Reflecting

Well, we made it through our first semester with thousands of students, several new instructors, chairs and staff and a new learning management system. While there were a few bumps, I think our semester went smoothly, especially the technical aspects of things. Thanks to all who made it so.

Blogging has been an interesting experience for me. I like to write but have not done so for an online audience. I have felt much like Julie in the movie Julie and Julia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_&_Julia. Julie Powell, an unpublished writer and cook, starts a blog about her attempt to recreate every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook masterpiece Mastering the Art of French Cooking. At first, the only people who read her blog are her mother and husband. But you never know who will catch a glimpse of your blog. In the movie, it all turns out happily ever after, with a book deal.

I'm not looking for another book deal, but I hope I've given someone out there a few things to think about over these weeks. We are in an exciting field which is rapidly changing with new tech, a mix of unprepared and overly-prepared students, institutional and budget limitations. One the basic premises of Adult Learning is that it is a continuing process. As instructors of adults, we should be living this by taking opportunities to learn new technologies and techniques and use them in our teaching. I hope I inspired you to be all you can be as an online instructor and, in turn, inspire your students to do the same.

Several decades ago when I was a student on campus at Michigan State University, my roommates and I ended finals by blasting some favorite songs out through our dorm windows. One of my blasting favorites was from Three Dog Night Celebrate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXI6CdTVJ-0. Virtually blasting it out my windows this week!

Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music!

Signing off for this semester and heading to the beach!

Taking It Up a Notch

I don’t know if I’m ready for this! From articles I’ve read recently, it seems that e-instructors are set to move to a new phase again…from facilitation to partnerships. In my abbreviated history of education, we have moved from the teacher as the source of knowledge (the talking head at the center of the learning experience) to the facilitator where we guide our students through the maze of our content. This is where I think e-instructors should be currently. Through the use of new technologies which include Web 2.0 tools, the instructor’s role will change from facilitator to partner in the learning process. “Learning must be less structured and more informal, self-enabled, interactive, and collaborative. The early success of new tools, like social networks, video, wikis, podcasts, IM, and more, show a demand for learner-driven education.” (Unified Learning and Collaboration, 2010)

“The role, then, of instructors becomes more engaged throughout but as partners in the process and not only as facilitators. While facilitation skills will still be important, the overall goal becomes one of collaborative work and mutual support so that ideas are not only generated but built upon and produced in a meaningful context of use. Additionally, while instructors will still have content knowledge and the advanced formation of thinking, their focus will be to offer those as part of the overall process and expect full participation from students who also have some content knowledge and are in the process of forming their thinking. The long-term outcome, then, is advancement of ideas and the improvement of every participant's knowledge base and application expertise--including the instructor.” (Reynard, 2010)

What does this mean for us? This is a difficult question because technology is moving so quickly but it could mean “making education more active, effective, and personalized by addressing individual learning styles and special needs”. It could mean “facilitating formal and informal learning and meeting the needs of mobile learners” or “delivering personalized content based on an individual’s needs and learning style”. I find the “personalized content” idea intriguing but can’t quite vision how this would work. (Unified Learning and Collaboration, 2010)

Whatever the form or method, I think it is a wake-up call to us that higher education will change and we need to be ready for that change. We won’t be teaching in the same old way we were taught or even how we’re teaching today. However, will our learners, who come from all different learning spectrums, be ready? Nate W. commented on this in a recent blog post. (See Nate's blog.) I’ve also commented on this in previous posts about K-12 education incorporating new technologies faster than we are at the upper levels of education.

As we close out another semester, what will you do to move forward in technology, collaboration, creativity or inspiration next semester, even just a little bit. For more food for thought see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8. Get inspired!

Unified Learning and Collaboration. (2010, April). Retrieved May 2, 2010, from www.elluminate.com:

Reynard, R. (2010, April 7). The Changing Role of Instructors Moving from Facilitation to Constructive Partnerships. Retrieved May 2, 2010, from T.H.E. Journal: http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/04/07/The-Changing-Role-of-Instructors-Moving-from-Facilitation-to-Constructive-Partnerships.aspx?Page=1

Thoughts

Schedules and Deadlines

Summer is a ten week session and while we think of those lazy days hanging out at the beach or in the backyard hammock sipping cold ones, the time disappears a lot faster than we tend to think. Students also are under the misconception that ten week sessions are “easier” and less work. I remind my students that ten weeks means five weeks less calendar time not work and some are surprised at this revelation.


To be a little more flexible, I change up my summer schedule so that my “due dates” are based on months rather than weeks. For example, Units 1 and 2 are due by the end of June. Students can submit work anytime during the month of June but the deadline is June 30. No late work and the benefit for getting things in early is that students can revise and resubmit assignments for a better grade. Units 3, 4, 5 are due the end of July and Unit 6 is due the last day of the semester in Aug. This lets students work ahead, take a long weekend without worrying about deadlines or even take a weeklong family vacation. My class discussions are on a bi-weekly deadline rather than monthly.

Trying

In my program area, Education and especially Early Childhood Education, we’ve had discussions about giving points to students for “trying”. If a student submits an assignment that is poorly written, clearly not on topic or demonstrates lack of knowledge, should faculty give points for “trying”?


One of my instructors made a comment that has turned into my light bulb moment…would you want to have a surgeon operate on you who got through school by “trying” or would you expect that professional to have mastered and understood the content and practice? I’ve had a couple of students complaining that they are receiving zeros for assignments and that they “tried really hard” but the instructor “doesn’t like me”. After reviewing the files submitted, I can see why the grade was zero but the students seemed to expect credit for trying. I know this is something that is perpetuated throughout K-12, but when is it time to take responsibility for your own learning? Are we doing students any favors by giving points just for attempting the work?

Spring Cleaning

It’s hard to believe that we are about two weeks away from the end of this semester. Or are you counting the days?

Smooth

• With the huge numbers of students, my courses and my program’s courses went pretty smoothly.
• With the change in LMS and the uncertainty on the part of the instructors about D2L, this semester went pretty smoothly. None of my instructors have been tearing their hair out or want to return to our previous LMS.
• Technical issues have been minimal.
• The end of the semester is moving toward ending on a peaceful note.

Spring Cleaning

We were very concerned at the beginning of this semester about the “big picture” and getting all courses moved into D2L, that we might have overlooked some of the smaller details.

Now that you have taught your course, it is time to think about the small stuff.

• fix any typos or misspellings that you noticed (if you haven’t already done so)
• fix any stylesheet issues so that all your pages have the same nice clean look (if you need help ask your D2L mentor)
• take care of filing away your email messages in proper folders so that your email is empty for the next semester
• gather any email, files or other communications about any potential student issues into a folder in D2L
• make sure your assignment dropboxes show all assignments graded
• verify that your gradebook is working and that students see the grades and total points
• make notes for next semester on what you would do differently, new assignments and/or discussions (don’t make any changes in your spring course as this is a permanent record but wait for your summer course shell)
• review your News archive and make notes on which items to delete and which to recycle.

A little bit of spring cleaning now will give you time between semesters to enjoy the break.

Great teachers

I attended an early childhood education conference over the weekend and the opening speaker was Steve Spangler, the Science Guy (http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/ ). His mission in life is to get kids and teachers interested in basic science. He does this through a mix of comedy, fun “experiments” such as creating fountains of Diet Coke (http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000109) and actual scientific facts. Underneath his crazy experiments, he has solid early education credentials. In his presentation, he talked about great teachers (yes, geared toward elementary grades but can be applied across the board). He said that great teachers don’t just guide students in the “how to do it” realm, but also inform students why they should do it and why it is important. Great teachers create experiences which could change lives.

Bringing this forward to our area of education, how can we create experiences which affect our students in a positive way or that could possibly change their lives? Are assignments in our courses related to real life experiences? Do you show why your assignments and assessment are important or connect to the real world?

We may never know how we affect our students. Occasionally we hear back from a former student who might say, “because of your class, I decided to pursue a career in …….” Or because you cared enough to guide me through the rough areas of the class, I was able to get my degree.” Or “I use what you taught me in my job.”

I know there are teachers who have affected us over our academic career and maybe some of those people actually inspired us to go into the field of education. Wouldn’t you want to be one of those inspirations? As we rapidly approach the end of our semester, students are getting frantic and even somewhat nasty. Maybe if we show kindness and support, we will be one of those great teachers.

Putting Adult Learning Principles into Action

Let’s take one of the adult learning principles and look at it through the lens of the online evironment and our own classes.

Adults are self-directed and want to be free to direct themselves in their learning experiences.

This general statement could mean a variety of things for the teaching/learning environment:

• The students should NOT be dependent on the instructor for the knowledge and learning involved. The instructor facilitates the learning by providing authentic tasks and content.

Facilitates: Synonyms include make easy, ease, make possible, smooth the progress of, help, aid and assist.

• To facilitate learning or make it easier (notice it’s the process of learning and not the content) instructors could provide small chunks of content in various formats (text, audio, video and websites).


• Provide a series of purposeful scaffolding activities to move students from beginning concepts/tasks through intermediate ones to hard concepts/tasks building on prior knowledge.


• Provide study guides, online study sessions or groups, online office hours for students prior to tests.


• Provide students the opportunity to take a test when they are ready for the assessment by opening the test for the entire length of the unit rather than having it opened for just a few days.


• Provide “practice tests” or self-assessments prior to the test so students can identify areas of further study.


• Instructors should provide activities and assessments that are relevant to the content and real life and identify how the assignment connects to work or life experiences.


• Instructors could provide assignment choices for students to choose the task that is most relevant to them.

Teaching Learning Technologies at Virginia Tech. (2009) Learner Focused Education. Retrieved 4/11/10 from http://www.edtech.vt.edu/edtech/id/ocs/introp2.html

What are you doing to facilitate learning for your adult students?

What about our adult learners?

Since we teach in the higher education world, our assumption should be we are teaching adults. Lately however, it seems like some of our students have reverted back to the two-year-old stage (or teen years) where tantrums are common and the “it’s not fair” mentality is rampant. (“You don’t like me and that’s why I’m flunking. It’s not fair!”)

Going back to the assumption that we have adult learners in our classes, we should be using good practices relating to adult learning theory. Malcolm Knowles, widely known as “grandfather of adult learning theory”, figured out a long time ago that we can’t teach adults the way we teach kids. Here are his basic adult learning theory principles:

• Adults tend to be more independent learners motivated by their internal goals. They need to understand the value and applicability of the learning experience in their job/life.
  Adults are self-directed and want to be free to direct themselves in their learning experiences. They want to be involved in the planning and evaluation of the instruction.
• Adults are problem-centered rather than content-centered, wanting to know how the information will help them solve a particular problem.
• Adults have life experience and knowledge from which to connect their learning and expect to be treated with respect for their experience and knowledge.

Lieb, Stephen. (1991). Principles of Adult Learning. Retrieved 4/11/10, from http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/adults-2.htm.

And as I am typing this I’m thinking……yea right………this doesn’t desribe my students. My students seem to…

• Be incapable of thinking beyond the assignment.
• Want to be told exactly what to do, how to do it and how it will be graded.
• Have difficulty or just plain won’t read the text, the course pages, the assignment requirements or even the discussion questions.
• Have trouble writing coherently and don't take advantage of the writing resources available.
• Be demanding to have tests, assignments and the learning management system “their way” or they raise a fuss.
• Bring up their life experiences but don’t connect any learning or new information to those experiences.
• Unwilling to take responsibility for their own learning.

I would think that part of our job as educators would be to teach our adult population how to be adult learners as well as the content we are teaching. We should work toward making our learners responsible for their learning, more independent thinkers who can see connections between their life/job/career and our course content.

How can we do this? Stay tuned for another blog post as I don’t want to write a book in this blog entry.

The Funk Brothers

Do you know who the Funk Brothers were? They were the greatest band of unknowns who made the Motown sound what it was. This varied collection of musicians was the house band for those great songs of the 60’s and 70’s with that heavy bass and pounding beat. James Jamerson, Benny Benjamin, Earl Van Dyke, Uriel Jones, Pistol Allen and the rest of The Funk Brothers.

What about our back-up band? When was the last time you told any of our IT, bookstore, financial services, student services, training, Help Desk, Design Team or our office staff that you appreciated them and their hard work? Our front sound is pretty good but we can’t play in harmony without our Funk Brothers playing the groove behind us.

Why not "Reach Out" and tell them you "Heard it Through the Grapevine" that it's not "Just My Imagination" you appreciate "The Way You Do the Things You Do." I know I sure appreciate each one of those folks! And our lead singers are pretty good too!

I’ll bet your digging through your CDs and LPs right now for the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Supremes and Smokey Robinson! Check out the Motown Historical Museum http://www.motownmuseum.com/mtmpages/index.html and Classic Motown http://classic.motown.com/.

You can make an online playlist at http://listen.grooveshark.com/ and take the tunes with you.

Sometimes I feel

For those of us old enough to have emerged from the purple haze and reckless abandon of the late 60's and early 70's, I'm sure you have a few pieces of music floating around your brain that bring back memories (if you can remember that far back...). I've had one of those moldy oldies floating around for years and have not been able to retrieve it because it was only recorded on vinyl and I didn't have it in my stash of LPs. (Yes, I admit I still have LPs.) Does anyone remember Sweetwater's Motherless Child?

Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child ...
Sometimes I feel like there's nobody there ...

That's how I've been feeling in my classes lately. It feels like the entire student population up and disappeared for a couple of weeks. I know we have rolling spring breaks across the campuses but it sure seems that students have taken more than that one week break to participate in various activities on the beach or on the slopes. Then it's taking a while to get back in the groove. I used to enjoy spring break when I taught on campus, but always felt that if you've got a rhythm going, why break it? I hope everyone gets back in the groove this week.

BTW...you can listen to this gem at http://www.grooveshark.com/. Just search on Sweetwater to relive those thrilling hazes...er days...of yesteryear.

Group Part 2!

I've been reading alot about 21st Century skills and collaboration is one of these skills which should be cultivated. Our kids in K-12 LIKE to work with others on projects. So I just don't understand where we fail at the higher ed level with these collaborative efforts. As adults, we don't work in isolation in our workplace, at home and even in our leisure activities (sports for example). Just look at teamwork and collaboration in motion with the NCAA basketball playoffs. Butler who? Go Green! (Michigan State Spartans! Sparty Hardy!)

So why are students so adverse to working in a collaborative project? It seems that I have about half of the students in CIS 115 involved in their groups.


My project is pretty low-risk and fairly simple as far as group projects go. Each student will receive an individual grade for their contributions. This is how I've set it up:

• Step 1: Students must select a group and join the small group discussion on Web 2.0 applications. Each group will create a wiki page with 4 individual contributions, one from each of the group members. So, initially, the student will receive a grade for their discussion in this small group. We just completed this part of the project and it was like pulling teeth. I had to "remind" students almost every day to join their group. I let them choose their own group (through the D2L group tool) and eventually I had to put the most of them in groups because of their slow response. Maybe it was because of spring break? At the very end of the discussion, more people joined in but this was way more stressful than it should have been.


• Step 2: The student selects a Web 2.0 application which they will research and write about. Again, this is an individual grade for the student. This is where we are now.


• Step 3: When the research is completed, the student will enter the information about their app on their group's wiki page.


• Step 4: As per the technology and purpose of a wiki, each student will then add contributions to each of the other wiki pages.


• Step 5: Finally, the student will evaluate the project, their efforts and the final result.

I'm not grading the entire group's project and using that grade for everyone. Each student will receive a grade based on their efforts so this is a loosely organized group project. None of this work is very difficult, even tech-wise and about half of the students seem to have gotten the point of the project. I don't get the rest of them.

Summerzcool -- chair hat

There are several items on my Bucket List to accomplish before I'm vertical and one of them is to get to a Jimmy Buffett concert. I totally enjoy his world music and listen to Radio Margaritaville through the computer. His latest CD, Buffet Hotel, has a song about Summer School or as he says, Summerzcool.

Well, it's time to get serious about summer. We have 6 weeks left in this semester and as chair, things are popping for summer already. We got our booklist in and schools are starting to register for summer (and fall). What are you doing?

1. Faculty: Have you checked in with each of your faculty to determine their intentions for summer? I send out two or three emails to follow up if I haven't received a response from a particular faculty. Usually, this email is the one that everyone notices and responds to quickly.
2. QA: Have YOU checked into each instructor's performance this semester? It's getting late in the semester and I have not heard if we will have a new QA person. So that means YOU should do a run-through the classes to determine if your instructor has been doing OK with D2L and fulfilling teaching expectations.
3. Dupes: Once you start building your faculty list, you should verify from each instructor, which section they want duped for summer. Don't assume the section they are teaching in Spring 1 will be OK for summer, especially if they have a Spring 2 section that is already configured for ten weeks. Asking the faculty which section to dupe shows respect for the instructor and recognition of their work.
4. New faculty: Now is the time to follow up with them and, if you need to, bug them to get their paperwork to the office. I have one potential faculty who was very gung-ho a few weeks ago, but I haven't heard from her since. When do you realize that this person isn't going to follow through and that you need to find someone else? Can't say but there does come a point in that process for me.
5. Misc: Have you ordered books for your new faculty? Have you chosen a mentor for them? How about training, got them on the list yet?

I love summer and our summer semester will be here in no time. It's best to get organized now so that you can enjoy your hammock and umbrella drinks later on. Take some advice from Jimmy...

You need to go to Summerzcool
Get to the beach or at least to the pool.
Time to go to Summerzcool
Remember what is and what is not cool.

http://buffethotel.margaritaville.com/welcome.html

Communication and Collaboration

I have a vested interest in K-12 education for several reasons:

• That's what I wanted to do when I grew up (high school History teacher).
• I enjoyed working the classroom when my daughters were in elementary school.
• We have two little grandchildren who will be going to school in the not too distant future.
• This is my program area (Elementary Ed and Early Childhood Ed).
• K-12 education is moving ahead in technology and what happens in the lower level effects us in higher ed.

The International Society for Technology in Education has developed 6 Standards for (K-12) Students "What students should know and be able to do to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world …” http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/NETS_for_Students.htm

• Creativity and Innovation
• Communication and Collaboration
• Research and Information Fluency
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
• Digital Citizenship
• Technology Operations and Concepts

In my Intro to Computer classes, I'm about to embark on a group project that would fit right into the Communication and Collaboration standard.

Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:

1. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
2. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
3. develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures.
4. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.

http://www.hotchalk.com/mydesk/index.php/all-articles/888-iste-netss-part-2-communication-and-collaboration

We are just getting started this week and the first part of the assignment is to choose a group and participate in the small group discussion about the project. They will choose a Web 2.0 application to research and write about and then upload that short report to a class wiki. I'm using D2L's Groups tool which allows students to self-select their own groups. I will keep you posted about the progess of this project.

Moving Forward with Technology

How long do you plan on teaching with CCCOnline or online in general? More than for the next two years or so? There’s a lot going on in the field of K-12 education that will impact us in the very near future.

Over the past couple of weeks my email mailbox has been flooded with all kinds of information about online learning and technology. One item that caught my eye was an email announcing the New Education Technology Plan released by the Department of Education. This plan is aimed at K-12 and teacher education programs. So why should higher ed be mindful of these proposed changes?

If you plan on teaching for more than the next couple of years, the students who will be impacted by these proposed changes in this report will be our students in the future and they will demand more and better technology from instructors and colleges. Remember we’re talking about K-12 students here and the teachers (and future teachers) that are in the classroom with them. I would even venture to say that we should extend some of these ideas to Pre-K.

This report calls for an increase in online learning opportunities for K-12 and the development and use of technology to “to reach all learners anytime and anywhere”. It suggests using the “power of technology to improve learning” which I’m guessing is more than having 5th graders put together a PowerPoint or first graders using Reader Rabbit. Online learning opportunities for K-12…….so in the not too distant future we will have a population of students who will have been involved with online learning for several years prior to walking through our virtual doors. I can hear a lot of you saying “Great!” and I would agree with you all. But, are we ready for them?

If they have previous experience with online learning, then their expectations will be high for our programs and for each instructor. Do you think they will be content with posting to a discussion board and writing papers when they were building content through student wikis, telling stories through digital storytelling, taking virtual field trips and editing video, audio and images in addition to posting these online or even collaborating online with students in different states or countries?

Equally important are the recommendations for teachers to have opportunities to learn new technology AND how to effectively use these technologies in a classroom. This report also suggests educators should design and participate in online learning communities themselves to further their collaboration and knowledge and provide access to sources of teaching and learning research and practice. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard my Intro to Computer students say they are taking my class because their kids know more about computers than they do. This is probably the case in a lot of K-12 classrooms as well. Finally someone is realizing that classroom teachers need support to learn and implement new technologies and to keep current with this field. Here’s an example of an opportunity for K-12 teachers: International Society for Technology in Education http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2010/program/sessions_by_time.php

Will higher ed, and our program specifically, also start to move up the technology ladder to provide access and learning opportunities for faculty to investigate new technologies and to reward faculty for working with and using new technologies in their virtual classroom? I know in the ECE program, we are moving both our faculty and the statewide faculty up the tech ladder as we incorporate more technologies in our ECE classes. We’ve talked with employers who have told us that our students are not technically prepared when they leave any of our programs. It’s time we realize that we can’t stay technologically stagnant in preparing our students for real world situations.

So even if you are in a different academic area, the references below give us a lot to think about for our kids and for our future students:

“Transforming American Education: Learning Powered By Technology”:

• Abstract: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/netp-executive-summary.pdf
  
• Full Report: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list"/os/technology/netp.pdf

What are they thinking????

This has been a frustrating week. Technology and I haven’t been getting along at all and while I’m not one to give in to any piece of software, I’m ready to say “uncle” and give up the fight. I am having a bad case of spring fever which I get every year about this time when the hint of spring is in the air and the sun and warm weather are calling me outside. But what really put me over the top this week are the students, my students and my program’s students. What are they thinking? Or are they????

From the “You just can’t make this stuff up” file:

• An email from a student who is enrolled in a spring 2 course who hasn’t been in class yet “Oh…I didn’t realize I was in this class (now three weeks into it). Can I make up all the work?” And you've been where all this time???


• A student grousing about test questions: “I want you to speak with your boss and have them hire me to QA the test questions.” Yea, right…let me get my checkbook.


• From a student who turned in a six sentence file for an assignment requiring a thoughtful one page observation: “How come I don’t get any points for my assignments? You don’t help me. I’m going to speak with your dean!” This is in spite of the fact the instructor gives extensive feedback and an opportunity to resend revised homework for a week after due date.


• From one of my students who contacted the Help Desk the afternoon of the day the assignment was due: “The Help Desk wasn’t helpful. They didn’t explain the homework to me.” Yes, we'll work on their customer service skills.


• Another of my students who has not submitted any assignments (spring2) yet…her explanation as to why: “My first computer broke. The screen went black so I bought another computer. It doesn’t work either.” Sure hope you saved the receipt!

One of the unwritten duties in the chair job description is to be a virtual therapist for your faculty. I encourage my instructors to alert me to any potential student problem along the way, big or small, whether it turns into an issue or not. I tell my faculty to document any issues throughout the semester just in case we need it later. Usually we don’t but those times we’ve needed documentation, it was handy.

I think we need to advocate for a Spring Break for CCCOnline! I sure could use one about now.

Connecting with students or not so much

My daughter and I each got a new cell phones a few weeks ago and she figured hers out right away. Her fingers were flying on that mini keypad texting here and there. Slowly, I am still discovering new features of my phone. Oddly, strange apps pop up unexpectedly which I can't seem to delete or let alone use. I guess I am not as e-connected as the younger generation and I'm not sure I want to be.

Here's an interesting and disturbing article which I think we'll be running into more and more as our online social networking personas seem to clash with our professional lives. http://educationtechnews.com/innocent-texting-with-student-gets-teacher-suspended/. This teacher was suspended and on his was to being fired for texting a student.

What about you? Do you text, have a FaceBook page, a LinkedIn page, a Twitter account? Do you communicate with your students using any of these mediums? In your opinion, is this appropriate? We are finding that more students are not using email to communicate personally and otherwise. Is texting our students the next step? How about teaching a class through FaceBook? Will we lose our professionalism or control of our class?

I do have a FaceBook page but chose to use my maiden name to set it up specifically so that none of my students would be able to find me. I never thought, however, that two old boyfriends would be trolling through FaceBook and contact me after a couple of decades! Boy was I stunned!

Your Teaching and Learning Philosophy--Do you have one?

One common assignment throughout the ECE-EDU program is to have students write their Teaching Philosophy. While being an important assignment for both beginning teachers and seasoned veterans alike to critically think about how they teach, why and what they can do better, I’ve heard through my faculty that this is a difficult assignment for many. So I decided to do a little research and put together a few ideas for my faculty to use to help their students construct this philosophy statement.

Along the way, I stumbled upon several good resources geared toward writing a teaching philosophy statement for college faculty. It occurred to me that we don’t ask our faculty and prospective faculty for their statements, unlike other institutions of higher learning (especially the four years). Why not? Our job is to teach so that students will learn particular subject content. Wouldn’t it be appropriate to ask prospective faculty what their philosophy/attitude/ideas are toward teaching and learning, especially in an online environment? Or do you do this in the interview process?

I understand that many programs at our level of the educational spectrum do not require instructors to have taken any methods of teaching, adult learning or other education courses. We want our faculty to be SMEs or Subject Matter Experts. This does not guarantee that anyone who is knowledgeable in a certain subject can effectively impart this knowledge to anyone else, let alone assess the effectiveness of that process. I am lucky to have been trained as an educator and have taken many methods and theory courses and my faculty group are also trained educators. But what about the rest of the faculty? Shouldn't SME's have some idea about how they teach and why they do what they do?

What is a Statement of Teaching and Learning Philosophy? It’s a brief (about 1 page) statement presenting personal ideas of the teaching and learning process and the instructor’s role in these processes. It is important to give examples from your own experience, either your teaching experience or your learning experience as a student over the years. Some areas that could be addressed in this statement include answers to the following questions:

• What are my or views on how adults learn and how can I facilitate that learning?
• What goals do I have for my students and why?
• How do I transform my concepts about teaching and learning and goals for my students into classroom practices?
• How do I know that my classroom practices are effective? What assessments do I use?
• What qualities do you believe an effective teacher should have?
• What should your students expect from you?

Another interesting idea I found for college instructors was a “syllabus version” of the Teaching Philosophy which is a much shortened version of the larger philosophy. We do have a general expectation statement in every course but that was written by someone else and most of us probably haven’t read that in years. Why not write your own “syllabus version” of your philosophy? Really think about how you teach our adult and non-traditional students, why you teach in that fashion, what you expect of students, what they can expect from you and how all this relates to your goals (and the students goals) for the course. This will help you clarify the teaching process for you and inform your students of your general ideas and goals.

For more information see:

• Step-by-Step Tutorial U of Minnesota
• Writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement: Ohio State Univ Center for Adv of Teaching

Grading with a rubric

Once you have your rubric set up, it's not hard to grade assignments with it. I open two windows, one for the rubric and one where I can see student assignments. I have my rubric typed in Word.

• Open the student submission in the Dropbox making sure the Leave Feedback window is open.
  
• Review the student's work.
  
• Copy the rubric from Word.


• Paste the rubric in the Feedback window using the "Paste from Word" button on the Advanced tab. This will paste your rubric into the Feedback box where you can mark up the appropriate grades. (Or if you want, mark up the rubric grid in Word and then paste it complete in the Feedback box.)
  
  I use bold or font color change to highlight the points earned per criteria. Add any other comments. Then total the points and enter that into the grade box. It's that simple.

Do You Rubric?

Several years ago, when my older daughter was in junior high school, she came home complaining about a project for one of her classes. I asked her what was it about and of course she rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t know Mom. We haven’t gotten the rubrics yet!” And with that she stomped off. Other than that being an example of typical junior high behavior, the word that caught my attention was “rubrics” (and the fact that she used that big of a word!). Our colleagues in the K-12 world have been using rubrics for a long time but it hasn’t really caught on in higher ed.

When grading assignments or other assessments, how do you grade? Do you grade on feeling —"I know this work is good"? Or do you have a set of criteria by which you evaluate the student’s work?

Rubrics are statements which define the requirements for the learning activity, criteria for evaluating the learning activity, and degree of quality for each criterion. While this seems like a daunting task for faculty, rubrics are not that difficult to write. They do take some time to determine the evaluation criteria (or elements) and the quality levels of each criteria.

Writing a rubric:

1. First, determine what is important in the learning activity. What will be assessed?
2. Identify these elements or criteria for evaluation.
3. What are the levels of quality for each element? How many levels will be needed?
4. Determine the characteristics for attaining each element. What are the descriptors of quality?
5. Assign point values to each element and its degree of quality.

There are advantages to using rubrics when grading assignments.

• Rubrics clearly define the activity and how it will be assessed.
• Rubrics provide a method for meaningful feedback to the student for improvement.
• All assignments evaluated against the same criteria.

Rubrics are also useful for the student by clearly defining the activity and what is needed to be successful. This helps students take control of their own learning and performance in class.
Rubrics can be used as a guide while completing the learning activity and as a self-assessment tool prior to submitting the assignment for grading.

Rubrics can be in any format that works for you and your students. Some faculty like a grid-like format, others like a narrative format. In addition, there are several online rubric-generators that prompt you through the creation process.

Rubric Design Studio

Rubric Builder

Rubistar
Advantages of Rubrics
List of Rubrics Builders

Next post, how to grade with a rubric.

Through the eyes of a child

They say that nothing makes you look at the same old things differently like having kids. Our daughters are grown and now we have little grandchildren, one boy and one girl. We get to spend a lot of time with both of them and I have revisited a lot of the books, toys and activities my daughters enjoyed. I’m back to playing with Little People; reading Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Sleeping Beauty over and over; making tents; zooming trucks around the kitchen and building castles with Duplo blocks. When our daughters were young, these activities became old and I lost my enthusiasm for them. Now that we have new little people, the excitement is back.

The same can be said about teaching the same class over and over. Have you lost the excitement or enthusiasm for the subject matter? Are the assignments, discussions and assessments the same as when you first started teaching this class so that you can teach it in your sleep? (I’ve heard that from fellow instructors!) It’s time to inject something new into your class!

The question now becomes “what can I do?” A quick spark would be a new discussion topic or two. I have some “canned” discussion topics that always seem to work and that I recycle in my classes, but I also incorporate new and more current topics every semester. I hide the upcoming topics from student view so that if I want to change the topic, the students have not already seen it. (Click the Edit pencil next to the topic name, scroll down a bit and you’ll see a checkbox for “Hide this topic”. Remember to “Make the topic visible” when you’re ready to open it to students.)

Or go bigger and incorporate new technologies that enhance student learning or offer students the opportunity to present their knowledge acquisition in different ways. In one of my classes, we include a student wiki project where the students choose the topics and build the content rather than having the textbook or instructor give them the content. This took some planning and it is still a work in progress but overall, it’s been successful.

Go ahead…look at your class through the eyes of a child and add some new excitement for you and your students.

Connected

Do you assume that your faculty group, especially your rookies and sophomore faculty feel connected to your program group?

I subscribe to various e-newsletters on online teaching and learning and the latest Faculty Focus caught my eye. Best Practices for Keeping Online Faculty Engaged http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/distance-learning/best-practices-for-keeping-online-adjuncts-engaged/?c=FF&t=F100224-FF

The article discussed practices to more fully connect adjunct faculty to their institution. How often do we, as faculty groups, see each other face to face and make a connection? I know with my faculty group, not often enough. Yes, I do keep weekly contact with my group on various topics and issues, but we don’t see each other very often. I even have a couple instructors whom I have not met in person yet. But I worry about my new faculty feeling "out there" by themselves. I know when I first started here as an instructor, I didn't even know who the chair was and never heard from her. So how can we foster the sense of connection and commitment within our online faculty?

The article suggested these practices:

1. Mandatory orientation to the program, institution and technology. This is one area where CCCOnline does an excellent job through our initial faculty training. As chairs, how do we pick after this session and bring our new faculty into our own program? Are we available to explain policies and procedures and offer guidance to our newbies for the entire semester or do you leave that to a mentor faculty?
2. Provide program expectations. CCCOnline has overall faculty expectations but do you have further expectations for your faculty? Do you send out reminders, especially to new faculty, of what to do when (such as sending out a welcoming email prior to class and where to find the faculty gateway)? Helpful reminders go a long way in providing support to nervous rookie faculty. Don’t wait for them to ask because they may not know what to ask.
3. Another way to connect with your faculty is to recognize their efforts, time, energy and ideas. Do you send out a “welcome to our group” email to your all your faculty to welcome new instructors? Have you made sure that your newbies know who to turn to with questions and problems? Do you value the seasoned veteran for their continued hard work and recognize them publically to the rest of your faculty?
4. Encourage continued professional development in your content area and in online teaching and learning. Our training program offers a wide range of topics to enhance online teaching, but look outside of our group and identify other sources of professional development. There are local and national conferences, online webinars (and a lot for free), online classes some for small fees and a variety of other sources. Even though we may not be able to pay for faculty to attend these types of events, it should be part of the chair’s communication to alert our faculty to these possibilities.
5. Get faculty involved with other faculty by encouraging them to attend system 2:2 conferences to meet and network with other faculty. At most 2:2 conferences, adjunct faculty are welcomed and encouraged to attend.

So don’t assume that your faculty (new and veterans) feel a part of your program and CCCOnline in general. It takes work on the part of the chair to get faculty engaged and keep them committed to doing a good job.

Moldy Oldie News Items

I think a lot of instructors will be surprised NEXT semester when their spring course is duped for summer and they find all their News items still in the course. Or, if you receive some other instructor’s section, you’ll get all their News items.

This can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you want to recycle some of the News items, this is a nice feature as you won’t have to retype. However, you will need to sort out the News entries and reorder them for your new class. You might also need to delete some semester specific items. All of this takes a bit of time on your part, but once you figure out what to keep and what to toss, this is pretty slick.

And now through the magic of technology and the magic fingers of our training team, we have tutorials on how to delete and reorder those News items. See: http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Tech_Tools_-_D2L_-_News#Tutorials

I am so bugged.....

When my daughters were little, they enjoyed the Little Critter books. The main character of these stories is a little guy who gets into all sorts of trouble and expresses his feelings in various ways (sometimes in not the best manner). Now that my granddaughter is 2, I'm back to reading Little Critter books to her. So here's my D2L salute to Mercer Mayer and his Little Critter.

• Why are there two different font styles between student view and instructor view? And the student view looks pretty ugly. I am so bugged.
  
• Why is there no “you forgot” message when you forget to enter a grade on the dropbox feedback page? This really bugs me.
  
• Why do some links in my class work just fine one day and then blow up the next day? Ahhhh!
  
• Why don’t the same files display correctly in one class and not display at all in a different section (same class)? I was so bugged.


• Why does D2L pick up junky code when I copy and paste from a Word document? It makes a messy document. Very buggy...


• Why do students leave assignments to the last minute and then complain they didn’t understand it? Drives me buggy!
  

My Groups -- Not very successful

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php has identified several skill areas which students (K-12 but this can be useful for college students as well) should have to be successful in today’s world. The Learning and Innovation Skills area, (skills which should prepare students for a complex work environment), lists “creativity and innovation; critical thinking and problem solving; communication and collaboration” skills.

With that in mind, I occasionally attempt simple group project in one or more of my classes. This time my attempt was less than successful with only one out of four groups actually collaborating and communicating with each other.

For my group project, I created four discussion groups where students peer reviewed each other’s database design, asked questions, posted suggestions and basically helped each other come up with a good design for their Case Study. It has worked nicely in the past and I receive much better assignments when students have peer reviewed each other’s work prior to submitting their files. They receive 10 points for posting their design and helping each other.

It takes a little bit of work on your part to set up the groups and the group activities. D2L considers a group discussion as a place for students to discuss a problem and not really a gradeable item for the gradebook. When you try to grade that discussion by attaching the groups to a grade column, D2L creates a grade column for every group. For the groups where the individual student does not participate, they are graded with a zero which makes it very confusing for students. My work-around for this gradebook issue was to include the participation points in the rubric for their individual database design assignment. That way there was no extra gradebook column.

My students had over a week to work in their groups. Their individual assignments were not based on contributions from any other group member. They just had to help each other. According to 21st century skills, collaboration is a skill which should be incorporated in academic work to help prepare students for the workforce. And technically, no person really works in a vacuum without anyone else. So why the poor response? I have no answer for this question but I will try it again.

Chairs, Do you have a voice?

I don’t. Seriously, I don’t. I’ve had this nagging cold for a couple of weeks now and it has settled in my throat causing me to alternate between sounding like Lauren Bacall or a raspy whisper. My husband, while sympathetic, I’m sure is secretly happy that I am a lot quieter these days.

When I first started as Chair of the ECE-EDU program, I was told I should attend various meetings but not say anything. Just go and be quiet! Ten years ago, the online program was not looked upon as a fad. However, now, online learning has become an accepted part of education.

So where’s your voice at faculty meetings? Do you attend? We’ve been invited to become more involved at faculty meetings such as the upcoming 2:2 meeting on Feb 19th. These meetings are an excellent opportunity to meet other faculty in your discipline and network with other Program Chairs. I feel we should work in cooperation with our campus programs to provide courses that fill a need and that will be supported by campus faculty. For example, the EDU program provides courses that our sister campuses can’t fill because of lack of faculty or minimal students. When we aggregate students from all around the system, we have enough to run a class and therefore provide this class to students who wouldn’t normally have it available. I’ve also helped my colleagues understand online learning and technology. Over the last decade, I’ve made it a point to get to know each campus chair and as a bonus, I’ve made a lot of very nice friends in the process.

What are you waiting for? An invitation? We did receive a personal invite to the 2:2 conference from Lisa, Donna and the System Office. Are you going? Use your voice for promoting your program. It will probably be a lot louder than mine these days.

Are you a Cold Chair?

Are you a cold Chair? I was not pleased to see the snow on one of my favorite chairs today but this got me thinking about Chairs and their faculty. Do you know your faculty or do they know you only as an occasional email message?

I am lucky because I’ve been able to build my EDU program from the ground starting 10 years ago. I had a handful of interested ECE faculty who “volunteered” to try online teaching as an experiment. They knew their content (early childhood deducation) but they didn’t know much about computers, technology in general and teaching/learning online. That’s where I came in, as the technology mentor.

Over the past 10 years I’ve got to pick and choose my faculty, mostly through other faculty recommendations and now I have over 20 dedicated instructors. I’ve made it a point to personally meet each one of them and take them to lunch. I’ve sent Christmas cards with Starbucks cards inside. We talk about our kids and grandkids, our time at the beach, farm or mountains. I feel like I know each instructor and they know me as well.

Can you say that? When was the last time you personally thanked your faculty for their hard work? Do you send reports about what’s going on at CCCOnline, maybe summarizing important information from an A-Team meeting? Do you send emails of encouragement especially now that we’re involved with a new LMS? Have you called any of your faculty or even given them your phone number?

I realize you might have a much larger program than what I have, but come on…defrost that cold chair!

Adding a Human Touch

As I was checking the D2L courses in my program group getting ready to make my Spring 2 dupe list, I noticed that a few of my faculty didn’t put a picture in their Instructor Widget.

This got me thinking “Why?” Online instructors have reported that they feel they “know” their students better through online learning than in a “regular” class. We make a connection with every student through discussions, email and comments on assignments. If you’ve taught in a f2f classroom, there are always quiet students who never contribute to a class discussion. We never seem to get to know this student as a person. But through our discussions, our online students seem to reveal more about themselves than they would in class, maybe too much in some cases. Is the opposite true? Do our online students feel they know us?

One simple way to add a little human touch is to post a picture of yourself. Why wouldn’t we? I can think of a couple excuses, but no good reason why not.

• Excuse 1:” I don’t have a picture of myself. I’m always the picture taker.” Just about everyone has a camera on their cell phone. Turn that cell phone around and snap yourself.
• Excuse 2: “I don’t have a good picture of myself.” Heard of PhotoShop or some of the other photo editing programs?
• Excuse 3: “I don’t know how.” This is where your favorite D2L mentor comes in handy. Ask them for tech assistance.

The purpose of our job as instructors is to make a connection with our students and facilitate and encourage knowledge acquisition and development. Reminds me of that great Bruce Springsteen song, “Human Touch”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85cNRQo1m3A

I just want someone to talk to

And a little of that human touch

Just a little of that human touch

Add a little human touch to your online class!

Phyllis' Blog

Hello out there! I'm Phyllis Dobson, EDU Program Chair and online instructor. I will be taking up Lisa's invitation to blog in this space throughout the spring semester. I've been teaching online since the last century, which probably makes me one of the seasoned veterans (a polite way of saying she's old)! I'm passionate about this method of teaching and compassionate toward new online instructors.

This space will be a collection of my thoughts on teaching online, being a program chair to an online group and just random thoughts. I have never done this before as my writing tends toward cheesy novels, children's stories, family cookbooks and a textbook or two. I heard someone tell me, "take what you need and leave the rest." I don't know if anyone will even read or care what I write, but if you find something of value or worthy of further thought, this experience will be worth it. I look forward to 'e-sharing' with you.

Phyllis