Teaching is Not for the Faint of Heart...and HyFlex Teaching in Particular

I saw this tweet this morning, and boy did this resonate... 

I don't think non-teachers understand what teaching remote and in-person simultaneously really entails.

How would you describe it, teacher friends? pic.twitter.com/yFRSAUTJxg

— Julie Jee 🇰🇷🇺🇲 (@mrsjjee) December 30, 2020

I've said to a few people that this past fall semester was the most demanding for me since my first year of teaching. Most of the challenge was that I have such high expectations for myself and my teaching practice...and I fell short of those expectations. 

A lot.

Here's the thing: the HyFlex model of teaching sounds great in theory. But it's really, really hard to do it well in practice. HyFlex is "hybrid flexible," and the basic idea is that students should be able to fully participate in class whether they attend in person or via distance learning. Early in my doctoral studies, we considered HyFlex as a pedagogical approach in a case study in one of my courses. One of the biggest problems we identified is the huge cognitive demand for instructors using this approach. You have to be able to teach students in the room and students joining via videoconference simultaneously, and either of these modes of teaching is already plenty demanding...let alone simultaneously! 

To do HyFlex teaching well, you basically have two demanding tasks--teaching face-to-face, and teaching via live videoconference. These require similar skillsets...but not identical skillsets. And the difficulty is that you have to do them both at the same time. It's a problem! And, I think that's why I felt like I was failing almost all of the time this fall: I couldn't focus on my normal face-to-face pedagogy, because I was constantly distracted by trying to keep my Zooming students involved in what was happening in class. But the Zoomers were always the minority (just my students who were in quarantine, most of the time) and if I focused on good distance pedagogy, everything felt lifeless in the room, where the majority of my students were. And here was the most-likely-to-fail point for me: I couldn't do either of these things well (or at least, not well enough to meet my own high expectations for my teaching), so I felt a constant sense of frustration that I wasn't doing enough to support at least one group of students' learning. But what made it most difficult for me was that I was also recording each lesson, because some students were not able to join the live class meeting via videoconference, particularly if they were sick. And while teaching is always a public endeavor (you're always doing it in front of someone, right?) having a video record of my work makes me much more self-conscious!

So, to answer the question prompted by the tweet I shared above, here's my best analogy... 

I can yo-yo pretty well. I was a pretty big nerd in middle school, and I yo-yoed a lot. I can do some fun tricks: walk the dog, loop the loop, around the world, and rock the cradle. Not the most impressive repertoire, but a variety of entertaining tools in my yo-yoing toolbox. 

I can also juggle fairly well--with three beanbags, if I have both hands available, or two beanbags, if I have just one hand available. I was still a pretty big nerd in high school, and taught myself to juggle one afternoon, just because I decided I wanted to learn how.

I also can balance a meter stick vertically on my foot for quite a long time. I was able to balance a meter stick on my hand for years and years...and early in my middle school teaching career, I realized I could also balance it on my foot, much to the delight of my students. (Middle school teachers, am I right?) :-)

Now, here's the thing: I think HyFlex teaching is sort of like yo-yoing with my right hand, while juggling two beanbags with my left hand, and balancing a meter stick on my right foot, all at the same time. It's keeping the face-to-face teaching going, while also getting the online teaching going, and then an awareness of the camera, and how this all looks to the students who are watching it after the fact. I might get the yo-yo going (in class students), and keep the beanbags flipping and flopping (Zooming students), but then I'm suddenly derailed by the meter stick dipping--maybe a tech problem with the camera--which has me dropping beanbags, or tangling my yo-yo string.

Ugh. It was an exhausting semester. 

But there were bright spots for me. My students were GREAT throughout--they were very encouraging, despite my feeling that I was failing. My colleagues were amazingly supportive in a "we're all in this together" sort of way. My fully online courses (the ones that were planned to be offered online) went really, really well, which was a buoy for sure.

I think the biggest lesson for me was that I have to be okay with letting "good enough" be "good enough" sometimes when it comes to my teaching practice. (This is HARD for me...) I will do what I can to support and encourage my students' learning, obviously, but I have to check my own expectations for teaching during a pandemic, I think. Sometimes I'm going to drop a beanbag, or get a knot in my yo-yo string, or trip over the meter stick I'm balancing. Who wouldn't flop sometimes, with all of that going on? 

Maybe it's more amazing how often it all worked than the 10% of the time that things went sideways? I guess the real take-away for me is what I always tell my students, future teachers that they are: if you ever stop learning, perhaps it's time to stop teaching?

Image by Gerd Altmann via Pixabay

Merry Christmas (And All That Stuff)

2020 has been weird, weird year. If you've spent any time at all on social media, I'm sure you've seen all the posts and tweets and reels and memes about how this year has been the absolute worst. And, yeah, I feel that too. It's been an emotionally taxing year for me in almost every way. And yet, there has been good, and beauty, and surprises.

In the month of December I've started several posts for the blog, and ended up discarding a couple of them, and saving a few as pieces of string I might unspool in a future post. But I didn't want to end the year on a down note...and most of the posts I had been writing were cynical or downright grumpy.

But, against all odds, I found some Christmas cheer this year.

My church has had rough times this year, but our traditional Christmas Eve service was exactly what I needed. Singing carols, celebrating communion, and a hope-filled message helped me reframe and remember just how much I love these people I worship with each Sunday.

Several of my family members have moved to the same small town where I live this year, which meant spending time with loved ones I don't typically get to see at Christmas. This was a joy!

I've made deliberate time to rest, to do unproductive things. This has been an exercise in intentionality, as I typically strive to be as productive as possible to feed my inner achiever. (Ah, the joys of being an Enneagram 3...) But over the past week or so, I've taken a lot more time to read for pleasure, to play games, to spend time with my wife and kids...and none of this is wasted.

Silly as it might sound, the hyped-up "Christmas Star" conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was a lovely reminder that the world is a wonderful place. The science teacher in me marveled at this celestial moment, and the child in me was reminded of just how much I love astronomy. (Seeing Halley's Comet in 1986 left an impression!)

I am seriously thinking about starting a podcast with a colleague in the coming year, and I've found joy in brainstorming about what this could look like. Working with colleagues who continually inspire me to sharpen up and keep learning has been--and continues to be--a tremendous blessing.

Even the blizzard we experienced in Northwest Iowa this past week was a surprise blessing. I have realized I feel disappointed now if we don't have snow at Christmas (which is a little weird for this former Californian!) and it was looking like it was going to be a brown Christmas for us this year...until we got six inches of snow chased by a ferocious wind two days before!

I'm generally a pretty positive person, but the stresses of this year have gotten me down. I suspect I'm not alone in this. 

But I hope that you, dear reader, were able to find joy in the midst of a hard year. I wish you a Merry Christmas; I hope you are able to experience a sense of hope, and peace, and joy, and love as we close out 2020.

From our mudroom letter board to you...

Thanksgiving Struggles

If you spend much time at all online, I'm confident you've seen the sentiment being shared about all of the awfulness of 2020. It's a fair complaint, I think. This year has been rough for many people in many ways. 

For me too, really. The year 2020 has been a tough one overall. 

Our family did not face the sort of economic pressures that many did, as our jobs are secure and we were often able to work from home as needed. But we have also been very aware of how we are spending money and wanting to be stewardly and frugal in a just-in-case sort of way. I recognize the privilege of this position, even as I write this. But it's still something I think about, and an added pressure.

Pandemic teaching has stretched me far out of my comfort zone; I think this has been my most difficult year of teaching (so far) since my first year. The spring emergency distance teaching adventure was stressful. This fall's revolving door of students in and out of quarantine has been stressful, not to mention dual-mode teaching with most of my students as "roomies" in our face-to-face class meeting and a handful of "zoomies" joining in via web conference. The emotional labor of teaching has never felt more palpable and demanding.

Likewise, our church has been in a very difficult spot with our pastor abruptly resigning this spring. I've been serving as an elder, so this has been an extra burden of congregational care for me. The challenges of dealing with pandemic decision-making related to how and when we should meet, which ministries we should try to continue in the short term, and how to keep encouraging faithful worship and discipleship have been taxing.

And then the political drama of 2020: ooof! With all the political polarization in the U.S. this year--and all of the related ridiculousness on social media--several formerly-close personal relationships have been strained, with some of them perhaps irretrievably damaged. (Time will tell, I guess?) More than this, the social distancing of pandemic quarantining has left me feeling more socially-isolated than normal in spite of spending even more time online than normal. And while I have a pretty strong introverted streak, this has left me craving more normal social interaction. I miss being able to go out regularly and easily. But I'm willing to make the sacrifices for communal good, and trying to protect the most vulnerable folks in our community as much as possible. That said...I will be happy to be done with masks!

And...having COVID-19 was no picnic either! Overall, I can't complain too much--my case was pretty mild, all things considered. But even though I've been over it for several weeks now, I still find myself tiring out easily. And I worry about the long-term effects that we don't yet know. How concerned should I be about a lingering cough, and a little tiredness?

All together, this has added up to an emotionally exhausting year. And we aren't even to the end of it yet!

This week was Thanksgiving. Honestly, I wasn't feeling very thankful coming into the week. It was a crazy busy week for me with preparing for completing our academic semester (after a short Thanksgiving break) online. I had a lot of extra meetings with students and colleagues on Monday-Wednesday. And along with this, my wife and I were preparing to lead worship at our church's Thanksgiving Eve evening service on Wednesday.

And that's where things came together for me. In our Thanksgiving Eve service, our guest pastor (Ben Wiersma, who is a gem) preached on 1 Chronicles 29:10-20. This passage is mostly a prayer of King David, in response to the generosity of the gifts people had given to build the Temple. But it's significant that David's prayer is mostly a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God and not about the things the people had, but about who God is. This really hit me...because so often Thanksgiving is about saying "thanks" for stuff. 

The song of response we sang was "Goodness of God" and it just hit me: this song might be my theme song for 2020. It helped me reframe (again!) that it's not about me. The chorus of this song goes like this:

And all my life You have been faithful 

And all my life You have been so, so good 

With every breath that I am able 

Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God

If you aren't familiar with the song, here's a recording by one of the Dordt worship teams from this past spring--this video was used at our livestreamed commencement ceremony earlier this year:

The combination of this message from Ben and this song has been such a great reset for me...and it's helping me get over myself a little bit. The song keeps running through my head, and I keep coming back to the message of who God is as something for which I can (and should) give thanks. 

Is this a panacea that has suddenly snapped me out of my 2020 funk? Nope. But it's helping me reframe, and find that there are many things I am actually thankful for.

I love my wife and kids, and while it was stressful for all of us to be together so much throughout the spring and summer, we had a lot of great times to make memories. I'm grateful that we largely grew closer together through this experience.

I love my work, and I am so, so grateful for the team of educators I get to teach alongside. Not to mention the incredible future teachers I have the opportunity to serve!

I love my church, and while it has been a rough year, I'm grateful to walk with these people, even through the hard times.

I love my extended family and friends, and I am truly grateful that we've been able to keep in touch via technology, even when we can't always meet up.

I love that my health has been good enough that I met my goal of biking 2000 miles this year. In fact, I've pedaled 2020 miles for 2020--and I'm grateful that my body is functioning well overall.

It has been easy for me to lose sight of things that are actually important and the places where I can--and should--be giving thanks. There have been struggles, real struggles this year. But I am also thankful in spite of the struggles. 

God has been good to me; His goodness is running after me.

Take My World Apart

I've been playing my guitar a lot more regularly at home lately. I'm not 100% sure what that's about. Often I gravitate toward playing when I'm feeling sad, or upset, or having other big feelings that I don't really want to talk about, and instead they come out through the strings of my guitar. Tonight I wasn't really feeling any big feelings, but I still headed to the basement and pulled out my guitar for a while to make some music. 

I know my limitations as a musician. I can play fine enough--particularly if I have the chords for a song--I can play pretty much anything, but it won't necessarily sound like it does on the radio. I mostly make a joyful noise, if you know what I mean.

I got my first guitar as a high schooler. I was 16, and I took lessons for a few months. I learned enough to get started, but I didn't exactly take to it immediately. But my guitar came with me to college, and I think that's where I really started to learn for real. I still have some chord sheets that I printed off from the On-Line Guitar Archive in the mid 1990s. (Ah, OLGA...I remember you when...) Maybe you can picture me with a mop of blonde hair (with a center part, because, you know, the mid 90s) and wearing flannel and jeans with holes in the knees, strumming away on my acoustic guitar in my apartment? I can admit now that I harbored some secret dream of being part of an acoustic alternative rock group--it was the age of MTV unplugged and all that, after all! But that's a late-adolescent imagination, I suppose.

Still, it's funny how the songs I played then are the ones I still know by heart. "Time" by Hootie and the Blowfish. "Run Around" by Blues Traveler. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something. "One Headlight" by The Wallflowers. "Untitled" by Collective Soul. "Walk on the Ocean" by Toad the Wet Sprocket. "All for You" by Sister Hazel. "The Freshman" by the Verve Pipe. "Lightning Crashes" by Live. (Oh, so many songs...) Some of these bands you might know...others probably not. But they left a mark on me, and they are still part of me.

And, of course, my favorite band of all from that era, Jars of Clay. Jars was my go-to Christian band for...well, honestly, for the past 25 years. As my taste in music has changed and expanded over the years, this is one band that stuck: I'm a forever-fan of these guys, and the way they take their faith so seriously, and the way it informs their musicianship. Their self-titled first album...I must have listened to that one a hundred times during the 1995-96 school year. And, here I am 25 years later... and I can still play many of those songs off the top of my head--by heart.

But it's interesting how we talk about "knowing songs by heart," isn't it? Somehow, these songs that I played so often in my apartment got deep inside of me, into...my heart?

And tonight, that's where I was, in the basement, strumming and singing. Like it was the spring of 1996...I was playing one of my very favorite Jars songs, "Worlds Apart." If you're not familiar with the song, I'd welcome you to take a listen:

I love these lyrics. I love the music of this one. The poetry of this song speaks to me.

And in this contemporary moment, where everyone--me too!--seems outraged about everything, maybe this is the prayer that I need to be praying again. (Maybe you too?)

I am the only one to blame for this 
Somehow it all ends up the same
Soaring on the wings of selfish pride
I flew too high and like Icarus
I collide

With a world I try so hard

To leave behind

To rid myself of all but love

To give and die

...

To love you, take my world apart
To need you, I am on my knees
To love you, take my world apart
To need you, broken on my knees 

All said and done I stand alone
Amongst the remains of life I should not own
It takes all I am to believe
In the mercy that covers me

Did you really have to die for me? 
All I am for all you are
Because what I need
And what I believe
Are worlds apart
And I pray 

To love you, take my world apart
To need you, I am on my knees 

To love you, take my world apart

To need you, broken on my knees 

...

Not out of any self-righteousness here...but I needed to sing this song tonight. I needed to pray these words tonight. I need to get over myself. I need to stop thinking so highly of myself, and my opinions, and my self-assumed rightness, as if I can look down my nose at people who think differently than I do, judging them as wrong, because I must be right.

Right now, I'm feeling that I need to humble myself a little bit. Try to be a little more like Jesus. Stop trying so hard to build my own kingdom, and care more about building His. 

Take my world apart.

Certainly this is not scripture...its poetry, music. 

Take my world apart. 

But I think this song captures the gospel.

Take my world apart.

Help me to care more about loving You, loving my neighbors, loving my fellow humans who are created in Your image, loving this world you have made.

Take my world apart, Jesus. 

And let me step more and more into Your world, Your kingdom, Your way of being.

Do the Next Right Thing

I am grateful that I have colleagues who check in on me regularly. My dear friend and colleague in the office next door asked me this morning how the weekend was, and I shared a few of the highs and lows. I'm feeling a lot of anxiety and concern for the church, and the world, and our fractured political climate in the US right now, but being able to share this with a friend who really listens sure helps. As we concluded our short conversation, he reminded me that sometimes we just need to "do the next right thing."

And so, I headed to my office and got on to the many tasks of the day...and I found a song from Frozen 2 running in my head...

And, perhaps strangely, I'm thinking about Psalm 119:105 right now:

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path.

I once heard a sermon where my pastor pointed out that the psalmist doesn't say God's word is a spotlight that makes every step on the path clear to us. It's a lamp, perhaps so dim that it only gives enough light for us to see our feet on a dark and unfamiliar path, enough light for us to take the next step on the journey. And that's what faith is about, I think. Not that we have every step of the journey plotted out, but that we have confidence that God goes with us on every step of the journey, and that He already knows the path ahead of us, and that's enough.

And I guess that's my reflection for today. Not the "gospel according to Disney," or anything like that. But when I feel like my world is too chaotic and out of control, I'll just take the next step in faith, make the next move that I can in harmony with the message of the gospel, ...and "do the next right thing," trusting that God goes with me, and that's enough for today. 

No Apologies for My Email

In the age of COVID-19, I'm struggling with keeping up with email. (I mean, I'm struggling with other things too, but this is one specific and tangible struggle.) I have some strategies that I use for managing my inbox, but they aren't always working these days. I'll share a few of my strategies here, but also a nugget of truth that I think I've finally settled on for not feeling guilty about struggling to keep up.

I rarely achieve inbox zero, but because I use my email inbox as a key part of my workflow, I do generally try to keep my inbox to fewer than 30 items whenever possible. I use folders to sort messages I need to hang on to--"department business," and "academic affairs," and "church stuff," and "IMPORTANT" are all folders I use regularly, in addition to a dedicated folder for each course I'm teaching. And I'm learning to delete with abandon--how did I get on so many mailing lists that are only tangentially related to me and my interests anyway? If it's not something I am going to need to keep, into the trash it goes. All of this helps remove the clutter.

I learned in grad school that I had to compartmentalize my day, or I would wind up ping-ponging back and forth between things and losing productive work time. One strategy I practiced then--and have recently reinstated--is closing my email for big chunks of the day. That little pinging email icon with the numerical counter of unread messages is designed to grab our attention. Closing the program and only opening it when I have the time to dedicate to answering messages helps manage this distraction.

My general rule is that I plan to respond to messages within 24 hours, and I almost always am able to do this. I will say that I prioritize: if it's a message from a current student or from a colleague about something time-sensitive, I do try to answer those ones as soon as possible. If it's from someone outside the institution, or something that is less time critical...I try to hold off on those ones if possible.

Setting up a few times a day to read and respond to email does help. One approach I've tried to practice in the past and still mostly successfully achieve is the 2-minute rule: when I'm "doing email," if I can respond to a message in less than 2 minutes, I will do it right now and not put it off until later. This helps free up space in the inbox, and thus in my mental workflow as well.

As useful as these strategies have been, however, I still am finding that I struggle to keep up with the email avalanche from time to time. There are still some messages that get lost in the shuffle, and then I find them days later--far longer than my normal 24-hour window. I hate this feeling, and my first impulse it to send an apologetic email in response.

But here's the nugget of truth, and the associated strategy I've been using lately. Instead of an "I am SO sorry...!" opening to my tardy email in response, I've changed up my language a bit. I am now starting those emails with, "Thanks for your patience with my slower-than-normal response." 

Because this is the truth: I think we are all up to our eyebrows in keeping up, and I am finding it relatively easy to extend grace to other people who don't get back to me as quickly as I would like...because I'm so grateful when they extend this grace to me as well. Opening with a "thanks!" message instead of an apology is my way of signaling this.

I hope that we all can normalize this. Certainly there is a sense of professionalism and responsibility in getting back to people as soon as possible. But in the age of COVID? Let's make it "no apologies needed."

Image by Stephen Phillips - Hostreviews.uk.com via Unsplash

Writing, Teaching, Thinking, Working

Thanks to the many of you, dear readers, who commented (via Twitter, Facebook, text, email, hallway conversation, or carrier pigeon) in response to my writing project here on the blog last month. (If you weren't reading along, no worries! I'm glad you're here now. If you want to take a look at that project, it was a series of posts offering tips for teaching at a distance. You can read the whole series here if you like: Distance Teaching Tips Series.) This is my 33rd post on the blog for 2020. 18 of those came last month, trying to get myself disciplined to write again. 

It's amazing to think about how this year has unfolded. 2020 has just been a tough year in so many ways. I thought that with the time at home on quarantine in the spring, I would have written a lot. I just didn't have it in me. It was hard work just to keep up with the teaching.

Then I thought I might do some more writing this summer. Nope--I was busy with teaching online in our Master of Ed program and doing some consulting work offering PD sessions to help K-12 teachers prepare for teaching at a distance this year.

And then came the end of summer, with the scramble to prepare for hy-flex teaching this fall. Oof. It's been demanding, friends, to say the least. Don't get me wrong...my students are amazing. My courses are going well. My colleagues are incredibly supportive. But I'm tired. all. the. time.

Teaching is hard work under the best of circumstances. I know none of my fellow educators are surprised to hear me say that. But I am often amazed at how non-educators think that our profession is some sort of walk in the park. And this year? The emotional work of teaching is all the more demanding. All the extra demands for...everything...just feels like a burden. I'm SO grateful for what I get to do, so I don't want this to sound like complaining. I'm not. But I'm acknowledging that this has been hard--really hard. And I know my students are feeling that way too; several have said as much. They are grateful to be here, they are glad to be on campus, making the efforts to do all the things that have to be different this year to make it happen. But several have named it: it's hard, and they are pining for the "normal."

I am too.

One of the joys in my work as a professor is that I am expected to think, and research, and write, in addition to my teaching. I love this stuff. But this year, the thinking, and researching, and writing feels sort of superfluous. Or at least, maybe it's less important than the teaching? I'm thinking a lot, of course. But so much of my thinking ends up circling back to thinking about my courses, about my students, about how to help them, and support them, and encourage them, and how to not get buried in the work.

Ah, the work. Working in academia is kind of weird. The work is almost all cognitive, and emotional. Teaching is such public work, but intensely personal as well. And as I'm thinking about what has just blurred out of my keyboard in the past 15 minutes here, maybe this is a great example of what I'm doing. I just had to get this feeling out of my head and heart in some way, and so the words spilled out into pixels here on the blog.

I guess I'll title this post something about writing, and teaching, and thinking, and working. This semester they all feel so interrelated--even more than normal.

I don't know if I'll even push this one on social media now that it's written. This one might actually just be for me.

When Are Those Assignments Due?

What time are assignments due for your class? Most learning management systems (LMSs) have a default time of midnight. But do assignments need to be submitted by midnight? Why is that the magic hour?

I'm on a mailing list from Faculty Focus, a resource for instructors in higher ed. Today's email had the subject "Cinderella Deadlines." I thought that was clever enough to click the link to this article: Cinderella Deadlines: Reconsidering Timelines for Student Work. It's good stuff, and it echoes much of what I do for my own courses, most of the time.

Why have assignments due at midnight? It's not like I'm sitting there waiting to get started on the grading at the stroke of 12, after all! So why not reimagine due dates a bit?

For my face-to-face courses (and the hybrid-flexible courses I'm teaching this semester) I set my assignments to be due by class time. If class starts at 9:25 a.m., assignments are due at 9:25, right? Makes sense.

So now I'm reflecting on my practices for online courses. I generally an approach more like the "due dates are arbitrary and give a nudge for the procrastinators" (like me.) What I mean by this is, I know often need a deadline as a student, or else the tyranny of the urgent means other things will crowd out the assignment in question. So I do have due dates...but I'm generally pretty easy on these. If a student doesn't have the work in at a particular time, does that mean they didn't learn the concepts?

I know, I know...work habits and all that business. Yes, there are external obligations and students do need to learn to comply with those obligations. But in all seriousness...most due dates are arbitrary and are set for the teacher's convenience. 

My encouragement: use due dates in your LMS to set deadlines...but be gracious. I suspect most of us would respond well to a little extra grace in our own lives, yeah? So as long as there isn't some compelling reason that a particular assignment must be submitted by 9:25 a.m. (or midnight?), maybe a little flexibility could be a blessing for a student in your life?

Image by Rishabh Agarwal via Unsplash

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Learning Targets to Guide Your Teaching

You've probably heard the old saying, "If you don't care where you're going, any road will get you there." I think there is a lesson for all who serve as teachers in this in terms of setting goals for what we want our students to learn: if we aren't clear about our goals...any road will get us there.

But most of the time we do have goals for what we intend our students to learn! And this the key idea for learning targets: a well-framed learning target will help keep you on track as a teacher, and will also give clarity for students, so they will know what we are learning, and why.

In their excellent book, Understanding by Design, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe describe an alignment process from learning targets to instructional methods to assessment vehicles. The big idea? Clear learning targets give clarity on how you will know if students understand (which informs your assessment vehicles), and knowing how you will know what students understand informs your instructional methods. Basically, learning targets are the key for everything else! Without clarity on what we are intending students will learn, how will we know if they have hit the target? How will we know what we should be focusing on in our teaching?

Image by Annie Sprat via Unsplash

Now, certainly clear learning targets are a benefit for all learning situations, not just distance learning! But in my experience clear communication is key to helping students manage the work of learning at a distance. Clear learning targets makes for clear communication about what they are learning, and why. So get in the habit of clearly explaining the target--why make students hurt themselves trying to figure out the main idea? It's much kinder of us to just tell them!

What makes for a strong learning target? You might use these principles to guide you...

Strong learning targets:

• Give a clear explanation of what students should know, understand, be able to do, feel, or believe.
• Are focused on what students do, not what instructors do. (Try starting them with, "I can...")
• Use action verbs to give direction for how students can provide evidence of their learning.
• Demonstrate awareness of both activity orientation and coverage orientation--the “twin sins" of design, as Wiggins & McTighe put it. (Walking that line of not just devolving into a series of activities that aren't connected to important learning and also not devolving into a series of topics to be "covered" with no time to actually understand them.)
• Ideally, allow for multiple pathways to mastery. (There might be multiple ways to learn something, and multiple ways to demonstrate that you've learned it!)

How to write a strong learning target? Here are a few examples to consider...

1. In a grammar lesson, perhaps the teacher has a learning target of, "Students will know how to identify the main idea in a paragraph." Now, this is an excellent skill that students should learn! But in light of the suggestions above, here is perhaps a stronger way of framing this learning target:

• I can summarize a paragraph’s main idea by writing one sentence in my own words.

2. In a history lesson, perhaps the teacher has a learning target of, "Students will read pages 125-128 of their history textbooks to learn about the causes of the American Civil War." Again, students should learn about the causes of the war, but this one perhaps leans into the sin of "coverage." A stronger way of framing this learning target:

• I can describe multiple sources of conflict that led to the start of the Civil War.

3. In a science lesson, perhaps the teacher has a learning target of, "Students will build a paper airplane that can stay in the air for at least five seconds." This is a very difficult task! Is this the real learning target--the building of the airplane? This is likely the sin of "activitymania." A stronger way to frame this target might be:

• I can describe my design process for creating a paper airplane that can stay in the air as long as possible.

These are just suggestions, of course, but I hope they illustrate the principles listed above. Will crafting a strong learning target suddenly make you into a master online teacher? Perhaps not...but it's a step worth taking!

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Instructional Videos: Chunking Content

I'm thinking today about how we can better convey content to our students in instructional videos we might create. I'm hoping that this brief post can summarize a few helpful ideas.

First off, we have to help our students out. We know the content--we're the experts in this stuff, and sometimes we forget that the material is almost always new for our students. I think this is especially true for concepts that we've taught many times; it's old hat for us...so we think students must already have a working familiarity with the ideas as well, yeah? (Or maybe that's just me? I do catch myself regularly so I don't fall into this trap!)

Here's the key idea I hope to convey: if you're going to create instructional videos, right-size your video-based instruction for what students need and help manage the cognitive load while also maintaining attention.

What I mean by that is, we have to be sure we aren't over-taxing students' working memory. The analogy I sometimes use is that working memory is like a glass, and new information to be learned is like water being poured in. The glass can only hold so much water, right? So you can keep pouring it in all you want, but the water will just start spilling over the sides of the glass. Only so much can fit in the glass at a time...and then we have to stop pouring to let students take a drink. :-)

Image by Wallace Chuck via Pexels.com

In the same way, we have to "measure" our instruction to not over-tax students' working memory. There is only so much they can handle at a time. So breaking up instruction into logical chunks is a promising practice to help students engage the new concepts, work with them to understanding, and actually learn the material being taught.

I have four principles I'd like to share that I think will help you to chunk content in useful ways for creating better instructional videos. These are my synthesis of some of the research I've read on creating "better" instructional videos, but the terminology is mine. I'll briefly explain each one here, and I'd love to hear your feedback on these in response.

Principle #1: The Alignment Principle

• The key question: What is your learning target?
• Take aim! Focus your video on ensuring students will understand the concept you are teaching...so they will be able to hit that target!

Principle #2: The Pragmatic Principle

• This sounds sassy, I know...but do you want your students to watch that video you create or not? Seriously, if you're going to take the time to create instructional media...we want to ensure that students will actually benefit by watching that video!
• Tight, focused videos are the rule. I encourage you to put a hard time limit of not more than six minutes. The longer the video, the less likely students are to actually watch it! Six minutes or less, they are likely to watch the whole thing.
• Six minutes might not sound like enough time, and it truly might not be enough time for you. Never fear! It's okay to make several videos! Just break up the longer instructional segment into logical chunks--find those logical breaking points in the flow--and record several shorter videos instead. String them together with some interstitial activities (e.g., reflection, answering a key question, etc.) to give students the opportunity to work with the ideas in your presentation.

Principle #3: The Attention Principle

• The human brain thrives on novelty. Consider ways you can work in something novel that will draw students in and capture their attention.
• Humor, surprise, and dramatic tension can all help keep students' attention focused.
• Stories are a great way to grab not just their heads, but also their hearts--think about ways to infuse a storyline into your lesson.

Principle #4: The Human Principle

• This might sound funny at first, but hear me out: I strongly encourage you to be a real person with your students in the videos you create. What I mean is it's often tempting to record and re-record videos over and over again. I understand this drive very well! I want to come off polished and professional too, and all those "umms" and "aaahhs" drive me batty.
• My encouragement: fight that instinct! Unless you go completely off the rails as you are recording your video, try to do it in just one take. (Okay, maybe two...because practice does help...) But think of it this way: when you present in a live setting, you only get one go at it, right? I understand the desire to have the recorded version come off more polished, because of the re-watchability. (Trust me, I get this!) But I think being a real person wins out overall.
• I encourage you to aim for authentic professionalism, not perfection. Isn't this the truth in all of the courses you teach? You want to be an authentic, real person to your students...and you want to convey yourself professionally. We aren't perfect. (Okay, at least I am not perfect.) :-) We should't pretend otherwise.

So that's my advice. I hope that you might find this valuable--and that your students will find this valuable as well!

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Taking Students Seriously

One of the things I've been really grappling with is how to take students seriously. Part of this is the fact that I'm teaching an online course right now for future middle school teachers. It focuses on how to teach young adolescents, with all of their wonderfully weird developmental changes. These changes impact the way we approach teaching young adolescents, obviously. And one of the things I've been trying to convey to these future teachers is that we need to take our students' needs seriously. Want to be an effective middle school teacher? You should know some things about how middle schoolers are developing--physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally, spiritually...all of it! And taking their needs seriously means giving them what they need to flourish in your class. Yes, they need academic input--that's what school is for! But if it's only academic, without accounting for their physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs...well, good luck to you in actually reaching and actually teaching those students!

And where my thinking is currently pointing? This approach of taking students seriously is probably true of every group of students! 

I'm mostly teaching undergraduates right now. They definitely have their own peculiar needs! And the graduate students I'm teaching have a different set of needs, because of their station in life and where thy are in their professional career.

Certainly this is not just true in a distance teaching situation, which is where I've been focusing my blogging this month. Obviously it matters in a face-to-face classroom as well! But I am thinking right now specifically about how to take students seriously when you aren't meeting up with them face-to-face. Here are a few ideas I've been trying in my own online teaching practice this semester:

• When I have synchronous meetings with students, I am trying to make sure to have an opening circle where we can just check in and see how everyone is doing. I don't compel students to share--this is at their level of comfort--but by making space where sharing about life beyond class is normalized, I think I'm taking students' needs seriously.
• I am using case studies and small group discussion extensively in one course. This allows for students to get to know a smaller group of their colleagues better (working in a small group) which will, I hope, build greater trust among them. The cases we are considering are "controversial" in the sense that they are designed to have multiple "right" answers, and I have some structures in place for the way I'm setting up the discussions to help students engage with each other around ideas. This means that even if they disagree with each other, they are disagreeing about content and not character. All of this to say, I think I'm taking students' social and emotional needs into account in the way I'm arranging for this learning experience to unfold.
• I am being even more flexible than normal with due dates. Let's be honest: most due dates are completely arbitrary and are about the instructor's convenience, rather than being driven by students' needs. I'm at a point in my teaching career that if a student reaches out and says, "I could use a little more time on this," I'm willing to extend the deadline with no questions asked. I know how much extra grace benefits me personally. I'm willing and ready to extend that extra grace to students as well.
• In my communication with students, I am checking my language to ensure I'm conveying confidence in their ability to learn, a sense of high expectations for the quality of work we will do together, and a clear message of support and encouragement from me--that I am for them and not against them. 
• I am intentionally looking for their input on how things are going in the courses they are taking with me. Soliciting feedback from students might not be a norm for you right now, but if you are open to hearing from students--and taking their comments about their experience in your class seriously!--you can learn a lot.

I hope that these suggestions give you some encouragement. What else are you doing to demonstrate that you are taking students seriously?

Image by Tim Gouw via Unsplash.

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Lecturing Online

Lecture is a staple teaching technique in higher education. All right, it's probably a staple teaching technique at every grade level. (Though in elementary grades we might prefer to call it "direct instruction" instead.) There is a time and a place for the teacher simply conveying the key concepts of the lesson to the students directly, and a lecture can be an efficient way to do this.

Image by Sergey Zolkin via Unsplash

The problem--for teaching online, anyway--is how we lecture. A live class meeting via webconference certainly can work for this. (Though I have a few reservations about this approach, and I encourage folks teaching at a distance to use webconferences judiciously.) Alternatively, a teacher might record the lecture ahead of time, and share the recording with students to view on their own time. As I generally am a proponent of asynchronous distance teaching (that is, not requiring students to all log in at the same time for class) you are probably not surprised to hear this! 

There are a few rules of thumb that you can use to make for a stronger pre-recorded lecture, however. Here are a couple of promising practices I would encourage you to consider:

• Using visuals is typically a good idea, but be thoughtful in the way you do this. I think many of us (okay...me...) use powerpoint to prop up possibly-shoddy instruction. I like HaikuDeck as a presentation tool because it helps me limit the amount of text I put on screen at any given time.
• If you are going to have text onscreen, don't just read it to your students. (Don't do this in a face-to-face lecture either, for that matter.) But do match your verbal presentation to the slides, if you're using slides! (We can't really focus on two different pieces of information simultaneously, so it's important that the auditory and visual messages match up.)
• Think about using a tool that allows you to show your face along with your visuals. This boosts social presence for you as a presenter--and can help students feel more connected to a real, caring human being who is presenting this lecture.
• I can't stress this one enough: Keep. It. Short. Seriously, some research I've read on this suggests that if the video is more than six minutes (SIX MINUTES!) in length, students won't watch it anyway--and then why are you creating the video?

Now you might be saying, "I can't give an entire lecture in just six minutes!" That might be true, but without live interaction with students asking questions, etc., you might be surprised how much more quickly you will present the material. Still, six minutes might be pushing it. So consider using chunking to help break up your longer lecture into shorter segments. As a benefit, I think it's easier to record several shorter videos and string them together instead of having to get it right in one long video: how stressful to be 20 minutes into recording a video lecture and then go completely off the rails! That takes some more editing to fix it, for sure. :-)

To chunk a lecture, think through the overall structure of the content. Where are the logical breaking points? See if you can split a 20 minute lecture into four 5-minute segments instead, and record them as separate videos. You can then put them into a playlist (I like YouTube playlists for this.) Or you might break it up something like this:

• Begin with an introduction video that sets the context for the lesson and prompts students to read something. (3 minutes)
• Go off and read the chapter/article/website/what-have-you. (As long as it takes them to read it.)
• Come back to a video in which you gloss over the main ideas and elucidate a few key ideas, giving examples to illustrate. End with 2 key questions that students should be able to answer. (5 minutes)
• Students write their responses to those 2 key questions. (5 minutes)
• Come back to a video in which you explain the answers to those two key questions, so they can check their understanding. (5 minutes)
• Use a video to introduce an assignment for synthesizing their learning. (2 minutes)
• Students do the synthesizing assignment. (As long as it takes them to complete.)
• Come back to a video in which you recap the key ideas from this lesson, and let them know when you'll have feedback for them on their work. (5 minutes)

While this is just a suggested lesson structure for an example, it might be something you could consider doing--or tweaking to make it work for you!

Here is an example of a playlist-based lecture I created some time ago to give advice on how to create better online discussions. It is a playlist of five shorter videos--it is about 15 minutes in total--that will automatically play one after the other. But the easy pause-ability of this approach makes it perhaps more appealing for students. Give it a watch, if you like:

The big take-away here, I hope is that you certainly can lecture, even in an asynchronous online course. But with a little extra planning and preparation, students will get the most out of this learning experience, which is what it's all about anyway!

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Offline Activities in Online Courses

One thing I've been thinking a lot about in this season of distance teaching is just how much screentime students of all ages are experiencing in their lives. I recognize that I spend a LOT of time in front of screens: I use a laptop for teaching, and preparing for class, and often for assessing my students' work (which they hand in digitally through our LMS.) I often have my smartphone in hand, and use this for both communication and distraction. I regularly find myself streaming something while exercising or relaxing. 

Online learners, by the nature of the work, often find themselves spending a lot of time in front of screens for their learning activities. I'm not apologizing for that, exactly...but I'm aware of it.

So I've been thinking about ways to get students away from screens too.

Certainly reading an actual book (like we did in the olden days of yore...and perhaps still do regularly?) is a good place to start, of course. Giving students a frame for their reading can be a promising practice. (As an aside...I think we can generally do a better job as educators in teaching students how to read different kinds of texts. I think many of us assume that students know how to read a textbook, but it's a different skill than reading a novel, for example. I digress...)

What else can students do offline? I'm thinking about ways to have students actually create physical things to demonstrate their learning, which they could submit via taking pictures, for example. Or maybe they could do physical things to learn concepts, and then share a photo or video to illustrate?

I don't have a lot of clear examples to share of this one, at least just yet...because this is a relatively new idea for me, and I don't have a lot of examples at the ready. But one I can share, though it's very context-specific for a course I taught during our emergency distance teaching adventure last spring...

I was teaching my Elementary and Middle School Science Methods course, which I've "always" taught as a face-to-face course on campus. It's typically a very hands-on course, where we do a lot of science together as a way of learning about how to teach science. When we pivoted to distance teaching, I had to re-imagine the course quite a bit to continue that hands-on learning experience. In the process of redeveloping the course, I gave students challenges to try, and then get photos or videos of their results.

For example, one challenge was "build a paper airplane that can stay in the air for at least 5 seconds." This is an almost impossible challenge--5 seconds is a really long time to keep a plane in the air! The point of this learning experience was NOT the actual plane flight. The point was to think like a scientist: to collect evidence, to make multiple attempts to solve the problem, to refine thinking through a process of design and iteration, and to practice intellectual honesty in reporting what we discovered. Students made an awful lot of paper airplanes, and had phenomenal stories to share about this learning opportunity.

But what did they need to be on their computers for in this lesson? Just 15-20 minutes of introduction...and then 15-20 minutes to share their results, and hear from their colleague's in their groups to find out what they tried and what they learned.

Getting students away from their screens might be just what they need to keep things fresh in their learning!

Image by NeONBRAND via Unsplash

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Office Hours at a Distance

In my experience teaching in higher ed, few students take me up on office hours. Partly I think this is due to my discipline (Education)--it's probably more likely that students in other disciplines like Engineering, or Math, or History might capitalize on the individualized learning opportunities provided through office hours. 

The basic intent of "office hours" is that I set aside a few dedicated blocks of time each week in which I am hanging around in my office, ready and willing to work with individual students on their questions and concerns about course material. But is this a waste of my time if no students show up? (I can say with confidence that it is never wasted time...I always have something else I can work on if no students show up.)

One thing I've tried recently is rebranding office hours as "student hours." By explaining it to students as "I'm here for you, students, and I'm always glad to meet up with you," it seems like I've had a slight upswing in the number of students who drop by. But overall, it's still a small number.

I have a couple of colleagues who have taken a different approach: they encourage their students to just sign up for a time slot to connect. Some are using youcanbookme.com, and others are using the Bookings tool within Office 365--both work great for this sort of thing. You can designate available hours for students, and they can sign up for a time as needed. This eliminates that "sitting around and waiting for students to show up" (I joke...I'm never just sitting around!) because students are deliberately adding a calendar item for themselves and their professor in question.

And this kind of approach works pretty well for both face-to-face and online student hours: you can schedule a Zoom or Microsoft Teams meeting really easily this way too.

But how about for fully online courses? Honestly, in the almost 10 years I've been teaching online, I think I've had three (three!) students show up for a webconference meeting during my scheduled office hours. That seems like a pretty demoralizingly small number doesn't it?

But one of my professors-turned-professional-colleagues, Patrick Lowenthal, gave me an interesting idea. Patrick suggested that maybe office hours needs to be rebranded: "office hours" doesn't sound like something many students would want to attend. And perhaps even "student hours" doesn't work well for this. In one course I took with Patrick in my doctoral studies, he hosted "happy hour" (no drinks required) as an interactive online learning experience. We had "warmly-welcomed-but-not-required" webconferences several times during the semester--basically online office hours. But here's the thing: most students in the course attended. We wanted to be there! 

And so I've taken this approach into my own distance teaching repertoire now. I regularly now hold warmly-welcomed-but-not-required synchronous meetings for most online courses I teach. (This might sound like it's flying in the face of my last post, which argued for asynchronous learning, but I think this is an example of using webconferences judiciously.)

Here are a few tips for how I manage these meetings, which might give you some ideas of how you might incorporate these into your own online teaching:

• I explain the purpose of these meetings as clearly as I can: they are an opportunity to get clarity on key topics for the course, to ask questions about assignments and course content, and to build up our community of learning.
• I limit the meetings to not more than one hour. (This is key! Zoom fatigue is real...)
• I try to always have a brief agenda. My typical agenda looks something like this:
• Check-in/opening circle - how are things going?
• A brief lesson/update/further explanation of a key idea from class
• Questions and answers - about assignments, course content, etc.
• Closing encouragement - previewing assignments to come, giving group feedback, etc.
• Depending what is going on in the course at a given time, I sometimes invite students to share their work-in-progress for informal feedbacking from the learning community. This has been a mixed-bag for me; sometimes it goes really well, sometimes less well. I think that if I were to do this again in the future, I would have some clearer protocols in place for how we share and how we provide feedback. 
• Students are not required to attend these meetings, but I do want to provide equitable learning opportunities for all students in the course. In this light, I always record these live sessions and share the video with the students so they can catch up on what we talked about.
• Depending on the course and the group, I might have these kinds of synchronous sessions on a weekly basis (more common during the compressed summer term, where students appreciate the condensed support of a one-hour weekly meeting) or scattered throughout the term every few weeks (more common during a fall or spring term, where it might be more difficult to get everyone together regularly.) I don't think there is one right way to do this, and I'm continuing to experiment with what works well for this approach to "office hours at a distance."

In my end-of-the-term feedback surveys, I usually include some sort of item along the lines of, "What aspects of the course really helped you learn?" Many students specifically name these synchronous meetings as a key part of supporting their learning. While many students express their appreciation for the asynchronous structure of the course overall, they see the value in these optional live meetings for the efficiency, the immediacy, and the opportunities to develop relationships with their professor and their colleagues.

A screengrab from a meeting with some of my grad students this past summer.
(They really are the best!)

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Use Webconferences Judiciously

Overall, I strongly prefer designing my online courses as asynchronous learning experiences. What I mean by "asynchronous" is that students typically do not have to be online at the same time as me--or their colleagues--to engage in learning experiences for the course. While there are benefits for synchronous learning activities (i.e., webconferences such as Zoom meetings,) I believe the benefits for asynchronous learning outweigh these, at least in most instances.

First off, let's talk about time zones. Many of the courses I teach online are in our Master of Education program. I often have students in multiple time zones--often across North America, but increasingly around the globe. (In one course I taught recently, I had students in the US, Canada, Liberia, South Africa, Indonesia, China, and South Korea.) From a purely pragmatic perspective, it's hard to find a good time to have everyone meet up when your students are spread out this way! 

There are ways to address this, of course:

• You could just have one meeting, and record the video for students who are in a time zone where they are likely to be sleeping while you're meeting. I don't like this approach, because it sort of defeats the purpose of a live meeting, if students are only going to watch a video of it after the fact.
• To address that weakness, you could rotate the time of the meeting, so different students would miss the live meeting each time. I would not prefer this approach, personally, because many students are busy people with many other competing interests in their lives. Having a regularly scheduled time to meet so they can plan on it helps make it more likely that they would be able to plan to be there.
• Alternatively, you could plan for multiple meetings held at different times, so everyone could attend a live class meeting. This is great for your students...but less great for you as the instructor, having to manage multiple class meetings. Also, it's a bummer that all of your students can't actually connect and be together at the same time in this way.

Next thing to consider: is a live class meeting really the best way to convey what you want students to learn? Sometimes it is, obviously. Other times, there are equally effective ways--or even more effective ways to help students learn the content than requiring them to all be interacting at the same time. And, let's be honest, is the most important thing about a face-to-face course the fact that you're breathing the same air? I suggest that it's often about efficiency and immediacy. It's much more efficient to have a class with many people attending at the same time. And there is definitely an importance to students getting your input and feedback immediately, which meeting at the same time can obviously facilitate. 

So...what I'm saying is this: it's not that you should never have a synchronous class meeting via web conference. Rather, you should use these kinds of webconferences judiciously. Is there a need for efficiency and immediacy? It might make sense to have a live meeting in this case. But is it more important that students take their time with reading, reflection, writing, creating, etc.? In that case, an asynchronous class might be the better option.

And it's not as if students can't or won't interact with you and each other asynchronously! I've previously written about why I view online discussion forums a power tool for online teaching, and I shared some tips for how to foster authentic conversation those online discussions. In future posts I'll give a few more ideas of alternatives to the synchronous web conference, but for now I'll just say that it's worth asking the question about whether a synchronous web conference is the right pedagogical move for what you're trying to accomplish. 

Image by Chris Montgomery via Unsplash 

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Soliciting Feedback

All right, friends...it's time to have a hard conversation. Some of us are concerned about what students think of our classes, and of our teaching. Some of us worry about whether students are learning. Some of us even think about whether there are things we should perhaps change about our teaching practices to ensure students are learning.

I hope that my slight tongue-in-cheek tone is coming through: I actually think it's really important to understand what students think about our teaching. In some sense, they are the best equipped to give us feedback on our teaching, because they are the ones it directly impacts, and they are the ones who are there on a day-to-day basis experiencing our teaching! True, they might not be experts in our content in the same way that we are...but they do have a lot of experience as learners. 

So...why not ask them to share their experiences as students in your class?

(Okay, that last question was rhetorical...but check your own mental answer to that question. If you don't want to ask them to share their experiences...why is that? Is it because you don't actually want to hear the answer to the question? If so...I hope this nudges a little introspection for you.)

Going back to my early years as a middle school science teacher around 2001, I have regularly solicited feedback from my students. I have learned a lot about myself as a teacher, just by asking students for their insights, and this is true of all the different age groups I've asked: middle schoolers, undergrads, grad students, and teachers in professional development sessions I've led. I try to frame it this way for them: "You are uniquely qualified to share things with me about your experience as a learner in this class, because you are a learner in this class. I want to get better as a teacher, and you sharing about your experience as a learner helps me reflect on what I should keep doing, and think about things I should perhaps stop doing as well."

But here's the thing: if you're going to ask for feedback, you have to be willing to do two things:

1. You have to be willing to hear the good stuff, the not-so-good stuff, and the ambivalent stuff. (You'll almost always get some of each of these, if you ask.)
2. You have to be willing to at least consider the feedback you're soliciting as information about things you should perhaps change about your teaching. (And this might take some thick skin.)

I do like what this models for students though. I regularly give students feedback on their work, and expect them to make changes based on my comments and critique. Asking students for their feedback on my work and being willing to consider making changes makes for a healthy, reciprocally-respectful environment, I think.

So in that light, here are a couple of things I do in my online courses to solicit feedback:

• I typically make the feedbacking opportunities anonymous so students will feel more okay with telling me the "bad stuff" especially. We have to recognize that there is a power difference between students and teachers that will always exist, though it can be minimized in some ways. Some students will never offer critique if they feel it could come back to hurt them in the end.
• That said, I often do invite students to share their names if they feel comfortable doing so. It is rare that I have students take me up on this--I've found it most common among grad students, then middle school students, and then undergrad students--but when they do, I always find it impressive that they are willing to stand by their words.
• I like online surveys (I typically use Google Forms) to collect their feedback. They are easy to build, easy to share, and easy to explore the resulting data.
• A friendly reminder: survey fatigue is a real thing, and so asking students to complete multiple surveys should be carefully considered!
• I typically ask for feedback around 3-4 weeks into the term (so we are far enough in to a course that they have a sense of what the course is like, but still early enough for me to make changes if warranted.) I also always ask for feedback at the end of the course. Other than this, I very selectively survey students based on specific things I'm changing or trying. For example, if I try something wildly different in the way I'm facilitating a discussion, or if I create a brand new assignment, I might really benefit from hearing students' thoughts on how it went so I can make adjustments for the future.

Here's an example survey I use in my Teaching and Learning with Technology course that I teach at the graduate level. I usually send it to student 4 weeks into the term to get a sense of how the course is working: EDUC 508 Feedback Survey. It includes several course-specific questions, but you'll notice that many of the questions are more general-purpose questions that help me understand how students are perceiving the course.

Another approach I really like that I've used several times is "2 Questions, 2 Minutes." My colleague, Tim Van Soelen, mentioned this one to me a year or so ago, and I've found it to be a can't-miss approach for getting feedback from students. How does it work? I build a Google Form that has just two questions, and I tell students that it should only take them two minutes. (And I usually get about 90% participation this way!) The two questions? Here you go:

• "What should I keep doing that is helping you learn?"
• "What should I STOP doing that is not helping you learn?"

Two simple questions that get right to the heart of the issue! And then...plenty of food for thought about what I should keep doing...and stop doing.

I hope you'll take this encouragement to ask your students about their experience in your class. It can be uncomfortable to humble ourselves to actually ask how we're doing. However, if we're serious about continuing to get better as instructors, I think it's worth asking!

Image by Jon Tyson (modified) via Unsplash

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Social Presence: Being Yourself on Video

I use a lot of video when I'm teaching online. Most of these are short videos that I record on my phone and then upload to YouTube with little to no editing at all. I might trim off the beginning and end of the clip, but that's about it.

Sometimes I stumble over my words. Sometimes I umm and ahhh my way through. But I try not to re-record if I can possibly help it. I figure that in my face-to-face courses I don't get a do-over, and those students get to see me in all of my Porky Pig blathering...so my online students should get the same opportunity. :-) 

Yes, there is the concern that video is a record of my errors, and so there is a little more pressure to get it right the first time. And I should note that I do sometimes trash the video and re-record it if it goes horribly off the rails. But I figure that being a real human being in my videos is more valuable than a slick, over-produced video clip. Video is a great way to infuse more social presence into your online course, that sense of "how 'real' the other person feels to you when communicating online" that I've been talking about in the last few posts on the ol' blog. (See my posts on names, photos, and language usage for more ideas.)

A couple of tips for recording better videos:

• I do usually write a script. Often it's just bullet points, but I do try to think through what I'm going to say before I start the recording.
• I definitely try to keep these videos short. This makes it much more likely that students will actually view them! My general rule of thumb is to try to keep them to 2-3 minutes with a hard upper-limit of not more than 6 minutes. If I need more time than that for a given video, I find the logical breaking points and record multiple shorter videos instead.
• I am mindful of my background. Often I record videos in my office, but I try to use different views. Sometimes I set my phone on my bookshelf, sometimes on the table by the window looking back towards my desk, sometimes on the stool in the middle of the room so I can sit in my overstuffed chair. Closing the blinds if they are behind me is a good idea. Opening the blinds if they are in front of me is also a good idea.
• I try to have a solid place to set my phone when I'm shooting video so I don't make my viewers feel seasick. I picked up a tiny little tripod for my phone for $5 at Walmart. This makes for a more stable shot.
• On the other hand, I sometimes just take my phone in hand and record myself while walking around on campus. This gives a sense of "place" that is bigger than just my office. It takes a little practice to walk around and keep my phone stable, but it probably helps that I have ridiculously long arms, so the focal length from my face to the camera is a bit longer. :-)
• Try to look exactly at the camera when you are talking, but don't just stare. It often helps me to picture a particular student on the other side of the camera, and imagine that I'm talking right to that person as an individual. This helps me to keep "eye contact" without getting creepy about it. It also warms up the way I talk instead of feeling robotic.

Video updates to the class, video explanations of assignments, and even video feedback can be great ways to share with students in your own voice and letting them see your face. I highly recommend that you give this approach a whirl in your own class!

Image by Julia M. Cameron via Pexels

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)

Social Presence: Watch Your Words

I'm sure it has never happened to you, but I have accidentally offended people via email. It wasn't necessarily the words I used...it was the way I said it. Communicating only via text can be a little tricky, because so much of the non-verbal subtext that we also use to convey meaning gets stripped away. Sometimes we wind up sounding angry (or angrier?) than we might mean to. Sometimes we might sound vacuous or silly. Sometimes we might come across flat, even when we are actually enthusiastic.

We have to watch our words when communicating online...but also how we say them!

In my last few posts I've been talking about social presence in online communication as "how 'real' the other person feels to you when communicating online." (Check out my posts on names and photos for more.) But even in a text-only environment--without graphics and videos and other richer media--you can definitely convey a sense of yourself as a real person. So let's think through a few ideas for how to do this...

I love Brené Brown's adage that "clear is kind." I think that this is a helpful rule for communicating online, but we don't have to be cold to be clear. I try to use a warm, conversational tone in my assignment descriptions as much as possible. Compare these two descriptions:

• You will write a philosophy paper that explains your current philosophy of education, including your view of the purpose of school, the role of the student, the role of the teacher, the purpose of the curriculum, and your approach to classroom management. Your paper will be at least 4 but not more than six pages in length, and you must follow the conventions of standard written English according to APA style.
• In this assignment, I invite you to reflect on your beliefs and how you put them into practice. Write a paper of about five pages to share your current philosophy of education. I want to see your ideas about the purpose of school, the role of the student, the role of the teacher, the purpose of the curriculum, and your approach to classroom management. While I will assess your paper for content, I expect that you'll put your best writing on display, following the conventions of standard written English. As a friendly reminder, in the field of Education we use APA style, and there is an APA reference guide linked below.

How do these feel? The first version is precise, but I think it feels cold and a little uncaring. The second version still conveys the expectations, but in (I hope) a way that feels warmer and more invitational and supportive.

I think using "I" language or "we" language instead of "you" language can really help with conveying care to students. I would encourage you to do this too!

Exclamation points can be an important part of communicating online to show a bit more emotion in your writing. It's certainly possible to overdo this(!!!) but it can help. I also think using italics, underlining, and bold can help to infuse a little more "voice into your writing. I try to avoid ALL CAPS WHENEVER POSSIBLE, because this--by convention--is the equivalent of shouting online. (My mom has a Facebook friend who always types in all caps...and I laugh because this friend actually does have a very loud voice, and it just seems to be her online, text-based communication matching her actual speaking voice.) :-)

And...silly as it might sound...think about using emojis in your writing. Including those little smiley faces like the one I added at the end of the last paragraph can actually make a difference. They help convey a sense of tone that may or may not come through in the words alone.

These are admittedly small things that you can do, but cumulatively they demonstrate more of the idea that you are a real, whole person on the other side of your computer connection. Modeling this sort of use of language for students--and even pointing it out to them!--might be a promising practice for humanizing your online communication. 

Image by Juliana Romão via Unsplash

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)