Author: eschudel

Eva teaches in the Criminal Justice program at Camosun, and she was lucky to have scheduled development in May and June last year to begin planning for a fall of courses entirely online.  Since Eva had really only used D2L in the past for posting grades, she attended as many eLearning workshops as she could to improve her understanding of the tools she would need, but like many faculty found that getting into workshops was a challenge given the sudden influx of people needing to take them.  While this was frustrating, she also says “it was somewhat comforting to know everyone was in the same situation.”

Talking to her students at the end of the 2020 Winter term was key to Eva to try and get a better sense of what things were like for them.  One of the things she discovered was, “because [faculty] have a range of capacity, skills and abilities, students experienced [inconsistencies in course design]…So we talked about it in our department, because the feedback from students was, we want simplicity, we want consistency. So in our little group in criminal justice, we talked about how we could be more consistent with how we use D2L.”

Eva says one of her biggest challenges last year was “that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”  While trying to figure out whether to teach synchronously or asynchronously, “I scratched my head for a long time about that because I really didn’t feel like I knew the answer. I talked to other faculty who had done one or the other or both, and I also tried to reach out to former students and current students to ask, if you were given a choice, what would you choose, synchronous or asynchronous? And I got a mixed bag of responses, which didn’t make the choice any easier!”  Eventually she settled on a blend.  “What I did was have a synchronous class, usually the first class of the week, and then the second class would be asynchronous…I tend to show video clips, have discussion groups, have a small assignment that they do either alone or with a partner…some [of these would be] synchronous, [and some] relegated to the asynchronous class. I think that combination has worked well.”

Another challenge for Eva is how hard it can be to get to know students in the online environment.  In Collaborate, she keeps her camera on because students say they want to see a real human, but she often feels like she is hosting a podcast.  “It’s two-dimensional, and so feeling like you have a connection with students is really impeded.”  But in spite of this, Eva says her students exceeded her expectations with the quality of their work.  “I think because we’re hearing so much about the impact on mental health and how everyone is struggling, I thought the quality of work would be lower. But actually in the fall, when reading their papers and looking at their work, [I realized] it was really good quality work…I don’t know what it is, but for whatever reason, it exceeded my expectations. And that’s always a wonderful surprise.”

Eva says she is still learning lessons as she continues to teach online.  After the shift last March, she felt very anxious for two main reasons: [“first, I thought] I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can teach online. I don’t know if I can learn these tools. I don’t know if I can make this technology work.  And second, I don’t want to be off campus. I miss people. I want to be with my colleagues, I want to be with my students…But then we plodded along and it kind of came together.”  But she does still worry about the distance between people that teaching and learning online can cause.  “I worry about people losing a tiny bit of that humanity and connectivity that they don’t miss if they sitting across from other people talking in a group.”

Some advice Eva has for instructors moving online is to connect with their faculty group.  Play with the technology as well, and practice with colleagues if you can.  “I would say definitely try to get on top of all those tools and get comfortable with them. But also, I would say, especially if you’re going to teach synchronously [which can be] a little like talking into the abyss, so find some level of comfort with doing the majority of the talking, far more than you would be in class….and be mindful that [sometimes] it’s only if somebody has a question that you hear a voice or see a comment.”

Eva always asks for student feedback at the end of the term, and says she is interested to see what the students this term have to say about how the course went and what things they would like to see change.  She does say that she will continue to use the tools she has learned over the past year.  “Sometimes you’re forced to do something you don’t really want to do and you resist at first…and then you figure it out. And once you figure it out [you] see [the good]. And if we end up back in the classroom, I’m definitely still going to use [online tools] more than I used prior to COVID.”

Kristina is another faculty member who has more than one role at the college.  She is an Instructional Assistant for Psychology, as well as an instructor in that department.  And she also embraced the sudden switch to online teaching, saying “it’s something that I was really looking forward to doing, and I feel like the online environment allows students that typically don’t have the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge in a classroom setting to be able to shine.”  I’ll be honest with you: Kristina had so many amazing things to share about her experience, the experiences of the faculty she supports, and how she worked with and supported her students, I don’t have space for it all in this post.  But, I am hoping she will agree to share more at the eLearning Demo Fest this June 10^th!

Kristina started teaching Psychology 110 online this January, after about 10 months of helping faculty in Psychology move their courses entirely online.  She also oversaw the lab components of those Spring, Summer, and Fall term Psychology courses, but because she has been assisting with the delivery of online courses and course components for many years, instead of having to figure out how to do things from scratch, she was able to look at ways to better support students and help them find their way through this unexpected new world of online learning.

Over the years of working with faculty in Psychology, Kristina has earned their trust.  When access to instructional designers in CETL became challenging due to the sudden increased demands, the Psychology faculty felt comfortable asking her how to adapt their courses for online “because [she] knew both their pedagogical philosophy and how and why they wanted to do certain things…[she] knew what their goals were.”  But as demands grew, and Kristina had to work on her own online teaching, she slowly coaxed faculty to get support from CETL.

For herself, Kristina says she almost feels more comfortable teaching online than face to face. She saw this transition as an opportunity to work on making the experience as positive as possible for her students. She did not face the learning curve that many other faculty at the college faced, such as learning how explicit instructions need to be online, how to create instructor presence, how to engage with students, etc.  One thing she noted that was different from teaching online during “normal” times however were the stress levels of students, both from facing a pandemic and having to learn online for the first time. “I bend over backwards to try and address the emotional component of learning first and foremost, and that was the biggest thing that I’ve learned in the online environment.”

Now, because of Kristina’s experience and comfort with teaching online, rather than discussing specific challenges, rewards, and lessons learned, I want to share with you some of Kristina’s approaches to teaching, and learning, online.

First, Kristina surveyed her students a week before the course started.  “I made the questions very particular to [my] course and asked them what three things they wanted me to do to support their learning – something that either worked for them previously or that they would like to try this semester.” As a result she made some last-minute changes to her course, aside from the requirements on the syllabus which she explained to her students was like a contract – something that could not be altered.

Some of the things students identified were wanting study guides for quizzes (which she created and took the time to explain to students how to create their own), wanting more time for tests (so she changed questions from knowledge-based to application-based questions so that time was no longer an issue – if students are running out of time on the quiz, they can contact her during the quiz and request additional time), having test anxiety (so she equally weighted lab assignments and quizzes and evaluated anxiety provoking topics such as statistics via lab assignments instead of quizzes), wanting flexibility (so she allowed extensions for assignments without penalty), and needing due date reminders (so she arranged for D2L to send them reminder emails and posts reminders in the News).

In addition, Kristina practices some aspects of Open Pedagogy by letting students contribute to assessments.  “I had them create application-based questions [by asking] them to develop scenario question that were one or two sentences long about a part of the brain that was damaged, and provide the correct answer [for their questions]. Then I incorporated all of those questions and answers into a Jeopardy game for them… [Finally,] I chose three of those questions out of the 40 and put them on their quiz.  I went over this activity with the students in lab beforehand to answer any questions. Then we also did a review game in class that covered the same types of concepts that were going to be on the quiz.” During the review, she asked students to share how they might approach answering the question, such as highlighting key words, drawing pictures, or eliminating response options.

And she also incorporates Universal Design for Learning principles, for example, giving students flexible deadlines. For example, when they ask for an extension, she asks “When do you think you can get the assignment handed-in? You know what your work schedule is, you know what your classroom demands are – when can you get this done, instead of me of dictating that….allowing students to be accountable to themselves.” But what she has noticed is that each time this has happened, it’s been one time only “none of them take advantage of it.” She just sees it as treating her students like adults, like human beings, saying “I’m treating [them] the same way that I would expect a supervisor to treat me.”

Within her synchronous sessions, Kristina does what she calls concept checks, where students work on problems anonymously on the whiteboard, so they feel comfortable being confused, or trying something they were not sure of.  She also gives students multiple options for responding in the synchronous sessions: microphone, polling, open chat, private chat, and writing on the whiteboard or on her PowerPoints, so again they have the choice of how they want to engage.

Kristina works hard at building community and engaging with students where they are at. She starts each class off by posting a question on the whiteboard. For example, she asked “For students who are local, what restaurants do you like going for takeout and…and for students who are not local, what’s your favorite recipe that you make at home? I do a lot of that kind of white board activity to stimulate some conversation.”  And what I really appreciated was the way she encourages students to answer questions, saying that “the most important part of participating when you ask a question is that they offered an answer. So even if a student’s completely off base with their answer, I always start off with thanking them for responding, pull out the pieces of information that were correct, and then ask other students to build on the information that was correct.”

Kristina says, by way of advice to anyone starting to teach online: “be as transparent as possible with your students. Be explicit with the students about what your expectations are and why you have those expectations. [Explain] why you’re asking them to do specific assignments, and how you create your tests, why you design them [the way you do]…Because it allows them to understand and predict how to approach work in the course. It takes out the guessing…review what they can and can’t ask for.  Do what you say you’re going to do, and if you solicit feedback, don’t tell them you’re going to do something about it, and then not follow up on it!”

Finally, Kristina says “just embrace it. It’s going to be as good as you make it … don’t fear it.  Put as much into it as you would anything else, because the return on your effort is going to probably be [more than you can imagine].”

Robin is Program Lead and an instructor in the Community, Family & Child Studies Program at Camosun College.  He is in one of those more unique positions because he was not only teaching during the pandemic, but also supporting other faculty in his role as lead.  He also has had a lot of experience as a student taking online courses, which didn’t necessarily prepare him for the role of online teacher: “it always looked difficult to me, and wasn’t something I wanted to pursue as a teacher.  [And while] that experience helped me [understand the] student perspective, it also hindered me because I had a preconceived notion of how it worked.”  But, when the college moved online, so did Robin, without a second thought.  One thing he did mention to me was how excited he is to now be part of the long history of distance education in Canada, which indeed has been around for over 130 years, moving from correspondence, to televised, to teleconferencing, and now to the Internet.  “For Camosun to be a part of that, to me really connects with what a community college should be.”

After getting through the sudden shift at the end of the Winter 2020 term, Robin says: “early on, I realized that September was going to be online and…I [realized that I] couldn’t just shift exactly what I was doing face-to-face classes to an online course, it had to be something different. So I grabbed everything from CETL (Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) that I could … and just focused on getting myself and my courses ready for fall, figuring out what tools [I would need], what’s the best practice, and working on my courses.”  When fall hit, one of Robin’s big concerns was how to build instructor presence, without getting so involved and engaged in everything to the point of being overwhelmed.  As a result, he used a blend of synchronous and asynchronous modes, every three weeks having a live Q&A session rather than delivering a lot of content live.  “There were so many students who had connectivity problems, I didn’t want them worrying about that in addition to the content.”  Every Monday he added a News post describing the week ahead, summarized the discussions (rather than answering all the postings all the time), and asked for feedback from his students both in the middle and at the end of the term.

Robin says that finding creative ways of engaging students regularly is still a challenge for him.  Like so many other instructors, he still wonders “How much is the right engagement for them to be working together? How often should they be in small groups? How often should they be on their own?”  He also finds that in an online class, it’s harder to know if they are there, because “there are some students that will come to you, but there are other students you don’t hear from very often, and who when you reach out to the, you don’t hear much back,” very different from a face to face class where it can be easier to develop those relationships.  That silence in both the synchronous and asynchronous environments worries Robin that this relationship building piece is being lost.  Supporting students to navigate the online course is also a challenge.  Robin tries “to take that [support] role with students, being aware, and looking for those things that might be missing.

In addition to working with students to understand their role in the teaching and learning process as he normally does, Robin has added a new layer of explaining to students what’s going on for him, for example, why is he organizing the course the way he is, and inviting feedback so he can make adjustments.  He also says that “the online experience has forced me to consider what’s most important and how can I slow things down…to make sure students have time to grab on to what they need to grab onto. And I think maintaining that attitude in the face-to-face experience [will be] important [moving forward].”

There have been some rewards as well, teaching in this new format.  Robin teaches communication skills, and there is no doubt that being forced to communicate online has developed new opportunities.  In class “we’ve been talking about all the online skills that they have been developing and how they are related to other types of communication, how those skills parallel what they will be doing face-to-face and how important those skills are.”  In addition, Robin has felt a strong sense of equality online, for example, seeing all students being able to contribute equally.  “In the online environment, all the students are getting a chance to engage. In the discussion groups, I can see how they’re all engaging with the content, [something] I couldn’t with my 30 students in the [face to face] class.” And there is also, a sense of being in it together in the online classroom.  “Students, faculty and staff are all figuring it out together, and you want to impress upon the students that you are with them, learning with them. This is the place to experiment – that’s what learning is about here, trying things out…through the stresses of the COVID world, the stresses of online learning. [As] my favorite quote, Steven Stills says, love the one you’re with – this is where we are, and let’s enjoy it.”

Robin has a few words of advice and encouragement for faculty, saying first to remember that, “we’re pretty adaptable.”  In spite of not wanting to teach an online course before COVID, when he had to, he discovered that “we can make pretty great things happen.”  Also, “see yourself and your students as able…and remember that the important pieces of teaching, the engagement, the active learning pieces, our role in creating an environment that has both a balance of safety and challenge – none of those things have changed. They are all still there, it just looks a little different.”

Robin says he will never go back to using D2L in such a limited way again.  “I think I’ve got an understanding of the platform and the tools that I know that my students have missed out in the past because I didn’t use them. I’m sure I will continue to use asynchronous content and make sure that there are multiple ways for students to engage with the material, more ways for students to engage with material outside of specific class time.”  And in his role as Program Lead, he is looking forward to having conversations with his program faculty around what their program might look like in the future.  “I definitely think using online tools and how to create engagement through those tools [will be] part of the conversation now.  Whether we do something different or not, it’s just going to be part of our conversation.”

Cheryl is a faculty member in the BSN (Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing) Program at Camosun College.  As you can well imagine, moving Nursing programs completely online, especially given some of the more practical, hands-on aspects of Nursing, would have presented a challenging puzzle.  And certainly this was the case during the sudden pivot in March of last year.  But luckily for Cheryl, after things settled over the summer, she was “fortunate to be teaching courses where there’s still significant face-to-face time. It’s changed [and compressed] face-to-face time,” so finding ways to address fewer/shorter classes by moving more material online (the program group had already built a lot of online course components into their teaching pre-COVID), and redesigning evaluations were where the lab team Cheryl works with spent most of their time.

Cheryl told me that the team “usually starts into a semester knowing how it was done last term, and we make a few minor tweaks and off we go. [But] the last two semesters since COVID, we’ve spent much of the week of start-up adjusting evaluative tools to make sense in this COVID environment with the type of learning the students are having.”  And when Cheryl says evaluative tools, she is referring to replacing students demonstrating their ability to perform a skill in the lab before going on to perform the skill on a live person in clinical practice.  “In the past pre-Covid, each student drew one skill at the end of the semester and had 10 or 15 minutes to gather their supplies and perform that skill in a reasonably safe manner. [But now,] we realized that the likelihood of us being able to have one-to-one time in-person with each student was slim to none…and we had to rethink how we could evaluate to ensure students had the knowledge, skills, and ability to provide safe patient care.”  After much discussion, the team redeveloped this assessment:  “a video skill was developed where students practice the skill, however briefly in lab, and then videotape each other in partners during lab time. [They then] take the video home and critique it. And last term [fall], they were graded on their critique of their skill.” I should note that Cheryl credits her other team members for this idea!

This was one of the main challenges the team faced, but it did not stop with the fall version of the evaluation.  They realized that just recording and critiquing the skill did not address the actual practice: developing the muscle memory of the skill. “So this term (winter), we added a second component of critiquing the actual performance of the skill and not just the student critique of the skill. While reflection on practice [is] a fabulous learning tool, we felt that there needed to be a level of competency as well.”

I asked Cheryl how the students felt about this new way of assessing their skills, to which she replied “I think it’s fairly across the board that students feel way less stress. What I’ve heard from students is, I like this a lot better than what I know of how it used to be done, because the stress before with one-to-one demonstration would not have been a true test of my ability of the skill.”  Comments like these from students, along with adding the skill performance critique, have convinced the team that they should keep this new way of assessing, something they may never have tried had it not been for COVID.  Cheryl reflects, however, that she does hope that as Covid cases settle, students will be able to return to open lab time to practice the skills in a way that is “more similar to how they practice in actual clinical settings with real people” rather than practicing at home with simulated materials.

Cheryl can’t emphasize enough how important being able to work in a team was to surviving, and dare I say to meeting the challenge of the move to online learning.  The courses she works with typically have 4 or 8 instructors teaching the same content to groups of students, each carrying a piece of the preparation and planning load, bouncing ideas off of each other…supporting each other.  That’s one piece of advice she has for someone new to moving a course online – “get help, find allies because it will gobble your time and you need other people to pitch in. It can’t be a solo kind of role that you take on.”  In addition, take the time to “talk it through and figure out what went well, what didn’t go well, and how it could be tweaked, and then bring in the experts that know and can give you ideas on what can be done to [move] forward.”  Think of Kolb’s Learning Cycle:  “experience and do, review and reflect, analyze and learn, plan, and [then] draw conclusions and plan, revising based on your assessment.”  And remember it is not going to come out perfect the first time.

And finally, Cheryl advises not taking it all on at once.  “There comes a point where we’re so overwhelmed with the small incremental layers of newness, we can’t take anything else on. So make sure you contain what you take on, because somewhere along the way we need to retain enough energy to teach students, to maintain the focus on doing the best we can for students. And if we overwhelm ourselves with what we take on, we can’t really be there for them…so dive in, take a risk, ask for what you need, be ready to put in the time, but be realistic about the workload, who’s there to support you, and how you can manage and contain it. Don’t do it all at once in one term.

I am so proud of the amazing team of Nursing instructors Cheryl works with, of how they adapted to a new, unexpected reality, and how they embraced the changes.  I am excited at how excited Cheryl is at the possibilities, and I am so looking forward to seeing what they do next in the BSN Program.