Author Archives: Janine Lim

Promising Partnerships: Connecting Student & Academic Affairs Support Services

I’m attending the IFWE 2016 conference in San Antonio, TX and live blogging sessions. This one is the last one I attended yesterday.

Presented by: Jessica Burchfield and Stephany Compton (Texas Woman’s University)

Description: As online and hybrid course offerings continue to rise, innovative solutions are needed to support college student persistence. This session will discuss how Texas Woman’s University is developing programs and increasing access for students through academic & student affairs collaborative programs and initiatives.

The Challenge

  • Students lack a feeling of connection to the university.
  • Students lack a feeling of value – how does this service or live connection impact me?
  • Students struggle with multiple roles and too much to do.

Strategies

  • eLounge: a live webinar time (using Blackboard Collaborate) for students to come and learn about different things – like graduation – the most popular topic for student to attend. Other topics include:
    • Financial aid
    • Budgeting / financial wellness
    • Volunteering
    • Student organizations
    • Non-traditional student resources
    • Commuter and parking tips
    • Scholarships for non-traditional students
    • Connecting through Facebook (connected faculty and staff through FB)
    • CARE office provides resources
    • Recorded elounges are on YouTube here
  • Honor Society – providing an online student society
    • recognition for academy rigor
    • Epsilon Omega Epsilon Online Student Honor Society (they are working on making this a national organization)
    • They have an online induction service via Blackboard Collaborate (family members are cheering on in the chat during the ceremony)
    • They did an overhaul of their online programs this fall to ensure that every program is very interactive and allows students to feel connected 
  • TWU Library Lib Guides
  • Services and staff available online
    • Guides, email, chat, texting, ask a librarian – people available
    • A wellness challenge for online students
  • Graduate Recruitment
    • One topic per email – targeted emails
  • “Pioneer Camp” online
    • It’s kind of the new student orientation – they offer it online as well – even for commuter students in on campus courses
    • Getting acclimated with the university; talking about TWU traditions; breakout sessions to talk to people in the same college/school; school spirit
    • Modules in a Blackboard course; but some live sessions too
    • Training on the LMS as well, but embedded into the activities learning about TWU and getting to know each other, talking about their fears of online learning, etc.
    • Co-curricular experiences
    • I’m thinking of how the concepts of the Jazz workshop could be applied to designing a really rich experience.
    • Adults at every level – doctoral, masters, undergrad, all participating in the same orientation.
    • Berkeley’s theme for their orientation is called Road to Success.
    • The orientation has sample courses as well so they can learn how this might works.
    • Another attendee includes “early access week” where the students have access to the courses a week ahead of time.
  • Smarter Measure – this tool helps students assess their skill level and readiness for online learning (they have volume discounts for students)

Tweeting Teachers and Pinterest Professors: Social Media Lessons from a Community of Educators as Learners

I’m attending the IFWE 2016 conference in San Antonio, TX and live blogging the sessions I’m attending.

Starting off today with a preconference session by Stephanie Thompson, PhD, Faculty and Course Lead who teaches for Kaplan University. Contributors for this session included Barbara Green, Teresa Marie Kelly, and Josef Vice, other Kaplan faculty.

Faculty Driven Learning Communities

The idea is that faculty can learn together online, because it might be hard to travel to attend conferences – and social media can be a way for doing that.

As we do introductions, I think it’s so interesting what makes people come to a session. I’m mostly interested in the social media side – but the faculty development / professional learning idea is really critical too – and I’m looking forward to seeing how social media can connect faculty for learning.  

This is a cool graphic shared from EdSurge Guides – to help focus on the idea of personalized learning / personal learning networks – driving your own learning. I am so fascinated by the change to self-driven learning – in the context of thinking about our self-paced courses – which often are looked at somewhat askance – but really, the Internet allows us to learn at our own time and with the people we choose. That’s a different type of learning!

Things to Learn About

One comparison that Stephanie is making is the difference between Career Development and Professional Development. That career development is more about learning how to climb the ladder – leadership training, learning how to be a department chair (thinking of CIC’s workshop on that), support for research publication. But professional development is more life long and focuses more on teaching. So what all do faculty need to learn about?

  • technology tools in teaching
  • more teaching strategies
  • providing quality feedback
  • using different resources like OER etc.
  • how to progress in their career
  • learning about advising
  • learning about supervising or leading others
  • building skills for ongoing learning
  • classroom management
  • data and assessment collection and evaluation
  • increasing content knowledge
  • tools for organizing and planning your career development
  • think about the next job you want – and then start your learning heading in that direction
  • how to build curriculum based on outcomes

Specific Strategies

These are specific professional development strategies that caught my attention…

  • Observing each other’s teaching – I love this idea. Thinking about how we could set that up so that our online faculty could observe each other’s teaching. What would it take to do that in a fully asychronous course? what kind of structures would help make that happen?
  • Requiring a certain number of hours of training – Kaplan requires 8 hours of training a year for their online faculty. What would it take to do this? Could we do it for all online faculty – both adjuncts and full time? Could it be framed to be received well?
  • Using Trello to plan career/professional development – using a tool to track your personal goals, resources, and accomplishments
  • Have an Appy Hour and have everyone connected share round robin all the different tools and resources they like and use – shared by Elaine Shuck

Forms of Professional Development

  • Open, user-generated content like blogs and wikis
  • Social networking tools like twitter, reddit, etc.; Google+ or Facebook group about a topic
  • Virtual communities – google groups etc
  • Webinars
  • Virtual conferences
  • MOOCs / open courses

Resources Shared

Places to keep learning – social media based professional development – webinars etc. – places to learn online…. These are shared by the presenter, Stephanie

Other resources and cool things shared throughout the session:

Main Takeaway

Social media and online resources allow anyone to organize, track, and design their own professional development and learning!

Disconnect and Battle Six Super Villains to Win Back Your Life

Tomorrow I’m presenting at the International Forum for Women in E-learning in San Antonio, TX with Elaine Shuck (Polycom), Amy Spath (Central New York Regional Information Center), and Roxanne Glaser (i2i Technologies and @superdoodlegirl).

This post contains the resources and websites we shared in our presentation.

Disconnect and Battle Six Super Villains to Win Back Your Life

Description: Are you trapped on the treadmill of not getting enough done? Feeling disconnected? Stressed? Join us as we discuss our battle with evil super villains: Dr. Distraction, Sir Sit-a-Lot, Captain Busyness, Ferocious Foodie, Guilty Girl, and Super-Yes-Woman. Learn how to tap into your superhero powers to recharge your work-life balance.

Disclaimer: This session is actually self-therapy or friend-therapy. We are just sharing what has worked for us. Some things are free, some are not; but almost all of them one or more of us loves.

Dr. Distraction

Fight with GOALS:

Sir-Sit-A-Lot

Captain Busyness

Ferocious Foodie

Guilty Girl

Super Yes Women

What’s Next? 

  • Find your tribe
  • Pick one thing

The Role of Social Media Tools in Higher Education

Today I presented for the faculty of Burman University in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada. This post has the accompanying resources for the social media session.

PowerPoint

Examples of Social Media Use

Other Social Media Ideas

Articles and Resources on Twitter in the Classroom

LMS vs. Social Media

Issues and Challenges

Additional Recommended Reading

Bonus Idea: COIL: Collaborative Online International Learning

Blended Learning and Flipped Classrooms: Practical Strategies and Ideas

Today I’m presenting for the faculty of Burman University in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada. This post has the accompanying resources.

Blended Learning PPT

Andrews Resources

Definitions

Video Resources

Open Courses and Resources

Recording and Hosting Videos

Assessments at the Door

Resources for Teaching, Active Learning, and Engagement

Accessibility

For Further Reading

Using Blogging to Contribute Expertise and Convey Credibility

Today I’m presenting a webinar for the United States Distance Learning Association National Distance Learning Week Webinar Series: Using Blogging to Contribute Expertise and Convey Credibility. This post shares the accompanying resources.

PowerPoint

My blogging history:

Tools for blogging:

Ideas for Blogging

Scheduling and Tracking Writing

Promoting and Learning

Thank you to USDLA for the great line-up of webinars for National Distance Learning Week!  the opportunity to present this session! Hope to see you, dear reader, at the following upcoming USDLA events:

Sharing a Biochemistry Class via Videoconference

This week ended a four-week intensive Biochemistry (MCAT prep) class that Dr. David Nowack, at Andrews University taught to Union College, one of our sister institutions and his alma mater. I thought it would be interesting to share some of the details and behind-the-scenes efforts it took to make this class a success! We started planning and preparing in December, and the class ran May 9 to June 3, 2016.

Teachers

The most important part of any instructional collaboration is the teachers! The two teachers at each institution knew each other already, and brainstormed this great idea of sharing a class together. They worked together to make it a success!

Live Videoconference

The first and most important technical piece of this collaboration was the tool used to connect the professor and class at Andrews to the class at Union. We thought about using Zoom, but we wanted to be able to have the option of camera presets afforded by room-based H.323 videoconferencing. Union had just acquired a new Polycom system, and we have a LifeSize system at Andrews. So we tested and decided that connecting the two was the best option. It worked well, as at our end, the teaching end, we could have presets on a document camera, the professor’s computer, and a variety of classroom and blackboard shots. Once set up, it was easy for Dr. Nowack to switch between the different views.

Technical staff at Andrews University (Dan Hamstra) and Union College (Richard Henriques, Michael Calkins) provided the regular support to ensure the videoconference worked well.

Content Sharing and Accessibility

Dr. Nowack’s PowerPoint as well as the view of the classroom or professor, were shared with Union via videoconference.

Chemistry PowerPoints are very intense a lot of detail. Students had the printed version in front of them, but another tool that helped immensely was using the accessibility feature of Windows to make the mouse pointer as huge as possible. This made it much easier for students at Union to see where Dr. Nowack was pointing.

Administrative Collaboration

After discussing several models with Dr. Alayne Thorpe, Dean of the Andrews University School of Distance Education and International Partnerships, it was decided the easiest way to make this collaboration work financially would be to have the Union students register at Union, and then to create a tuition sharing agreement between Andrews and Union. Support was needed at both locations, so the expenses and income were shared. Dr. Keith Mattingly, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Malcolm Russell, Vice President for Academic Administration at Union, provided additional support for the collaboration.

iClickers

In this content-heavy course, regular graded assessments keep students engaged and learning. At Andrews, chemistry majors buy their iClicker and use it often in their courses, as the department supports and encourages regular use by their faculty. iClickers are a great tool for a shared class, because the students at Andrews could use their clickers, and the students at Union could use the online version of iClickers. And all the students responses from both locations came into to the teacher’s computer and the collective results could be shown (or not) to the students.

Learning Management System

Another important piece of the puzzle was using Andrews’ learning management system, LearningHub (powered by Moodle). This involved several pieces:

  • An instructional designer at Andrews was assigned in January to provide course design and LearningHub support to Dr. Nowack as he prepared for the class.
  • The Friday before the class started, the Union registrar sent the students names and emails to our LearningHub support team, who created accounts in the course and emailed the Union students with their login information.
  • Handouts, reading guides, and student versions of the PowerPoints were shared in LearningHub. The student versions of the PowerPoints provided a note-taking guide for each chapter, and were provided ahead of time so students at both locations could print them ahead of time to be prepared for class.
  • LearningHub also hosted grades, including the grades synced from the iClickers using the integration between iClicker and LearningHub.

Reflection

It takes a team to make a collaboration successful! Both institutions need to be committed to supporting the creative collaboration desired by faculty. I look forward to supporting and encouraging future collaborations, both within the U.S. and internationally via COIL.

We the Kids: Constitution Day

PbWorks is cleaning house and deleting wikis, so I’m archiving one of my wikis here on my blog. This one was for a videoconference project.

We the Kids

In this pilot collaborative project, students will study the six phrases of the preamble and present non-linguistic representations to each other to explain the parts of the preamble. These materials were used for a TWICE We the Kids event on November 20, 2008.

Preparation Materials

Preparation Lesson Plan

  • Center for Civic Education Lesson plan along with lesson audio (mp3) and teacher audio (mp3) (or get the files directly here).This lesson explores some the ideas in the Preamble to the Constitution. Students learn the importance of the words, “We the People.” The lesson emphasizes that the power to govern belongs to the people who have created the government to protect their rights and promote their welfare. Students read the Preamble and develop definitions for the six key phrases in the document.

Preparing for the Videoconference

  • Within your classroom, have all the students illustrate the 6 key phrases/stanzas of the preamble with a nonlinguistic representation (drawing, graph, mind map, physical movement, skit, rap, etc – can be done with or without technology). You can do this in groups or individually as you see fit. See lesson plan above.
    • Nonlinguistic representation overview
  • Then choose the representations to present to the other class. Classroom A is assigned the odd numbered phrases; Classroom B is assigned the even numbered phrases as listed below.
  • Tips for Posters (from another project, but principles still apply). You don’t have to use posters, but if you do, consider those tips!

Six Phrases

  • Classroom A – Phrase 1: do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
  • Classroom B – Phrase 2: establish justice
  • Classroom A – Phrase 3: insure domestic tranquility
  • Classroom B – Phrase 4: provide for the common defense
  • Classroom A – Phrase 5: promote the general welfare
  • Classroom B – Phrase 6: secure the blessings of liberty

Videoconference Agenda

  • 5-10 min. Introductions from both classes – where are you, a bit about your school & area, etc.
  • 10-20 min. Exchange presentations on the phrases in order.
  • 5 min. Say/read the full preamble together. (enjoy the bit of the delay/echo of the other class saying it too!)
  • 5-10 min. Ask each other questions.

Highly Recommended Books

  • We the Kids
  • Order the free We the People (upper elementary) books. You have to order a free book and then after that you can get a classroom set. From the website: ” The Center for Civic Education provides a limited number of free sets of materials to teachers wishing to participate in the We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution program. Priority is given to teachers at any grade level who agree to hold a We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution culminating hearing.”

Other Recommended Books

Your students can make the playoffs by building professional digital footprints

I’m presenting this afternoon at the 2016 USDLA National Conference in St. Louis, MO.

Description: Students graduating from our institutions should have a professional digital presence on social media, as well as resumes. Learn about the continuing journey of a course taught face to face, blended, and fully online to undergraduates to assist them in presenting themselves professionally online and through social media.

PowerPoint: Digital Footprints

Links and Resources

Research Literature on COIL

I’ve just finished attending the 10th Anniversary COIL Conference for the first time. It made me very curious about the literature.

Several COIL leaders suggested that COIL needs a journal. Ethnographic research is needed for this type of activity, and right now the publications on this topic are in a variety of locations. The language exchanges are published in language journals; administrators publish in the international education journals. The educational technology / online learning journals / schools of education aren’t so interested in this type of work, and less likely to publish COIL related articles.

So, I decided to do a little hunting – a quick search. Here’s what I’ve found so far.

YouTube

Ok, I know YouTube isn’t literature, but there’s a nice collection of videos that could be shown to faculty to raise awareness of COIL. The student voices ones in particular would be great for inspiring faculty.

Keywords

People

It was clear from the conference that there are some key players in this field:

Your Turn

Faculty at the conference expressed concern on the lack of a consistent term to connect the research together. What and who did I miss? What would you add?