Teaching Jam Sessions

"When you produce something with another person that is truly creative, it's one of the most powerful forms of bonding there is." - Stephen Covey, foreword to Crucial Conversations 

One of the most rewarding dimensions of my professional life is collaboration. I've collaborated frequently as an author (including a co-edited column on professional writing with Jonathan Bush that included a piece about teaching collaborative writing). I've also enjoyed scholarly collaborations with others beyond my campus--including a long-term teacher-research and writing partnership with Jim Fredricksen. (We share some of our thoughts on academic partnerships in Collaboration: Talk. Trust. Write, which we co-authored with several others who have their own collaborative partnerships.)

While collaboration with friends and colleagues beyond my campus has been integral to my professional life, I have rarely had the opportunity to collaborate in teaching with faculty here at Dordt College. Until this year.

Every week this summer, I had the joy of co-planning a faculty workshop with colleagues. Those of you who have led faculty workshops may be shaking your head in disbelief (joy and workshop planning in the same sentence?!), but hear me out. What contributes to the joy in these collaborations?

Productive Pressure Points

(1) Attendance at these faculty workshops is voluntary, and I've found that the voluntary attendance policy makes it relatively easy for me to convince others to collaborate with me in planning and leading the workshops--and helps us to plan better together. My colleagues accept my invitation knowing that if we plan a good session, faculty will be interested and appreciative. But we don't want to don't want to disappoint those who show up, so there's still pressure....but it's positive peer pressure. That knowledge helps us to keep focused on designing workshop sessions that are useful, smart, and engaging. The situation calls for us to bring our best game to our co-planning while also thinking deliberately about how to help others enjoy the session we are planning. Something about that goal brings out the fun in the collaborative process--and I suspect it's because we're involved together in what Donald Murray famously described as the "hard fun" of writing. We are challenged, we're "in the zone" with our thinking, and we have confidence that together we can figure out an effective and enjoyable plan of action.

(2) Each week, I invite as co-leaders a different group of 2-3 faculty who I know to have some expertise and experience in the topic for the upcoming workshop. The faculty I co-lead with are doing this on a voluntary basis as well, and because we are in this together, we become peer mentors to each other as we plan and teach together. I know that I learn from them, and I've found each of these colleagues also to be receptive to what I bring. Most of us haven't worked together before, and yet there is always synergy when people are sharing strong ideas, asking questions, and working together to design a workshop that will put us all in the spotlight. Working with teacher leaders and learning how they think is like having backstage passes to do a jam session with rockstar professors. Author Peter Bregman said it well: "Solving problems with other people is more fun than solving them alone." As he explains in his chapter "The Nintendo Wii Solution" building the fun of collaboration into our work makes us more productive and effective, because we're more likely to do the work--and do it well--when it's fun.

What About You?

Happily for me, my teaching collaborations will continue into this academic year as we keep the momentum moving forward with the Pedagogy Perspectives workshops. How about you? How often do you get to talk with peers about their best teaching ideas, where they came from, how they use them, and how they've adapted them over time? How often do you get to do this through the process of creating something together? Treat yourself:  you can create opportunities to co-teach with others--even if you only get to work together for a class period or two. Your thinking and teaching will be richer for it, and I'm betting you'll start to think creatively about other ways to collaborate, too.

Teaching with all your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength (In memory of Dr. Bill Vande Kopple)

I don't want to write this blog. Somehow, writing makes it undeniably real: Dr. Bill Vande Kopple passed away yesterday. He was my teacher for only one short semester, but that figure doesn't do justice to the impact he had on me. He was my methods professor and the supervisor for my student teaching, but he continued to teach me long after he turned in his grades at the end of the term.

The lesson that affected me most deeply was one that he taught simply by being himself. During my years as a beginning high school teacher, Prof. Vande Kopple would occasionally drop by to see what was happening in my classroom. He didn't make appointments. Instead, when he was "in the neighborhood" and had a few extra minutes (at least that was what he claimed!), he would stop in unannounced.

This generosity with his time was an incredible gift to me, and it's one that I've thought of often since I've moved away. He was a mentor: genuinely interested in what was happening between me and my students, and after he'd watched a bit and paused to ask how things were going, he freely shared stories from his own teaching. He had a way of asking the one question that would help me see a problem for myself ("What makes that angle of analyzing the poem worth 20 minutes?"). And like a gem hunter, he saw what was worth keeping and helped me to grab and polish it. ("You see how well they work in groups? That's something! What if you turned more of the work over to them?")

I am sure that Prof. Vande Kopple made these same kinds of stops, told the same kinds of stories, and gave the same types of encouragement in classrooms of beginning teachers all around West Michigan. He loved working with new teachers. His drop-in visits were something to look forward to: they were his way of saying that he cared, that he had confidence that he'd see something worth watching, that he believed I had what it took to keep learning and keep teaching. Those visits helped to build my skills and confidence as a beginning English teacher in more ways than I can count.

Fast forward. I followed in Dr. Vande Kopple's footsteps, and for about a decade, I've had the privilege of serving as an English teacher educator. Yesterday, I met with a recent grad from our program at Dordt College. She shows a great deal of promise, and that time with her was a joy. I saw the spark catch in her eyes when I asked a question, saw the satisfaction in her smile when I named back to her a great idea shining out from her notes, heard the excitement in her voice as she thought aloud about how she might polish that idea and make it sparkle. It was a visit modeled after the conversations that Prof. Vande Kopple had with me.

Thank you, Professor Vande Kopple, for teaching with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. I'm thankful for the time you gave, for the lessons you taught, for the legacy you've left that reaches miles and generations beyond your classroom. You will be missed.

The "It" Factor

Community building has been on my mind this week. As one of the few outside guests in another institution's  online seminar for faculty learning to teach online, I've been grateful to be included. During this week's module, we've been discussing what the "it" is that can draw a group of strangers together into true community.

Is there something essential about face-to-face connections for building a community of learners? My experiences with another online group focused on learning teaching confirm for me that face-to-face meetings aren't essential to building community. (However, I learned in that group and again in this summer's seminar that building community in an online-only environment can bring extra challenges.)

If being face to face isn't "it," what is? Is it time? Can a community be built in 6 short weeks? Well, yes--or at least the start of a community. As I can testify from experience, the National Writing Project's Summer Institutes have an amazing track record for developing communities of writing teachers. Long after their initial summer experiences together, these teachers continue to support one another and work collaboratively in their growth as writers and writing teachers.

If location and duration aren't the key, it must be something else. I keep coming back to shared commitments, practices, and language. And I can't stop thinking about Wenger's work on communities of practice--communities that emerge through mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. I suspect that a thoughtful review of Wenger could help me a great deal as I think about designing significant learning experiences that inspire learners to commit whole-heartedly to building something meaningful together.....whether those experiences happen online or elsewhere. I hope to re-read soon!

I've relied on a quick nod to Wenger to help me define community. I appreciate the way that his ideas and language resonate with scholarship in my field as well as with my work in the context of a faith-based college where we are intentional about helping students to live and learn together in Christian community.

But I'm always interested to hear other perspectives. Who/what do you read, watch, or listen to when you want help thinking more deeply about community?

BYOD....T? (Bring Your Own Device Technician?)

My adventures in online learning continue. This week, I've been asked to revisit some programs that I've used previously (VoiceThread, Jing) and to check out a few others that I've heard of before (Audacity--which I haven't used because I have a digital recorder) as well as to try one that's new to me (Voki, an avatar creator).

I'm auditing my course as a guest from another institution, and the hardware that I'm using differs from that used by most students in the course. The technical questions I have aren't the kind I'd want to ask my instructor, as they are questions specific to my device. What to do?

When I asked a colleague of mine about this, he shared that in his online teaching, he rolls out the welcome mat for technical questions--but he also advises students to find someone local who can look over their shoulders at their devices when they run stuck. In so many words, he suggests that when they bring their own device, they also ensure that they also "bring" their own technician.

My colleague doesn't require students to make these kinds of arrangements for local technical support, and I can assure you that he isn't trying to push them away. (He really does love to help others solve technical mysteries, and he's a great teacher!)

Rather, he knows that for most of us, it's really challenging to learn a new technology and new content at the same time. Learning a new digital technology means learning a new language--a new set of codes, symbols, and actions--and doing that while learning the practices of a discipline (diction, theories, practices, resources) takes a lot of "extraneous cognitive load" (Clark, Nguyen, & Sweller, 2006). He also knows that many students may be shy about asking an instructor for help--regardless of how much they need it.

I like my colleague's advice to his students: it makes sense when I think about it through the lens of my experience. We have excellent technical support on our campus, and I've been able to take advantage of that in-person help to improve my online learning experience. For me, it's been great to know that I can work through learning the big ideas of the online class -- with the assurance that help is just a drop-in visit away when my computer and I need some help getting along.

But what about students who aren't well connected with someone whom they can easily (and comfortably) access for in-person help? No instructor can expect to offer remote technical support for every technical problem that a diverse array of students (with their diverse array of devices!) will bring to a given course. Given that reality, it strikes me that an institution offering an online course

1. Is responsible to notify students in advance about the technologies that they'll need to use, and at what level of proficiency. 
2. Would be wise to provide students with advance online access to tutorials for the technologies that they'll need to use. 

This two-pronged approach allows students to make informed choices about their readiness for a course--and if they determine they aren't yet ready, it may also allow them to get ready (time and other resources permitting).

Kudos to the instructor for my seminar, who shared this kind of information in advance through the syllabus and also advised us to download programs and apps in advance. The goal, I think, is to help our students prepare in advance for installation and configuration--so that when they come to class, they can focus on application.

Truancy and Dropping Out

For the first time in my life, I can identify a bit with students who skip out--and perhaps even with those who eventually drop out. Two modules of my online seminar flew by without me in the past two weeks, and now I'm behind. Catching up is going to be tough, and a little part of me wonders if I'll be able to do it. I briefly wondered whether I should even try.....but here I am.

My truancy wasn't anything out of the ordinary: a vacation that I'd scheduled long ago (looooong before I had the opportunity to enroll in the seminar) made it tough to do my homework. Access to the right technologies was one problem--the little tablet I had along made the type of homework I had to do an inconvenience. But there was also another important issue: priorities. Doing homework on vacation would have felt more like work than vacation, and it would have taken me away from the time with family that all of us needed after an unusually hectic year.

It seems that I'm not alone. Stanford-Bowers' study on persistence in online education concludes that for students, convenience and flexibility are major factors in their decision to enroll in online courses--and that "when course requirements and activities tend to conflict with convenience and flexibility, students tend to neglect or leave the courses" (2008, p. 48).

What can we do about it? I'm not sure. But I can tell you a little about why I'm back and chipping away at my catch-up work.

1. Community. I have a few classmates who I know well and helped to persuade to take this seminar, and I want to jump back into working on this together with them and make sure that I make good on my commitments. 
2. Personal goals: I want to know more about how to teach online, and I believe that finishing the required experiences in the seminar will be valuable to that end. 

Perhaps those motivators can be instructive to us as we design and teach online courses.

• Community. If my students disappear for a time, I may need to reach out to them personally to help them reconnect with our community--and while an email might do the trick, picking up the phone might feel more real and therefore more motivating. Perhaps classmates who know the student well can also reach out. 
• Personal goals. Helping my students to identify how the course helps them meet personal goals--and giving them opportunities to revoice this along the way--may help to reinforce the value of the experience.
• Valuable experiences. The value I see in the seminar I'm taking goes far beyond a certificate or grade at the end of the road. (In fact, I'm not sure that we get either one in the end!) I've already seen that this course is designed as a series of significant learning experiences, and I want the benefit of those experiences. 
• Flexibility. My instructor let me know that I'd be able to rejoin and pick up where I left off when I returned. This small move was significant in it's own way. 

Here I am....back "on course" and ready to keep learning.

First Day Jitters

I should have written about my first-day jitters before I got through the first module of the online seminar I'm taking....but my worry about the "first day" got in the way of my blogging about the first day. The irony isn't lost on me.

The first day is past, but even a week later, I still feel the need to think about how it felt. I was nervous like a 9th grader before the first day of high school. What if I couldn't find my class? I worried about other things, too, but as the start date grew closer, that question was the pressing one. I suddenly understood the questions that my office has gotten from high school students taking an online dual enrollment course through our college. "When do we start? Where do we go to start? What do we do?" I knew the "door" was somewhere in my computer, and I did find it without much trouble after I read the syllabus. But I'm a person who's "done school" for almost for ever, and I can imagine that a high school or college student new to an online class wouldn't necessarily look to the syllabus for instructions about where to start.

The first-day email from my instructor helped to affirm that I was in the right place and started off on the right tasks. It makes me think about a chain of communications that might be helpful to online students. For starters: an initial email that confirms their registration and gives them a short list of three steps:

1. Read the attached syllabus.
2. Mark these important dates on their calendars.
3. Buy these books or materials.
4. Watch for another email on [date] explaining next steps. 

About a week before class starts, another email might be in order to direct students to the "doorway" for the class and tell them when and where to be there. A link to an introductory video of the instructor might also be nice at that point--I know that I appreciated that welcome from our instructor. 

A first-day email sent from the instructor (like the one I received) would be a great way to affirm that yes, "we" are moving ahead together today, and that the instructor will be there to answer questions and help us know we are headed in the right direction. My instructor gave prompt feedback on the first assignment. This was really important for assuring me that I was on the right track....and that we are working together as student and teacher, not as learner and computer. 

Message in a Bottle....Why I'm Blogging

I'm doing one of the things that I love best: writing....and writing about learning / teaching. I'm also doing my homework: I started bloggin as one of the requirements for a 6-week online seminar I'm taking about teaching online and hybrid courses. I hope to keep the blog going beyond the seminar, but we'll see. In the meantime, I'll use this space to think aloud about the experiences of being a student and being a teacher in an online course....which is to say that I'm blogging about being a learner.

I've done this kind of reflection before, and I'm glad to have a nudge to do it again. A few years ago, I decided to journal for 5 minutes a day each time that I worked on an article that I was writing. I journaled straight through from the start through submitting the piece to an editor, and it was a telling snapshot of challenges and rollercoaster of emotions that a writer can face.

I kept the journal because....

• I wanted my students to read it--to get a sense that the challenges they faced as teacher-writers weren't unique. I wanted them to understand that their questions were the questions of good writers--and that they had what it would take to get through the challenges of their own writing. 
• I wanted to model some things for my students: to give them a window into how I thought about and dealt with those challenges, as well as to show them what I would be looking for in their own journals about writing. 
• I wanted to write to my future self. When students in my class were stumped, or frustrated, or surprised, or elated, I wanted to be there with them and understand their experience....and how I might be most helpful to them.

My hope is that by sharing some of my thinking here about learning/teaching, I'll help other learners (whether students or teachers) who are interested in the same kinds of experiences and questions that I'm working through. In a way, this blog will be a message in a bottle....and I expect that when I'm teaching online / hybrid courses of my own--or helping other professors through the online teaching adventure--that I'll come back to find these notes to help me anticipate and understand what they may be thinking, doing, feeling, and wondering.