As you may have noticed, I’ve been posting a few stories from faculty talking about their experiences of moving suddenly to online teaching back in March 2020.  But teaching online was not new and uncharted territory to all faculty teaching at Camosun.  Today I bring you some highlights from an interview I had with Rob, whose training company has partnered with Camosun for the past 10 years to deliver a Project Management Certificate program through Contract Training.  Rob has a degree in Adult Education, and is also a fellow instructional designer, and it was a lot of fun talking to him about his work as both an instructor and an ID. 

Rob and his instructors “teach everything from technical skills to interpersonal skills, to how to think at a strategic level,” and they teach using the full spectrum of modes, from fully in-person to fully online asynchronous, and everything in between.  Rob himself “started off designing and developing computer-based training, electronic performance support systems, and what we used to call web-based training back in 1994/5. My Master’s specialty was in online learning and performance, and I’ve also been designing and developing curriculum for online delivery for over 25 years.”  I found myself realizing that I have also been working in online learning design for the same amount of time as Rob, and we reflected on how much has changed since when we started this work back in the nineties. “It’s gone from very text-heavy, to some videos and audio, to full multimedia with the ability to focus more on tailoring the type of instruction to the knowledge or skill to be developed. We use video for more prescriptive processes and skills and reading to build a more fundamental knowledge base, all while using asynchronous approaches to provide flexibility in the delivery, and synchronous interaction to provide direct feedback to students. So, it’s a much more robust environment today compared to where we initially started.” 

I asked Rob what he thought of the concern cropping up since COVID forced almost all education online, that online learning is lesser quality than in person (which, as IDs, we had hoped had been put to rest years ago.)  He explained that we first need to move beyond our biases, that is “the propensity for adult learners to fall back into their historically established learning environment. Every term, I still have students telling me they prefer in-person learning, but then they tell me they had more interaction in our online environment than they have ever had in a classroom.”  Thinking about why that is, Rob reflected that “when they’re in the classroom, they’re not talking to other students, but are focused on the instructor-led approach that typifies many classrooms, and they often think that online learning is just watching videos and reading. What they don’t understand is the instructional design that’s associated with developing instructionally-sound curriculum.” Most information is out there on the Internet, but learning is not just about finding information. “What students don’t see is the preparation, activity design, testing, and modification that goes into building an engaging online course,” and our job as instructional designers is to help faculty understand how instructional designers, curriculum developers and technology support staff can help them create those courses (something we didn’t necessarily have time for when courses moved so suddenly online in 2020.) 

When talking a little bit about that design for engagement, Rob says “the first thing we do is establish contact with students. The moment we engage with them to keep them on track they realize that they are being supported, that their instructor is there to work with them, and that they are not just one of 500 students that the instructor doesn’t know. The second is to build in collaboration as one of the requirements and teach them why collaboration is important in the learning process, building it as a bonus for them so if they collaborate more, they will learn more.”  Remembering Rob’s earlier point, that adult learners tend to want to learn the way they have in the past, all this engagement and collaboration sometimes “requires a period of cultural change for them to feel like they’re being supported, to build up to an interactive dynamic between students and instructor.” And that’s where that huge investment in up-front work to contact students, to set expectations, to build collaboration, and to follow-up pays off: when students start to engage. 

I wanted to see if Rob had noticed an uptake in his online courses post-COVID and was a bit surprised when he said that while there was a jump in enrolment at the beginning of the pandemic, but “by September 2021, a year and a half in, we saw a substantial drop in enrolment.  While we are still studying why it happened, one of the things we identified through feedback was that people were tired of meeting and learning online,” something I am sure many people reading this can identify with. This past term, enrolments are back up, but Rob tells me he will “need a longer period of time to study if this fatigue might have an effect long-term.  I think it’s been beneficial for people to have had the experience through the pandemic of recognizing that it is possible to engage, to have interactivity, and to learn online.”  I know I hope faculty and students, once fatigue fades, will embrace more online teaching and learning now that they know what is possible. 

When I asked Rob about some of the rewards he’s experienced teaching online all these years, he says “I think it’s difficult to separate the rewards from teaching online from the rewards from teaching in general. From my perspective as an adult educator, it’s about helping adults learn. The reward I get from helping an adult learn, whether it’s online or in the classroom, is the emotional satisfaction of seeing someone develop a skill or knowledge, and to feel that tingle up the back of your neck when they get it. I think teaching online means that I’m able to help people that might not be able to access a course, because of timing or geography or personal situation. And I think the greatest reward is that online teaching broadens out accessibility to a subject that I’m passionate about.” 

In addition, Rob has heard from students that being able to work with people from all over the world through an online class is hugely beneficial and rewarding.  “Students have said that interacting with people who are completely outside their bubble has been very valuable to them because they never would’ve experienced the people that they’re interacting with outside their local area. It gives them access to a new perspective and the ability to share and learn from each other that they wouldn’t get in a traditional classroom.” Often as a result of that greater diversity, Rob says there is more interaction in the online classroom, “students are intermingling with people with whom they may never have spoken if they were in a classroom, because you tend to gravitate towards the person sitting next to you. But when you’re online, you can establish relationships with anybody and everybody because you have that flexibility.” 

I asked Rob what kind of advice he gives instructors teaching online for the first time, and he said “I want them reach out to the students more because I think one of the biggest challenges is that, while students have a reason for showing up at that course, they can also feel alone in the online environment. If instructors reach out to students and create a relationship with them, it’ll be better for the students because they’ll see there’s somebody there. It’s not just a computer teaching them, but there’s actually a flesh and blood person behind it.”  And in addition, Rob wants his instructors to see that teaching online does not have to be hard.  “Start by recording a question-and-answer session – that’s a learning opportunity.  Then when we use technology like collaborative document creation, that collaborative document can become instruction – that can become a reusable tool for future instruction. We might be building the plane while it flies, but that course material can be reused and improved.” There’s no need to be intimidated by online teaching if you keep it simple and build from there. And of course, find yourself an instructional designer!  “Just call us. Send an e-mail to us. We’re here!”  

Looking forward, Rob tells me that he “would like to see online learning become more integrated with the way people work through micro-learning and just-in-time learning; and there is an opportunity for the academy to provide a foundation for this learning; to constantly supplement it with online in-the-moment micro-learning performance support. I think this is where online learning needs to go, but I think we’re still a long way from that.”  There is so much information out there already, but how do students know what is accurate or useful? “I really think that our profession needs to evolve to provide both foundation and practicality, and practicality needs to be in the moment. For instance, even if all you want to do is build a schedule for a project, you have to understand concepts and other contextual knowledge which is the foundation that still needs to be structured as a comprehensive program. But then, in the moment, when you are ready to build that schedule, you should be able to access with a micro-learning tool immediately.” 

One final thought from Rob: “I think there will always be room for face-to-face, virtual instructor-led synchronous, and instructor-led asynchronous learning experiences. And after the past few years, maybe people can settle into their preferences and recognize the benefits of each.” 

Bev is a faculty member in Psychology at Camosun.  She started our conversation by telling me she and her department colleagues had been using D2L to support their students before March 2020. “D2L is a big part of reinforcing what is taught in the classroom: posting news items and lecture notes, and encouraging students to monitor their grades, assignments, etc.”  Even with this familiarity, “When we transitioned, the biggest challenge was trying to keep student course engagement and connection, especially students who find questioning and talking freely in-person challenging and now their faced with working completely online.” Bev was thankful she already had developed a good rapport with her students. She emailed students of concern, encouraging them to meet in course collaborate, and offered flexible office times for them to do so.

May was fast approaching, and since Bev would be teaching in May and June, she needed to find a way to get ready. When students registered, for May/June courses, they were registering for face-to-face delivery. “I didn’t have a ton of time to get ready. Fortunately, I relied heavily upon our instructional assistant in Psych who is well-versed in online delivery.”

In April, Bev surveyed students about their online experience, access to technology, and what their living situations were like to help her think about how to set up her course.  “One of the things I had to be mindful of was their home environments. Many of them were sharing, for example, a one-bedroom apartment with four or five other students.”  Knowing the challenges her students would be facing, she worked hard to build in engagement, utilizing the breakout rooms in Collaborate, for student-student interaction and she set up discussion posts for supporting peer connections. A three-hour scheduled face to face class was now a three hour collaborate session, using break out rooms. “Collaborate and breakout rooms were as a new to them as they were to me, so I continually asked for feedback on what was working and what wasn’t working for them.”

Bev was using the synchronous environment for discussion and elaboration, and D2L as delivery of information; by the end of spring semester, she found herself flipping her teaching.  “I realized toward the end of June that my role as an instructor had changed. I was not delivering the content as much as I was elaborating on the content, meeting with students, addressing their questions, and building on the content in a number of different modalities, while students were more in control of navigating the course content on their own.”  What Bev found most valuable that spring was working with her two colleagues who were also teaching then.  “We would meet regularly and brainstorm what was working. It really helped when I was feeling overwhelmed or challenged, and this networking with colleagues became as important to me as networking with my students.”

Bev told me that by the time fall rolled around, “I was feeling less overwhelmed and really inspired because I realized all that this online environment could do.” She polled her students again in June around how the delivery methods worked for them and “was surprised with the results. Even though they said they thought it was intense, they liked the week-to-week engagement.”  Now, Bev faced a new challenge for her fall interpersonal communication course with a lab component. Her challenge was how to incorporate the experiential learning piece, “a lot of the skill development requires sitting together face to face and practicing the skills. Skill demonstration by me in a face-to-face class was replaced with videos downloaded in Kaltura from YouTube, uploaded in course media, and embedded throughout the lecture modules.

Additionally, Bev had about 11 students registered with the Centre for Accessible learning with a variety of accommodation needs.  “I was trying to get my head around how the online delivery can support students in meeting some of the course objectives, while at the same time address a few unique accommodations.”  To help her navigate the wide world of online accommodations and accessibility, Bev reached out to instructional designer. “She helped me not only design the course, but she also implemented BBAlly, which measures level of accessibility. This accessibility report includes a course percentile score and graphs areas for improvement. For example, I use a lot of images in my teaching, and I had to go back now and describe the images, put captions in the videos, etc.”  This work was eye-opening for Bev, because it “made me realize how much I assume that students understand given instruction, in classes face-to-face. I went back to what I had already set up in my D2L course and integrated more instructions. For example, I would put assignment instructions not only in the assignment itself, but also in a number of pertinent places throughout the D2L course.”

During the fall 2020 and winter 2021, Bev found very few students, in her asynchronous course, attended virtual office hour.  “I wondered if they were overwhelmed with everyone still facing isolation. Given their need for socialization, and the extent this process was lacking, links to various support services were incorporated into my course outline and flexible office times increase my availability to students.”

In addition to these challenges around connection, Bev found many rewards through teaching online.  In particular, “I saw the lock down as an opportunity to focus on my own learning, and it was also a refresher from face to face – being able to look at what works in a face-to-face environment and try to incorporate that into the online environment.  An online environment offers so much more than I expected, beyond my expectations.”  In the end, Bev says that “there’s a fine line between being a learner and being a teacher. And for me, it’s a circular process.  I’m thankful to have had this opportunity, this challenge, and at this time in my career, to discover what technology can do. I’m thankful I feel more connected to students now than I did at the beginning of the pandemic.

As to what advice Bev has for new online instructors?  “Identify what’s important to you in your course, where your strengths lie as an instructor, then reach out to others when faced with challenges. Remember that you’re not alone: whatever challenge you think you’re facing, expertise is available, and you do not have to face the challenge alone.”

Moving forward, Bev says she is sold on online learning.  In fact, when she was back teaching in person last fall, Bev found herself, wondering: “can I do this again? Can I be in a face-to-face situation?  Can I be as strong as I felt on the online environment?” And she discovered the online and in-person teaching/learning works together to support students. “I keep things pretty much as they were in a completely online environment.  I use BBAlly to measure the accessibility piece, and I think supporting diverse learners in an online platform with this piece is what I’m really sold on.”

An example is the communication skills course taught, fall 2020, is kept fully online to reinforce the in-person delivery.  “I tell students that the course basically is in D2L. I will be demonstrating some skills in class, but everything’s in D2L. I outline the advantages of coming to class, and do not penalize them if they don’t show up – I’m not measuring them based on skill participation in class. In this way, the class environment enhances the online environment.  I no longer see me as the deliverer of content. I see myself as the manager of content, more importantly, the monitor of student progress and the supporter to students ‘academically.”

Bev ends by telling me that she thinks there will always be a place for in-person learning. “The human connection is the piece that we don’t get online, for that we need face-to-face. In terms of the instructional piece, I don’t think we can afford to only deliver content face-to-face. I think we’ll lose too many students. How we see learning ongoing needs to be outside the four walls of the classroom and outside a specific timeframe. Face-to-face to me is just one modality – it’s a very small piece.”

Kari is a faculty member in the English Department at Camosun College.  When the pandemic moved everyone online back in March 2020, Kari, who was teaching four in-person courses, says “at the beginning it was all panic and we just did what we could. But there one thing that happened despite that panic: we, in the English department, started supporting each other in amazing ways.” 

Finally, the winter term was over, and the summer term arrived.  While several English faculty members, including Kari, had scheduled development (SD) leave, there were three or four others who had to teach online with no prep time at all.  But they were not left to flounder on their own and their colleagues on SD stepped up to support them.  Kari related one example of that support: “Michael Stewart was teaching English 163, so I and two other members of the English department read and watched all the material in his class. Then Michael and the three of us created videos of us analyzing and discussing the course material, which Michael then posted on his D2L site for his students.” 

At one point as well, one of Kari’s colleagues sent out a cry for help asking for someone to co-create a lesson with her.  “So, three of us got together and created a lesson which I’m also using now because it is on a topic covered in multiple courses.”   But this co-creation of materials was not just a boon for faculty, but also useful from the student’s perspective.  “Because I’m still using some of those videos in my in-person class, using them as extension materials, students have the opportunity to watch experienced readers engaging in dialogue, building on each other’s ideas, disagreeing, and then finding understanding. We modelled discourse and disagreement, and how you can move through that to come to understanding, I think, from the student’s perspective, was really rich in building their understanding of these concepts.”  Another interesting outcome of this collaboration was that faculty members were essentially coming into each other’s classes reading each other’s course materials and discussing them, and Kari says she is grateful to have been a receiver as well as a giver within this context.  “On one hand, it’s important to have the academic freedom to do the things we want to do in our classes, but on the other hand, we don’t normally ever go into each other’s classes. We don’t ever see what other instructors are doing and seeing each other in action is a great way to learn.  This opportunity has helped us get a better sense of what other instructors do in their classes and how other they approach topics in our field.” 

One of the challenges Kari faced preparing for teaching online back in 2020 was that there is “a difference between taking an in-person class and throwing it online, and actually designing an online class, because it takes a long time to put together a well-conceived, well-supported online course.” And in addition to trying to create good online courses without adequate time, Kari told me that “the biggest challenge for me was not being able to put a face and personality to the students.”  To try and build some community, she set up online co-writing sessions with her students. “I said, I’m going to be online and I’m just going to do my thing, so you can come do your thing. Some of the students did come to those sessions which I think was valuable for all of us because I was able to interact with them directly.  It really brought home how much, for me, teaching is about interactions with people and watching them build community amongst themselves.” 

One lesson Kari has learned from moving courses online and working with students struggling during COVID-related stress and absences is that flexibility is important for both teaching and learning. As a result, she is now flipping her classes to leverage the best of both the online and in-person worlds.  “I’m saying to the students, all materials are online, and when you come to class, we’ll discuss the material and do writing exercises. Then when they do come to class, we are having great conversations, and doing in-class writing exercises and a lot of peer work because those are the things that you can’t do as effectively online.”  What Kari is also excited about is that flipping the class “gives students more autonomy. They can decide how much further they want to go with the material, if they want to learn more.”  And in addition, it opens the door for them to learn from others, including Kari’s colleagues.  “Often when students come into your classroom the only person they learn from is you, but this way they learn not only from you, but also from each other and from other instructors.” 

Kari has some advice for faculty moving to online teaching.  “First of all, ask for help. There is a lot of help available both institutionally, and within the department. And second, if you’re teaching online, keep it simple. Ask yourself what are the key things the students need? How can they achieve them? And finally, make sure to communicate with the students in whatever way you find most helpful.  What I do with my online students is I send a note on Fridays telling them what’s coming up the next week. And then on Monday I say, hey, welcome to this week.” 

Moving forward, Kari tells me “I feel like I would like to get better at figuring out what’s best online and what’s best in-person and taking advantage of both.” In addition, now that courses have moved back to a mostly pre-pandemic teaching mode, Kari and her colleagues are looking forward to building on the kind of collaboration that evolved over the past two years, creating course materials that can be used by many instructors. I know I am excited to see that, while the English department already had a strong culture of collaboration prior to COVID, it was further strengthened through the common goal of designing and sharing good online activities.