Tonight I needed to disconnect and get inspired. The Lilly Conference online 2021 session I watched is entitled “Student Experiences and Recommendations from Transitioning to Emergency Remote Instruction.” Melissa Hendrickson and Alyssa Degreenia are both from North Carolina State University. They discussed student experiences and identified student challenges to devise better strategies for online teaching. They conducted interviews with students from. the Agricultural Institute: 24 students, 18 continuing students and 6 first-year students. The types of instruction they used included synchronous live with attendance required, synchronous live with recordings, asynchronous… and the use of Zoom and TopHat. Student preferences were live classes and shorter digestible videos. Students liked working at their own time and pace through asynchronous sessions too. The researchers identified several themes. Flexibility was perceived as both a positive and a negative. While some students appreciated the flexibility and watching videos at their own pace, others thought the flexibility led to distractions and procrastination. Communication varied, with some instructors communicating more frequently than others. Responsiveness was also appreciated. Mental Health challenges played a larger role. Degreenia mentioned 1/3 of students in their study were overwhelmed the entire semester and minorities faced financial insecurities too. Technology barriers and internet access were issues for both students and instructors. Instructor suggestion themes centered around being caring and demonstrating interest impacted students positively while not responding had a negative impact. One suggestion was to start synchronously to “build the bridge between student and instructor.” Students in the study had strong opinions about poor delivery choices: long videos, long emails, and group projects (though they saw the benefits). Interestingly, the presenters mentioned that students were more open to group work if provided class time to work collaboratively. Some students reported learning soft skills such as taking initiative, improving communication, collaborating online, time management, and openness to change. Hendrickson mentioned that good teaching practices available in the literature and supported/encouraged by Quality Matters were validated: frequent or periodic communication, access to the instructor, communication of expectations, timely responses to student questions/inquiries/grading, demonstrating caring, and starting synchronous. The next strategies they shared were to chunk lessons, build interactivity, align learning components to course goals, offer multiple assessments with timely feedback, allocate class time for group work, and allow flexibility within a structure. They called this last suggestion “contained flexibility.” The presenters summarized their findings by sharing the suggestions below:
- starting synchrously before tranistioning to asynchronous
- student experiences and opinions validated research-based best online teaching practices
- stress and anxiety of the transition were pronounced
- a mix of delivery methods was preferable as long as they aligned with the needs of the course
These suggestions from the student perspective align with what Quality Matters recommends! The next session I watched was by Jingtian Li from the University of the Incarnate Word and entitled “Engage Art Students in a Full Online Course with Creative Tools.” Li teaching 3D animation and game design and has been teaching for six years. They are also working on an online MFA program that will be launched next year. Li asked: “what ensures a good online course?” and responded with three components: engagement, accessibility & accountability, and innovative structure. Li mentioned they have a forum in which different courses can post and share resources! Everyone can see each other’s work and other courses. What a great platform for sharing and learning! It is not behind a wall or within the Learning Management System. Li also has students post on a Padlet board and comment on each other’s posts. The example Li highlighted was the comparison of the before and after 3D images and the student comments. FlipGrid is another tool Li uses as part of homework in which students describe the techniques used by an artist and then comment on the work of others. Li also uses Discord to create servers, groups for classes, and even groups of TAs and faculty. What is really neat is that you can share multiple screens at once: ask an entire course to share screens. Li mentioned faculty conduct entire classes using Discord! Li then introduced MultiDraw to collaboratively draw. I can think of uses in several molecular biology lessons for this software. Some of these tools made me think about a question I have been asking today: how can we design courses that are LMS-agnostic?!
