Drs. Kevin Kelly and Todd Zakrajsek were guests on the Tea for Teaching podcast. The discussed their new book entitled Advancing Online Teaching: Creating Equity-Based Digital Learning Environments, recently published by Stylus publishing. This one is on my reading list, and it was great to hear about it on a podcast I enjoy! The book focuses on “how universal design principles can be used to provide learning equity and human connections in our online classes”. I like the human connection statement and they mentioned this was intentional to remind us of the humans on the computers or devices taking our classes. Kelly and Zakrajsek have long careers promoting better pedagogical practices, and it was interesting to learn the history of this book project. The book took over two years and was mostly completed before the pandemic. As the authors mention, they tried to include numerous resources for online teaching to get people started and increase student access. Zakrajsek mentioned a new website they are launching with living resources and ongoing contributions to continue building on this and other books in this series. I want to check it out! Kelly mentioned the Peralta Equity Rubric that has become a project. The rubric helps instructors learn about their course and make online course experiences more equitable for all students. Kelly mentioned it is freely available on the Peralta website, and that they were working on other resources, including some available on Canvas Commons. I’ve looked into this rubric as I was working on redesigning two lab-based courses to be online last fall. Zakrajsek mentioned that in the book they devote some discussion to learning outcomes and learning objectives, mentioning a little about the history of the terms and their use. I’m always concerned I am using the wrong term, and I was glad to hear that the authors did the research and conclude both terms have similar goals and origins… and are now often used interchangeably. Zakrajsek also mentioned the myth that we teach like we were taught. They think that we often teach like we like to learn and that there is some evidence of this. Zakrajsek mentioned asking students who are doing very well in our course to learn if it is because we set up the course in a way that fits with how we/they learn best. Also, they emphasized that we should ask who is not being reached by the way we designed our course experience. The authors mentioned that often courses are set up for quick responding extroverts who don’t mind speaking up and getting it wrong to be the most active and succeed. I agree, and I have been trying to include opportunities to think before sharing or for all to contribute in a low-stakes discussion. I also feel the online asynchronous modality helps in some of these cases. Kelly mentioned incorporating UDL to help all by providing better access. I want to read their book now to see what other suggestions they have to help online teaching and learning for students and instructors.
