Category: Camosun College

Dave is a Trades instructor teaching Metal Fabrication and Sheet Metal courses at Camosun.  Like many Trades faculty, he had used some of the tools in D2L prior to the pivot to complete online learning in March 2020, but found being completely online a challenge with the hands-on nature of the courses he teaches (as many instructors will relate to).

Dave told me that the transition to online wasn’t too bad for him because he had been using online tools to support his teaching for about 8 years.  What he found challenging, and time consuming, was making videos for demonstrations of various tasks and activities, since students could not come into the classroom for live demonstrations.  “While moving online was easy, the amount of camera work was overwhelming because I had to edit and split and mesh and trim and review the videos for quality.  It was also challenging trying to find quiet times for filming in the shop.  I’d have to film in the morning or later on or a weekend, and if I tried to film during the day, I’d have to ask everybody to be quiet. And that was stressful too because everybody would be watching and listening and waiting for me to finish. But otherwise, everything was pretty good for me moving online.”  In fact, Dave reflected (like other faculty) that “we needed this pandemic to force us to do something a little bit out of our comfort zone.” In addition to creating demonstration videos, Dave pre-recorded all his lessons and made “how-to” videos for all his assignments.  He then was able to use his synchronous classroom time, in Collaborate, to talk to students and answer their questions.

After the initial move to completely-online learning, students were gradually allowed back into the shop for limited contact hours.  “For my next course, for example, I have two weeks of online learning work on the computer, and then I have three weeks in the shop.”  He found blocking like this was much more convenient for students as they didn’t have to travel to the college every day or for long hours.  “It just didn’t make a lot of sense for students to travel for an hour or sometimes two, and pay for parking to do only one or two hours in the shop. I had a lot of students say they appreciated their shop time being blocked together.”

Dave found that the biggest challenge with online learning was students not having laptops or Internet access.  And in addition, even when they had access to computers and Internet, they often couldn’t find a quiet space to work.  “I’ve heard of people using their travel trailer in the driveway as a quiet spot for working on their courses.”

One of the biggest rewards from the past year for Dave was working with the Quizzes tool in D2L.  “We created self-tests of 50 or a 100 questions, for students to review, and we can set them up so students can redo the quizzes, but only those questions they got wrong.”  Dave credits having self-test quizzes available for the higher than expected averages in his classes this last year.  In addition, they had the highest Red Seal average as well.  “It’s not really fair for the person with the best memory to always do the best on the test. What’s important is students are understanding and moving forward.  In addition to being able to do the quizzes over and over again, Dave thinks that another bonus of using the quizzes tool is that students can complete the quizzes when they have time, because they are always open and available.  “Some students wake up at 5:00AM and do all their work by noon. Some students wake up at noon and they’re up till midnight. They perform best when they are ready to perform, so that was a major reward, for them to be able to complete quizzes and assignments at their own convenience.  We’ve heard that a lot from the students: they were really scared of taking an online course, but found it manageable because of the flexibility it offered.”  Dave told me that in the end, 1/3 of the class ended up preferring online learning, 1/3 had no preference and 1/3 preferred the classroom to help them focus on the task at hand.

When I asked him about some of his own takeaways from this past year, Dave said he learned that you really need to understand the various software and online platforms you are going to use, and take the time to set them up right at the beginning for the long term.  In addition, you also need to set students up for success in terms of the technologies and what they can expect.  “Make sure the students are informed coming in, and giving them the chance to experience the technology in advance so they aren’t seeing it for the first time on the first day of class. They need to have a chance to develop some comfort with the tools before they can start studying what they need to know.”

Moving forward, Dave is definitely planning to keep what he created over the past year.  “Having videos will definitely complement what we’re doing in the classroom, so students watch the demonstrations before as well as after for review.”  In addition he will keep the self-test/quizzes both to enhance student learning, and because he has discovered that they also “save me maybe 20 hours per course, which gives me an extra three to four days I can spend with students in the shop.”  Dave also plans on building on what he created, with “more videos, more self-tests, and better content.  And I guess the next thing we’ll do start using the marking rubrics on D2L, so I can have the rubric open and mark their project right there in the shop.”

Even though Dave recognizes that there are still challenges ahead (for example, how to support students with access to technology and the Internet while in the classroom), he says “to go back to the way things were before would just be ludicrous.  It wouldn’t make any sense to throw away everything we’ve developed to go back to paper – that is just not reality in industry right now.”  All I can say is that I am looking forward to seeing where Dave is at in another year!

Maureen, a faculty member in the English Department at Camosun, had not used many online tools, including D2L, to support her teaching in the past.  So for her, the pivot to online was “from zero to hero, because I really was starting with zero!”  Also, initially Maureen “didn’t have a computer, had no printer, no equipment.”  Luckily, Camosun provided her with that infrastructure very quickly, and then she just had to learn to use it all for her teaching.  Maureen also noted how because everyone had to pivot at the same time, students, faculty, administration, “that synchronization of all of our efforts towards one goal made for as smooth a transition as possible for the students.”

As you can imagine, Maureen faced many challenges as she moved her courses online.  She told me her biggest challenges was her fear “that because of my inexperience, it wouldn’t work, that I wouldn’t be able to connect in an interactive, interesting, stimulating, thought-provoking way with my students the way I did face-to-face. Trying to keep that active learning environment alive was one of my biggest fears and challenge as well. Or maybe the challenge was to overcome that fear.”

She overcame her fears, however, by attending workshops and reviewing CELT resources containing “tips and things to watch out for, as well as other things you could do once the basics were in place. Then I was able to consider what I could reach for, to try that next skill. I really liked the building block approach, which got me started and built my confidence.” In addition, Maureen was able to take a step back and look at her course from a student perspective.  “I realized that certain things would have to go, and worked on the clarity and organization, by always looking at things with a student’s point of view.”

Unlike some of her colleagues in English, Maureen decided to teach synchronously with some D2L support.  “The core material was in D2L: PowerPoints with voice-overs, videos, links to readings, as well weekly instructions.  Then I would have one Collaborate session a week which was very helpful. Students who attended those sessions tended to do better: they were more engaged and more connected with the class. I also used Collaborate for my office hour and individual meetings, which was nice because students could load their documents in Collaborate and then we could look at things together.”  Teaching synchronously, however, doesn’t always mean you see your students.  For Maureen, the day when students started turning on their cameras made her feel “like I had overcome the hurdle of connecting with them. You have to overcome that feeling of being so exposed, and for them to trust the classroom space, as well as me and each other, was really encouraging. I felt like we were all together on this adventure, creating it as we went along.”

Maureen told me that she also appreciated being able to meet students when they needed to meet with her, rather than being bound by specific office hours on-campus.  “Even by appointment, meeting times are dependent on when students are on campus, and when I am on campus. Having the online learning environment available adds some flexibility, and makes for much richer meeting opportunities.  We can see each other face to face, I can look at their work and give feedback. So having roving office hours, being able to quickly help students, I really enjoyed that, and I would like to keep that even when we go back to face to face.”

Maureen’s advice for faculty moving courses online? “Sign up for the workshops, and if you have a question for the e-learning team, ask it. When you have a question, even if it’s small, ask it because it will keep coming up. And another thing I found useful is repetition, doing things over and over again. Like learning anything else, practice makes perfect.”

After teaching online this past year, Maureen has learned some new skills to complement her face-to-face teaching.  “I’ve always used course packs, but now I love the flexibility of being able to just make changes when I need to.  Using online content allows you to be ultra-current, and to be responsive to students’ questions using the Discussion forums.  In addition, Maureen has found having students submit their assignments in D2L has allowed her to give feedback in more ways.  “For every assignment I can change it up so that it looks different, to get them thinking about it in a different way. I will definitely keep online assignment and marking as one option for them.”

As we wrapped up our chat, I asked Maureen if she would teach online again, and her answer made me smile “: I found out that I love both: I love face-to-face, but you know what?  Online was pretty fun too, and I would like to get better at it.”

Brenda teaches Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking in the Visual Arts program at Camosun.  I can hear what you’re thinking…drawing, painting, and printmaking online?  What?  Brenda was also a little skeptical when everything pivoted.  “I was very nervous at the prospect of at all, so I guess I had some resistance at the beginning that I had to get over. Then I realized it wasn’t about me having my way – it was about me showing up for the students. So I stopped thinking about myself and started thinking about what they might need and how I could deliver it to them.”

Like most faculty, Brenda was in the middle of teaching last March when everyone was sent home.  Between the shock and scramble to make things work, she says that while she had “space where students could continue to upload work even if they had to complete it at home, it was a very sad ending to the term. We didn’t get to say goodbye or discuss the artworks that they were working on,” something they normally would have done.

While Brenda’s scheduled development plans in the spring did not involve reimagining her fall courses, she was thinking about them.  “I was going to be teaching a drawing class and two printmaking classes in the fall, so I connected with former students asking what they might like to see.  I also connected with colleagues at here at Camosun, as well as with people teaching up island to ask them what they were doing. So we exchanged some ideas and exercises which was really helpful – connecting with people who were in the same kind of situation.”

Because students would be missing in-class demonstrations in the fall, Brenda spent a lot of time making videos of those demos.  However, since she was not the only instructor in her area doing so, finding someone to help her make the videos was a challenge.  In the end, with the help of her son, she made about a dozen videos in her kitchen so students could review the various drawing and printmaking processes on their own time.  Brenda says she had to let go of trying to make the videos perfect.  “It was a struggle at first, but looking back, while I had a sense of embarrassment at the beginning, I became more comfortable over time.”

Brenda’s students were lucky to have some face-to-face studio time blended in with the online teaching, which she told me the students loved.  “They were eager for that connection. While we have protocols dictating how many people we can have in each studio, we have three studios that we can use to split up the students into groups.  That way they get a chance to converse and talk about each other’s works.”

The loss of the normally more intense face-to-face engagement, however, led to other challenges for Brenda.  “One challenge was around understanding the printmaking tools that were new to students. We put together kits, so students had an easel, a lino block, rollers, etc., but because they hadn’t used them before, they asked a lot of questions. I would refer them to the videos, and ask them to come back with more specific questions, but we also had to remember that they were at home, which meant there were other considerations to explain to them.  For example, they needed a place to clean up leftover ink – you don’t want to put it down the kitchen sink, you don’t want to have it on the kitchen table, you don’t want to have it in your roommate’s room. So there were a lot of considerations to keep in mind.”

In addition, Brenda found that some students were reticent to share their work on Collaborate, perhaps due to shyness or fear of being judged.  “There are students that still lurk because I have given them permission to lurk in Collaborate.  They don’t have to say anything, but its good practice for them to at least listen to how we describe artworks we’ve made, and how we get feedback from other students. I know they’re there, but I’m not forcing them to speak up – they’ll do it when they’re ready.”

But at the same time, being online brought some rewards.  Brenda found some amazing new assignment formats.  For example, one she called ‘three things we loved.’   “Maybe you love flowers, or maybe you love cigarette smoking, or maybe you like tea.  Then you draw those three things that you love the most. But you also have to draw them with a background, a middle ground, and a foreground, because that gives us space in the painting so it looks three-dimensional. Then we went on to something called micro, making a large image of something that was really small. For example, if you decided to draw a bee, you enlarged it to a full 20” by 20” piece — a good experiment with how you would use space in a drawing

Then she also had the students complete some short exercises while they were in their Collaborate sessions.  “This would be the first thing we did when we came into Collaborate each week. I gave students prompts and they had ten minutes to draw the image in their sketchbook. Then they would upload their sketch into the Assignments tool where I could see it. They were working in real time, and I thought that was really important that they would get immediate feedback. And they loved it. We did all kinds of prompts, whatever I could come up with, usually the day before class started.”

For the painting classes, she tried something a little different.  “We worked in black and white to avoid the complexity of having to mix colours, and I asked them to find an object in their house and paint it four times over a period of weeks. We were looking for repetition and refinement.  They enjoyed that a lot.”

Moving forward, Brenda is planning to keep some of the things she’s learned and implemented in her classes.  “For their programs, students paint on canvasses, wood, panel, and paper, and put all their work into a big fat cardboard portfolio. Then as the instructor, you have 25 heavy portfolios to mark.  So, moving forward, I would like to see a digital upload of their work instead.  They can photograph their work and upload it to D2L so I can assess it there. This would also allow me to more easily find an individual student’s work at any time, instead of searching through a pile of physical portfolios.  We could also have them include an artist statement with their work, and I can give them feedback for both their work and their statements.”  She will also keep the videos she made over the year.  “I think that’s what’s nice about a blended class, because students get a chance to talk with each other in real time, but they can also review material and think about things in D2L.  It’s the best of both worlds.”

In the end, Brenda told me that while she was nervous at the beginning, and the learning curve was steep, she found the strength to get through it.  “I’m a long-term teacher and I have to remind myself that I have lots of skills, and while sometimes I may think I don’t know how to do something, I can find ways to make it happen.”

 

Kate is a Biology instructor at Camosun, and this past year taught two sections of Biology 090 (a college prep Biology), as well as a section of a brand new second year Cell Biology course.  Not surprisingly, both had their challenges in moving online.  But, as she told me, last March, the Biology instructors “all jumped on the bandwagon together – whatever I was doing, I was sharing, whatever they were doing, they were sharing, and we just threw it all in the pot and cobbled through the semester, and in the end it wasn’t awful,” which certainly sounds like how the pivot last March worked for me!

Kate was fortunate to have scheduled development last spring, so she could spend time planning for fall.  She had used some D2L tools before, but faced some learning of tools she hadn’t used.  And now, Kate says she has fully adopted the Grades tool, as well as the Quizzes tool, finding the immediate feedback and the ability for students to complete quizzes multiple times a great trade-off for the work she put into creating them.  In addition, students submitted their lab assignments to the Assignments tool, where she could use the annotation tool or download them, add feedback, and upload the marked file for them.  “That part has saved me tons of time, once I got it working right, and I’m going to keep that for sure.  For students, when it comes time to study, they all have access to the uploaded marked versions, even if they were working in groups – no more excuses that someone else has the final copy of the assignment! It’s always there as a resource for them.”

For fall, Kate taught the Biology 090 asynchronously, which she recognized was a risk because of the upgrading nature of the course.  “I thought it would be a mistake to code it as synchronous, especially when there was so much unknown with jobs and lives and schedules.  Instead, I asked myself, how can I make this more accessible? So I tried to make it more self-paced, but with deadlines every single week. I’d have weekly synchronous tutorials, but I did not take attendance and I recorded them all. I expected students to watch them, but gave them the choice of how and when to schedule that time.”

Labs were definitely Kate’s biggest challenge.  “The big thing for Biology, of course, is the labs because they are supposed to be tactile:  you’re trying things out, you’re working with equipment, all things we couldn’t do. So I worked with that team of instructors and we came up with a pretty good hodgepodge of activities.”  For example, they developed what she called “kitchen labs.” “Do you have a carrot? Can you boil something? Can you watch ice melt? Can you put some ice, and then put some salt with the ice and then explain what’s happening to the hydrogen bonds?  They were all activities designed to connect to the course content, which worked out pretty well.”

While for the upgrading courses Kate was able to find a wealth of lab-related resources on the Internet, the second-year Cell Biology was a different story.  “Cell Biology is very content heavy, and online labs are not ideal, but we made the best of it.”  One of the instructors used his scheduled development time video-record several of the lab procedures, creating little one- or two-minute clips walking through the processes to get students through the semester. “Then we upped some of the data process requirements to make up for the loss of the practical skills, which worked pretty well.”  This last year has definitely brought out that flexible thinking – trying to find that balance of activities that will support students meeting learning outcomes.  One thing Kate noted about the Cell Biology group was that she saw “a really big difference in student engagement. They’re making study groups, they’re interacting, and you can see improvement in their data processing as well as in their critical thinking skills.”  I was particularly excited by an unanticipated by-product in Kate’s Cell Biology synchronous classes. “What has been cool is the text chat in Collaborate. Many students in this group knew each other from previous classes and there was an active chat thread while I was talking about something, for example someone types ‘I saw this cool article’ and they paste the link, or someone says, ‘yeah, it’s like what we did in our anatomy class’.  Having that text chat with this friendly banter (mostly content related) has been really fun and makes it feels more like a community”

In addition to finding new ways to deliver labs for the upgrading classes and discovering community building in the Cell Biology course, Kate has found many positive outcomes form the past year.  “This semester we are running a section where we have students from the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, mostly indigenous students, taking this course fully online. Look at the outreach that we’ve been able to accomplish by making a cohort for them!  I also have people in my own class who would never have been able to take a class face to face, for example my one student who had a baby two weeks before the class started in January. I have students from all walks of life who are able to access this asynchronous class because they complete the work in their own time within the week that each assignment is open.”

But there have been lessons learned along the way as well.  “It doesn’t always work the way you think. For example, I gave students an open book exam and discovered that not all students really understood what open-book means and what it doesn’t mean.  They were looking up every single question and of course ran out of time, even though I had warned them not to rely on their books, which was a lesson for all of us.”  Kate also realizes that not every student will succeed in an online course.  “Some have really missed those face-to-face study groups that happen organically after class when you’re standing around or hanging around the lab. But for other students, they’re self-motivated, know how to study, and know when they need help and how to get that help, whether it’s from me or the biology Help Center or online resources, and they’re rocking it.”

Moving forward, Kate is going to keep a lot of what she has created and learned.  “All those assignments that I spent all that time creating with the answers and instant feedback, I’m keeping those. They’re awesome. They’re great for the students and it’s no extra marking for me. I’m going to keep the digital lab submissions and look at ways I can give better feedback, better upfront instructions, etc. I’m even thinking about ways I can continue to share my PowerPoints in class and use my pen to write directly on the slides instead of using a laser pointer, because with the pen the marks will stay there.”

What Kate will remember as well is how she was able to make connections with so many students.  “I know people say it’s faceless and there’s not a connection, but there are ways to make connections without forcing people out of their comfort zone or making them turn on their cameras in a class of 50.”  And as many others have noted, there have been a lot of positives come out of having more flexibility in work-life balance, for students and faculty.  “Not having to commute or take public transit, not having to arrange for childcare – it’s all about making education accessible and flexible. That’s what the future needs – the model of going to University for four years face to face, and that’s all you can do, that’s gone. That’s not the reality for most students, and we need to get with the program.”

Lisa teaches in ELD (English Language Development) at Camosun.  She remembers the switch to online teaching last spring well: “The Friday before, I quickly taught the students how to take photos of their work with their phones and upload them because it felt like we might not be coming back on Monday. And then Monday we were online. Then I just tried to get them through the last weeks of the course.”  Then, over May and June last year, Lisa was on scheduled development leave and worked with a colleague to prepare for what they knew was coming in the fall.  “We realized that at the level our students were (lower level ELD students), nothing would be accessible to them. They might not be able to get into the class, and for new students, how would they even find their student numbers? So we spent a long time trying follow through what a student’s path would be to access the online platform, and did a lot of work trying to figure out how we were going to teach them all the skills that they would need.”

As I mentioned, Lisa taught lower level ELD courses in the fall, and found managing the challenges her students faced to be at times overwhelming, especially considering that “underlying everything was an assumption that they had basic computer skills. And they might have those skills in their own language, but keyboards and webpage layouts can be very different in English. Unfortunately, we hadn’t put much focus on basic computer skills development, which ended up being a big problem for students.”  In addition, Lisa faced some frustrations with D2L because it doesn’t always lend itself well to language teaching/learning.  “Where I’m at with it now, I would prefer not to use D2L, but would use Collaborate and either send a CD to students, or links to online audio files.  I was constantly trying to fit language learning into a system that was not developed for language learning and always having to find workarounds.”

The fall term presented a daily constant challenge.  “I heard a teacher being interviewed and he used the word heavy and that’s what it felt like. Every day were frustrations. I would stumble across a new thing and get all excited to try it out, and then wouldn’t work quite the way I envisioned it. It was a roller coaster.”  In addition, ELD courses typically have lots of small homework assignments that are easy to manage face- to- face, but managing them online, well “you put a lot of effort into marking something electronically, then have to help the students find the feedback,” but unfortunately in D2L instructors can’t always see what students see.  “I found it very difficult to help students at my level and I’m sure half my class never saw any of their feedback. It is so much more difficult compared to just handing it back and having a quick chat in the classroom.”

This Winter term, however, Lisa’s workload has been much better.  “I teach six hours a week and the other part of my workload is doing online testing. This term, there’s three of us team teaching, plus a support person, plus a manager, which makes things much more manageable.”  Having a larger support team managing an online teaching load, especially the first time around, is really key to success (and much less stress).  I do want to mention the project Lisa worked on this term.  “It’s a project with contract training, providing language, business and make-it skills to a group of immigrant women to sell products at local farmer’s markets. With the pandemic, one unexpected result has been the creation of an online store for Camosun.  Any students making products for sale can now sell them through the store and people can pay online, so it’s a benefit to the whole college.”

While Lisa felt frustrated a lot of the time over the past year, she does see some positives.  “Humans are remarkably adaptable, and I’ve felt like everyone jumped in and made it work as best they could.  We were collaborating, teaching each other, and learning as quickly as possible.”  Even instructors who were very new to all the technology were figuring it out and helping their colleagues.  “What I take away from last year is that huge team effort, everybody digging in and finding ways to make online teaching work.”

Lisa has some advice for faculty teaching online for the first time.  “I would definitely try to get access to a course that had already been set up, and connect with the instructor who set it up.  And I would want to work with that person as a mentor.”  Last spring, because they were thrown into the deep end, this was not really possible so “the group of us who were on SD ran training for the department.  Other instructors (who were teaching in the spring) could learn with us and then try it out right away in the class and report back.”

Moving forward, Lisa also feels that having dedicated eLearning support (someone familiar with their programs and teaching styles), as well as technical support, would make future technology-enhanced, blended, or online teaching less stressful for faculty and students.  “Someone who knows the platforms and can come in on-call to help with students when they’re having trouble, and also teach some basic computer skills.”  As for what she will continue to use moving forward, Lisa says now that she has content, the gradebook, and tests set up in D2L, she will continue to use them.  “I will also use the News, and I’d like to get on top of the Checklist.”

Lisa ends with a couple of thoughts. “When I look back on last year, with the news that we will be back face-to-face in the fall, it was very satisfying. I love delving into new things and learning about them. As a language teacher, I don’t think I would put much more effort into D2L, but into online learning?  Absolutely. I can see all sorts of ways we could make it work, as long as workload is being recognized properly, which is a big issue.  I also proud of myself and the other instructors in our department, as well as our students. So even though there’s been a lot of hard stuff, we’ve done some pretty amazing things, and that’s what I’m going to remember.”

Ally is a librarian at Camosun College, working primarily (pre-Covid) at the Interurban Campus library. Librarians, and Instructional Designers (like yours truly), are also faculty members at Camosun. We facilitate workshops and teach instructional sessions for faculty and students. Fun fact:  Ally had emailed me to ask if I was going to interview a librarian, and I said “Yes – are you volunteering?”  So, she did, but sent her colleagues my questions to get their answers and perspectives on the past year as well.

I asked Ally what the sudden shift to online support was like for her and her fellow librarians. “At first, it was a bit of a jumble, like it was for everyone else. We made more use of the online tools we already have, more time on AskAway (online chat) research help, and then worked to develop new online resources. One of the things I spent a lot of time on in the first few days was the initial COVID-19 resources guide pulling together subscription content like Credo Info lit with Camosun created resources. All of the librarians jumped in and started creating what ended up being instructional videos which, over time, we narrowed down, improved, and made more consistent.”

What Ally missed most, however, were the daily face-to-face interactions with students and colleagues. In the past, “at Interurban, Margie and I have offices right in the student space. With Margie, groups of business students would just go to her office to ask questions and chat, and I would often have one-on-one interactions with students who know me from class sessions and come to ask for help. At Lansdowne, the librarians have daily shifts on the reference desk, and I think losing that day-to-day, more personal connection with the students, was a significant loss.”  For some context, while the Camosun libraries were forced to close after the shutdown, it wasn’t long before there was some limited opening for handing out books, laptops, etc. for students. But mostly the libraries remained closed until fall (in September the Lansdowne library opened for take-out and limited computer workstation access, and the Interurban library followed suit in November). But luckily, librarians are highly adaptable and found new ways to connect – new ways that they will likely not let go of even when returning full time to their libraries. “We weren’t really using Collaborate before, but now we definitely are, and we’ve discovered that it’s a fantastic tool. We have been using research guides for years, but recently we have invested in some additional apps on the same platform. One is a scheduling tool which, combined with Collaborate is how we’ve been putting together our online open-registration workshops.”  In addition to workshops, Collaborate has also made it possible for librarians to host virtual one-to-one chats with students and faculty. What makes Collaborate such a game changer is being able to “see a student’s screen, give them advice, and work through problems. It’s a lot easier to have those kinds of teachable moments in a Collaborate session than in our pre-Covid classroom sessions, which has been quite transformative for us.”

When I asked Ally what the biggest reward might be from the past year, she told me “I honestly think that Collaborate makes it easier for me to connect with students. When we are face-to-face, there aren’t any name tags, but in Collaborate when people are typing in chat or speaking, I can address them by name and get to know them. I think it’s been very good, strangely, in terms of personal connections.”  I have heard this echoed by other faculty and colleagues – that despite the distance technology can create, in some ways it has brought us closer over the past year.

Reflecting on lessons learned, Ally says “I think as a group, we do our best to respond to students and faculty at their point of need, so the biggest takeaway for us was to jump in and take risks. Like the instructional videos: most of us have made videos in the past individually, but the Covid response involved all of us jumping in. We created a lot of content and then re-worked it, which I think was strangely more streamlined than hashing out the details before creating anything.”  And these thoughts certainly are echoed in her advice to anyone who might be coming back to work after being off for this past year. “Don’t be afraid of just trying things, your colleagues and students really don’t expect perfection, let it be messy for a while, and don’t lose your sense of humour.”  She notes that the librarians normally engage in reflective teaching practice (they all teach workshops year-round), and integrating new technologies has been part of every aspect of college librarianship for decades, so, they were already adept at “pivoting.” Learning Collaborate added an additional layer of complexity, but their reflective practice remained the same.

Moving forward, Ally says she sees “probably an expansion of more workshops on Collaborate and speaking for myself, I would be quite open to office hours for reference help. And I think we will probably start integrating the new scheduling tool with Collaborate to create a set repertoire of online workshops and drop-in times, because I think there are a lot of students who really like working from home. And so why wouldn’t we continue these as a service? Why would we leave those students out if that’s their place of need?”

Libraries’ function as a “safe third space” will always be an important part of life at the college. “There are plenty of students who live with too many roommates or family members, and there’s just no mental space at home for them to really get the sort of studying done that they want to do – and that’s why they spend so much time at the library. But I think what this past year has done for some students is also give them a digital space where they can get help when they need it.”

Brent teaches in the Medical Radiography program at Camosun, a program with a long history of using D2L to support its face to face offerings.  When I asked him about his experience moving completely online last year, he said “my personal experience with the transition is that it was born out of necessity in a chaotic time that was predicated on decisions that were made external to my locus of control.”  A good way to describe something that took over our lives and which we had no power to change.  In fact, he described the experience of last March as less about planning and more about simple survival, which I am sure others can relate to.

Brent had definitely used online tools, and other educational technology, to support his teaching before COVID.  “I’ve always been very adventurous in trying out new things. I try to find the optimal tool for the learning outcome that I’m working on with the learners, and I find it such a fun world to explore – we’re finally reaching a point now with options like H5P where all of a sudden coding is accessible for educators. But the tools still need to be thought out, used intentionally, and be authentic to the educator using them.”  Thinking out the appropriate use of technology for his teaching during this past year, meant that Brent ended up teaching blended: asynchronous with “some synchronous components that were reserved mostly for getting people on the same page, and for discussing more difficult concepts that required instant feedback.” The asynchronous was reserved for content and providing “directions of what was required during the week.  The key thing as the instructor is to understand where complexities arise so they can be dealt with proactively by getting people together [synchronously] for a more wholesome discussion.”

Brent says that the biggest challenge he faced in the past year was around nurturing and creating community and relationships in the asynchronous world.  “When you are face to face with students there are various non-verbal cues communicated between people. But when you don’t have access to see, to hear, to get immediate feedback verbally from learners, it disrupts that model. So the biggest challenge is learning how to maintain a semblance of that relationship with learners in a different setting altogether.”  And this requires building new skills in an effort to achieve the same outcomes for a course you wouldn’t normally teach online – something many faculty were not ready for when the switch to fully online happened last year.

Brent has seen many rewards over the past year, saying that “I think probably the single biggest reward is that learners are able to access education in ways that best suit their lifestyles. A face-to-face program often defines a student as someone who can attend from 8:30 am till 5:30 pm, can drive to campus and not have to leave during that time, and has five hours after school to do their homework.  The transition to online learning has forced educators and administrators to rethink traditional approaches, and how those traditional choices have impacted people. The whole idea that you can’t learn or work from home has been completely blown out of the water by the fact that, well, we’ve been doing it for a year.”  Echoing my own thoughts, Brent says that in order for us to survive and thrive as post-secondary institutions, “we need to start embracing and cultivating technology because that’s going to help us become more sustainable. It’s not a matter of if we should use technology to support teaching and learning, it’s a matter of when, especially in terms of truly serving our community, because our community is asking for better access to education.”

But, simply embracing technology is not enough.  “As great as technology is it’s not something that you just throw on the education buffet table and say this is the only item that you get to eat here today. It’s also less about what you’re throwing on the table and more about how you’re using it.”  Cultivating relationships and recognizing that every learner’s journey is different, regardless of whether you teach using technology or not, represents “the real skill of the educator, understanding that it’s going to be an adventure and there’s no one singular path to your destination.”

Brent has some advice for faculty starting to move into online teaching.  “You will fail, and that’s okay. It’s humbling and stressful, so have compassion for yourself, just as you would for your students when they stumble.”  In addition, Brent stresses the importance of having an open mind.  “Know your values and approach to education really well, because the more grounded and crystal clear you are about your approach to education and what your values are, the easier it will be to be creative and to learn from the experiences of others.  If you worry that you’re alone in all this, you’re mistaken: there’s many people who’ve walked these trails, especially over the last year.”

Moving forward, Brent says that his ideal is for learners to “have complete autonomy and agency in terms of deciding how, when, and where they would access their education”, and while that might not be possible institutionally any time soon, it certainly is a goal worth pursuing.  “As an educator, I really value the place of Camosun as an institution within our greater community, and I think the whole point of the institution is to help raise everybody’s boat higher. But in order to do that, we need to work towards lowering barriers and increasing the access to programming.”

Val is a part-time instructor in the BEST (Academic Upgrading Building Employment Success for Tomorrow) program at Camosun College.  Because her primary role at Camosun is with CUPE, when she was brought in to teach for the program last spring/summer, it had been awhile (since 2003 or 2004) since she had taught online so she felt a bit anxious.  Luckily, teaching online is a bit like riding a bike, so they say, and after some brushing up and attending eLearning workshops she was able to breathe again.  “Am I completely proficient now? No. Do I have lots of room for growth? No question. But sometimes just being thrown in is the best way to learn to swim,” which I am sure other faculty over the past year can relate to.

Val is no stranger to online BEST-like programs, having taught up north to isolated communities.  “I came from a community college up north that had to run its programs by distance or else they wouldn’t have had a student population.”  Realizing the power of online learning to create community as well as inclusive and diverse learning opportunities, Val shared her teaching experiences with her group because she realized “that moving BEST online could grow our membership beyond Victoria proper.  For example, for a student taking a baby to daycare, then travelling from Langford to class and back again, which creates barriers, expense, and environmental issues, having classes online, some synchronous, some asynchronous is a beautiful mix.”

BEST, which is “about fostering and creating trust, learning communication, and moving through value-based discussions in career and educational exploration,” is a program that some people thought might suffer when it moved online.  If, as some people believe, 90% of our communication is body language, how do you connect with BEST students online?  But challenging as losing that face to face contact is, Val notes that learning online helps students with those essential technical skills they need to hone and feel comfortable with, telling me about the wide ranging abilities of students of all ages going from zero to sixty learning the technology!  But with that wide range of abilities, and additional need for support that comes with learning online, Val says they could not have run the courses as successfully without their Instructional Assistants.  I wish all programs could have dedicated student support like this.

Val had some challenges getting started.  First, deciding on the right delivery mode(s) and finding a balance for the students.  “I wouldn’t want it completely asynchronous because I think we would lose that incredible community teamwork, celebratory human piece that is harder to build in a purely asynchronous course.  It can be done, but it’s not the same. So I think for this program, when you’re dealing with values, feelings, conflict resolution, communication strategies, active listening, it’s pretty nice to have the synchronous component.”  Second, learning the technology.  Val worked with a colleague to move the content of the courses into D2L, but learning to use the tools effectively was one of her challenges. And “most challenging was keeping students engaged. I think that was our biggest worry. But we (Val and her colleague) have been profoundly moved because there has been more engagement virtually, better attendance, than I have ever experienced in my time in this BEST program.”

As you have already seen, Val has seen many benefits moving BEST online.  She especially wanted me to include the benefits to the environment and mental health by not having to be face to face all the time. “We are not contributing to a carbon footprint, and while there’s a mental health need to connect, I feel that we’re reducing stress because instead of frenetically driving through traffic to get places, students get to share their space, their animals, etc. which seems to bring some comfort and reduce anxiety.”  To expand on this, Val says she has gotten to know her students in a different way.  Because they are all coming in to the synchronous sessions from their homes, they can, and are, sharing more of their lives with the classes.  One student played the piano for their class, others have shown their home renovation projects, or shared their artwork.  “Are these related to career in education? Absolutely. Because they’re presenting, they’re building confidence, they’re showcasing their transferable skills.”  And Val has to wonder if any of this would have happened in the face to face classroom.

What Val takes away from this entire experience is that “anything is possible.  BEST brings everyone from a Fulbright scholar, to a student upgrading to grade ten, to a mom who hasn’t left the home, to a gamer (we’re getting the gamers who won’t leave the house!) The diversity of students is incredible. My takeaways are dream the dream and we can do it.”  The online future is bright for BEST.  “We see opportunity to grow the program.  We’re bringing in guest speakers from Ottawa, from Toronto, even TV Ontario guests, people we never have been able to bring in face to face.”  The possibilities are endless.

Given BEST’s future goals, Val wants to find time to do more training, and would like to see CETL and the college bring faculty together from across the college, from experienced online instructors to novices, to share their experiences, their tips, and their virtual skills to build capacity and community.  “I think community-building happens when I get to work with somebody I’ve never met before, in Arts or in Child and Family, or an IA in engineering because I think there’s a richness in community building that we really need at the college.” And this is something I hope to find ways to support!

“I think we need to recognize that there has been a shift in the world, from the environmental piece to accessibility for an older population, to the fact that there’s already so much community online. But there’s a sweet spot somewhere between being online and communicating face-to-face too.  I think my final words to you is we absolutely need to continue to create diversity in learning options and join the virtual world with alacrity, care, quality, and the assurance that we’re also being supported.”