissa Warr, Sean M Leahy, Punya Mishra, Gemma Tur, and Urith Ramírez-Mera.

Linda and I have been talking about working together for ages and I’m so thankful we finally had the opportunity to do so here! This was challenging work for all given the pandemic, yet, we all persevered and the issue was published on schedule! I would like to sincerely thank all of the authors for contributing, the reviewers for reviewing, and to Linda for sharing this opportunity with me. We have the ball rolling and I look forward to many more collaborations ahead!

CPED 2020: Quick Recap

Leigh

Last week the 2020 CPED Virtual Convening took place. The theme this year was REIMAGINING & RECONSTRUCTING THE DISSERTATION IN PRACTICE: Dismantling the hegemonic practices of establishing knowledge in the education profession.  I was on the program committee and over the past several months have been working with a great team from ASU and CPED to move the convening to its first ever virtual format. In addition to the work with the committee, I spearheaded the first ever Student Research Forum. The student forum was fantastic and I hope something that will become a regular feature of CPED Convenings. in the future.

During the conference I presented a Learning Exchange session with the amazing friend and colleague Danah Henriksen. Our session was centered around how advisors can foster creative mindsets for mentoring innovative dissertations.  Our slides are below, along with the reference list. Over the next few weeks, recordings of the sessions will be released by CPED – so stay tuned to their Vimeo page for additional resources coming out from the convening. The conference theme (and resulting discussions) have certainly sparked even more ideas on my end and I’m very excited to work with students (and faculty) interested in pushing the boundaries of the shape and form of dissertations by and for scholarly practitioners.


Baer, M., & Oldham, G. R. (2006). The curvilinear relation between experienced creative time pressure and creativity: moderating effects of openness to experience and support for creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(4), 963.

Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate (n.d.). The CPED Framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework

Carson, A. D. (2017). Owning my masters: The rhetorics of rhymes & revolutions. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. 

Cropley, A.J (2003). Creativity in education & learning. Routledge Falmer.

Davidovitch, N., & Milgram, R. M. (2006). Creative thinking as a predictor of teacher effectiveness in higher education. Creativity Research Journal, 18 (3), 385-390.

Henriksen, D., Mishra, P., Greenhow, C., Cain, W., & Roseth, C. (2014). A tale of two courses: innovation in the hybrid/online doctoral program at Michigan State University. TechTrends, 58(4), 45.

Henriksen, D., Richardson, C., & Mehta, R. (2017). Design thinking: A creative approach to educational problems of practice. Thinking skills and Creativity, 26, 140-153. 

Karwowski, M. (2014). Creative mindsets: Measurement, correlates, consequences. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8(1), 62.

Kim, K. H. (2017). The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking-Figural or Verbal: Which One Should We Use?. Creativity. Theories–Research-Applications, 4(2), 302-321.

Miles, C. (2016). The queer critical research and video editing practices of the Gender Project: Consent, collaboration, and multimodality. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Perry, J. A. (Ed.). (2016). The EdD and the scholarly practitioner. IAP.

Prabhu, V., Sutton, C., & Sauser, W. (2008). Creativity and certain personality traits: Understanding the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation. Creativity Research Journal, 20(1), 53-66.

Runco, M. A., & Jaeger, G. J. (2012). The standard definition of creativity. Creativity research journal, 24(1), 92-96.

Silvia, P. J., Nusbaum, E. C., Berg, C., Martin, C., & O’Connor, A. (2009). Openness to experience, plasticity, and creativity: Exploring lower-order, high-order, and interactive effects. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(6), 1087-1090

Vellanki, V. (2020). Thinking, feeling, and creating with photography: Widening the lens of visual research in education. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Williams, A. (2019). My gothic dissertation: A podcast ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. 

Willis, J. W., Valenti, R., & Inman, D. (2010). Completing a professional practice dissertation: A guide for doctoral students and faculty. IAP.

 

 

Recordings from Teaching Doctoral Courses in Fall: Thematic Conversations & My Thoughts

Leigh

Slide that says "It is in each others' shadow that we flourish" along with the phrase in Irish and a small window with a picture of Leigh Graves Wolf (white female.)

A few weeks ago I was invited to participate in a series of college conversations on the topic of teaching doctoral courses online.

The links to the recordings from all of the sessions can be found here: https://my.education.asu.edu/teaching-support/resources/teaching-doctoral-courses-in-fall-thematic-conversations/

I facilitated the following discussion: How might we improvise and carry out individualized, responsive teaching, at the doctoral level, online? and co-facilitated with my colleague Dr. Erin Rotheram-Fuller the conversation titled How might we build an intellectual community in an online doctoral seminar?

It was a great opportunity to discuss openly with faculty and students.

I would also like to share something I was asked to write for faculty as we continue to prepare for Fall 2020.

—

As we consider approaches for continuing to teach in uncertain times this fall, I was asked to share a few thoughts and resources that may be helpful. I have been teaching at the graduate level for about 15 years now (and prior to that, in K-12 settings) – so I’m coming up on 23 years of being an educator.  Throughout the entire time, I’ve always been curious, always finding ways to improve my craft and knowledge of my subject area (which happens to be the use of technology in educational settings.) Over the years, I have learned that there are no magic tricks or shortcuts. Even though I’ve been teaching for a long time, right now, I too am learning how to teach in uncertain times right along with everyone else. Many things I’ve done in the past, don’t quite work anymore.

As with any meaningful endeavor, a tip here or there will get you through in the short term, but, at the end of the day it takes time and care – to teach both online and offline. I don’t separate the two, I teach (in all modes.) While I’ve found patterns and behaviors that work well for me in different modalities, they may not work for others. I have found discussions around critical digital pedagogyand humanizing online learning particularly helpful.

I have found, for me, one of the best ways I learn is through dialogue and observation. Dialogue with texts and with others (via reading, tweeting, and talking.) I also learn from others, observing how they teach and interact – continually evolving and shaping my own behaviors and practices. It will come as no surprise to hear that I approach my teaching through the lens of a bricoleur.

With that said, I’ve been asked to share a few resources to start a dialogue with you, my MLFTC colleagues.  I’ll start with a few things I have recently created/shared in response to COVID-19. Each link contains many additional links and resources.

When I first started teaching at ASU in the Fall of 2018, I explored all of the supports available for teaching online, here are a few that I found particularly helpful:

  • My Leadership & Innovation EdD colleagues.  They have been teaching doctoral courses for many years entirely online and are a wealth of knowledge and collegial support.
  • Dr. Lisa Kammerlacher (lk@asu.edu) – E-Learning and Instruction Librarian. Dr. Kammerlacher is a tremendous resource and was instrumental as I was transitioning one of my courses to a “Zero Textbook” course.
  • Dr. Meredith Toth and the MLFTC Digital Learning Team. I always bookmark resources they share via email and they often hold office hours for just in time support.

Finally, the ASU’s Digital Tool “sunburst” which lists all digital tools available to faculty and students. There are very long conversations that can be had about tools (and how “free” tools are not really free.) Starting with this sunburst gave me an idea of what resources have been vetted, approved, and purchased by ASU so that I could consider using them in my teaching.  (The entire Teach Online website is full of very helpful resources.)

But ultimately, lists (or in this case starbursts) can feel very overwhelming if you don’t know where to start.  I don’t believe in creating “best practices” lists. There are only well informed practices – we all teach in highly different contexts, what is “best” for one class, may not be best for another. It is through dialogue that we will find out what approaches resonate and fit in our educational spaces.

Current Issues in Education – Relaunch Success!

Leigh

CIE logo - letters CI and a decorative E with maroon, black, and yellowIn the fall of 2019 I was asked to serve as a faculty advisor for Current Issues in Education (along side my incredible colleague Dr. Josephine Marsh). Current Issues in Education (CIE) is an open access, peer-reviewed academic education journal produced by doctoral students at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at ASU. How could I refuse?! Open access! Student produced! All things that get me very excited.

The journal has a fascinating history and I am so honored to be a part of the continual evolution of the journal.  In December we held a “review-a-thon” which was a really innovative way to facilitate the peer review process. We kept things in a very tight window and sent out manuscripts a week before the review-a-thon date. Then, there was a 12 hour window to submit the reviews on one day. We held an in-person “reviewer cafe” spot where people could gather and also sent out encouraging messages to reviewers who were not located near Tempe.  NEVER in all of my years have I experienced such a tremendous submission rate! We were only missing 2 of 57 reviews!! And those came in quickly after with a few gentle email reminders.  The reviews submitted were extremely thorough and thoughtful.

A new student review board was appointed last month and Josephine and I are running a seminar in the fall which will scaffold the running and publishing of the journal.

You can read the latest issue by visiting: https://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/announcement/view/34 – and our submissions portal has reopened: https://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/submissions

 

Radical Nervousness (and some Openness too)

Leigh

A few short weeks ago, the amazing Angela Gunder asked me if I could lend some time to the upcoming OLC Ideate event, and, of course I said yes – I would do anything for you Angela! Then fast forward another week or so and I found myself co-hosting an OLC Ideate Salon along with these amazing folx: Maren Deepwell, Robin DeRosa, Gerry Hanley, & Rajiv Jhangiani.

Here was our salon description:

Radical Openness
Community Salons are the opportunity for a group of thought leaders to engage participants in rich discussions around a broad topic intersecting with their scholarship and outreach. This salon brings together champions of open education and pedagogy sharing perspectives and guiding activities around the topic of radical openness, with a special focus on the ways that we can open doors for learners that are often hidden or closed to their success. Come with your ideas, challenges, and questions on the topic of openness, and take part in building new knowledge around open practices that will sustain us through and past these challenging times

I have to be honest, I was nervous. We didn’t have much time to prepare (end of semester + global pandemic.) Angela suggested that we repurpose an activity that I ran a few months back at OERizona. I’m so thankful she did, I’m not sure any of us had the extra brainpower or time to create something completely new.  However, I was surprised at how embarrassed(?) and uncomfortable I was repurposing my own work. I share everything openly, with the intent of it being reused, remixed, and recycled – why did this feel so uncomfortable?

As I started out the session, using the prompts that were reworked from the OERizona, I had a bit more internal panic. That session had been very strategically created to be inclusive of the in-person AND virtual/remote audience. More often than not, virtual audiences are usually a second thought (if at all) and I wanted to very purposefully make sure everyone felt 100% included in the activity.  I realized, very quickly, that I had not thought out how this would play out with a 100% online audience. I made a few adjustments on the fly to the timing and luckily I was co-leading with the most incredible people I could imagine, and they/we were able to adjust and create a robust discussion. (Mareen wrote this wonderful post as a follow up.) I just wish I had thought about how to be more inclusive of the 100% online audience in this scenario.

I’ve been trying not to get too down about it, realizing that the criticism and pressure is 100% self-imposed (we are in the middle of a pandemic) and trying to tell myself exactly what I tell my students and friends in these situations.  We are often our own worst critics. But, I also think I need to work more at sharing vulnerability and honesty. It’s ok to be self-critical, it’s ok that everything isn’t 100% perfect.

Now that that is off my chest – please check out the remaining days of OLC Ideate.  It’s a spectacular/stellar/exemplary model for how to run a synchronous online experience. As a teaser, here’s Angela’s recap of Day #4:

ASU Online Faculty Showcase for Excellence in Online Teaching Recap

Leigh

Last week I had the honor of presenting at the Spring 2020 ASU Online Faculty Showcase for Excellence in Online Teaching. My session was titled Strategies for Building Community in Online Courses. In the description I promised to: provide pragmatic suggestions for building a sense of community between students, faculty, and course content. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to meet and learn from Khaerannisa (Nisa) Cortes who discussed Communication and Supportive Strategies in Large-enrollment Courses and Marcie LePine who talked about Successfully Building Group Projects into an Online Class. The recording of the session can be found here: https://asuonline.wistia.com/medias/j7ve6v36s1  and my slides are here:

Recap: Ask Me Anything – A Supportive CPED Crowdsourced Webinar

Leigh

Today I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of CPED colleagues to provide support and suggestions for EdD programs that have transitioned to remote instruction. The sea of advice we are swimming in can be overwhelming, so it was nice to have the opportunity to connect with a small and focused group of EdD colleagues dealing with similar challenges.

I’ve embedded my slides below and will list a few quick links links here as follow ups to the discussion (there are also some embedded links in the slides.) CPED members will be able to view an archive of the webinar on the CPED website.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to my former MSU colleague Dr. William Cain who attended the webinar (what a nice surprise!) and I think you need to host the next one William! Dr. Cain has done some spectacular work on syncromodal classes – you can check out his Google Scholar profile here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TI1HsQ8AAAAJ&hl=en 

As a community we are going to continue to work through these challenges and we are so lucky to have CPED to connect and support our efforts. It was great connecting with everyone today and please don’t hesitate to reach out (and continue to share your challenges and successes.) My slides are below and the session can be found here: https://vimeo.com/409244876