There's a great scene in Auntie Mame where she's sent Patrick to some "progressive" school in the Village, that is absolute chaos, with the adult reading while the children run amok. I think of this a lot, and wonder if this is what my classes look and sound like to others- little emphasis on grades, students telling me what grades work earns, talking and listening and unessays versus more traditional assignments.
I know that there are a lot of resources, advice, how-tos for professors moving their classes online for the rest of this semester and potentially much longer. I also know that I'm seeing a lot of "I just recorded a two hour lecture" posts. I know many k-12 schools photocopied massive worksheet packets for parents to pick up.
Some of these parents' thoughts have gone viral.
Like many parents, many professors are not trained teachers. So the idea of suddenly moving all their classes online is a lot. There have always been plenty of jokes about many professors thinking teaching online meant just uploading every PDF they use in their class. I know that teachers, professors, and staff, in Centers for Teaching and Learning, technology departments, and others, have worked very, very hard to help professors with little to know pedagogy training make this transition.
Once upon a time I thought that "best practices" were a good idea. The problem is somewhere along the line teachers sharing cool things they did in their classrooms, as ways to serve their students best, translated into a checklist of things that if only you did X you too could improve Y. This checklist mentality stripped all of the context and empathy and community from WHY these things worked. At the beginning of every school year and semester there is a flurry of teachers and professors asking something along the lines of "I'm teaching X, what books/texts should I use?" I stopped answering these a while ago, mainly because when I used to answer, I'd answer with questions- who are your students? What is your community like? What are their needs? that people didn't seem to appreciate. They wanted easy answers, a simple to-do list. And that's not what good teaching is.
HOWEVER, I'm seeing a lot of posts from folks describing how they're moving classes online and they're focusing on moving content online which is not the same as teaching online. Look, as many people have pointed out, what we're doing is "triage pedagogy" it is not the same as teaching an online class we've spent months building. But it shouldn't just be dumping video lectures and PDFs online either. One, hour long lectures (as many are finding out) are not accessible or reasonable. They take forever to upload for one, finding ones that sync to PowerPoints or other resources can be expensive, and they are incredibly time consuming. There's also the issue few are talking about, that these massive preps are going to become impossible to maintain as people get sick.
This graphic popped up into my feed the other day and it reminded me of two things. The first was how valuable this was as a resource for professors about what TEACHING online would look like. The second was how familiar it was to the very restrictive "guidelines" I was given when I first started teaching online.
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| https://twitter.com/finleyt/status/1241819385339293697?s=20 |
- Announcements:
- Create a document with your announcements in them. Even if you're teaching multiple classes a lot of the information sharing will probably be the same across them, so make it easy to copy and paste
- Post regular but not overwhelming announcements
- Once a week with an overview of what they should focus on that week is fine
- Bullet information so it's easy to follow
- Be clear to use action verbs so students know what to do: "post to discussion board," "submit assignment," "read this article."
- Put a gif, meme, funny image at the top. Bonus points if it relates to that week's content but not necessary. As people feel alone and isolated, this is a simple, easy way to build community.
- Set your announcements to email out so students get used to seeing them, using them as resources.
- Student Outreach:
- Make a document/spreadsheet with all your students names on it. Every day email 5-10 students. Not about missing work, or grades, or performance. Just hey- wanted to check in and see how you were. Put a check or something for those students. Then do the next 5-10, and the next. If you get through your list, start again.
- Students may or may not remember any of the content from the next few weeks. But they will remember the kindness, the humanity.
- Be clear and consistent about when you're holding virtual office hours. Students may prefer email, but encourage them to use Skype or Hangouts or Blackboard Collaborate. Seeing each other, interacting will help, especially as this becomes the new normal.
- Content:
- I'm not going to rehash the lectures suck, students don't learn that way debate. But I will say that lectures online, out of context REALLY suck. Consider what your learning objectives are, and then chunk and vary how you present content that will help students interact with and apply this content while demonstrating progress on those objectives.
- Videos are good for introducing content. You don't need to reinvent the wheel, there's lots of stuff online and it might not be exactly what you'd say but you can save the time recording and uploading something and instead create a cheat sheet document or PowerPoint/GoogleSlides that fills in what you saw as a gap.
- Texts can be webpages, stories, articles. Encourage students to copy and paste into things like Google Docs or Word to annotate (a lot of students will not have printers). Consider providing guiding questions so students know what to look for as they read.
- Images whether they are comics, paintings, art or museum displays, can be great ways for students to apply what they're learning. How does this show X concept? What connections can you make between this and what we've been doing? Put an image or video in a discussion board to start conversations.
- You may have a lot of students who have never taken an online class. Providing your content in a variety of ways can help. For example, you could introduce what a narrative is in a video TED Talk, you could then have them read and annotate a narrative short story for literary elements in Google Docs, and then have them respond to the narrative told in a comic in a discussion board. Introduce, review, respond.
- Be sure you're reading and responding to these things. Focus more on community and feedback than "post once, respond twice" approaches.
- Grading and Feedback
- Some professors have control over what they can and cannot do with grades. Most of us will have to post some kind of grades.
- Consider focusing on 100 for completion and feedback.
- Consider suggesting deadlines (for time management and skill scaffolding) but don't penalize for late work or missed deadlines.
- Be flexible and understanding but not to move the goal posts on students. Cut assignments if you need to, pare them down, but always make decisions about grades that don't penalize students.
- Give detailed feedback. Consider keeping a document with feedback starters. A list of what you're looking for, what the assignment required, so it's easier to "teach" through feedback. Then add the personal feedback.
- I use grade conferences, and will continue these online- students present the work, tell you what grade it earned and then explain why. It's a great way for them to learn and demonstrate skills, and if you think it needs more work or content you can always push back. I think it is better for students but I also think with everything going on it might also help your students feel some confidence and control over their learning.
- General Tips:
- Don't focus on online "seat time," instead focus on goals, things to be achieved, and provide those as the to-do list.
- Be clear about what you expect.
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