Category: Collaborator

Establish productive relationships with educators in order to improve instructional practice and learning outcomes.

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What if Professional Development Could Be…Fun!?

As has been oft-discussed on this blog, as well as among communities of teachers since time immemorial, professional development (PD) activities are quite frequently dull, irrelevant, time-consuming, and centered around a single expert delivering one-size-fits-all content to a group of workshop attendees.  This is not an effective approach to adult learning (or any learning, really), and it’s a poor approach to facilitating meaningful professional development. Higher education instructor Melissa Nicolas (2019) offers some particularly painful examples of poor PD from her own experience, which many educators can probably identify with: 

  • A three-hour lecture on active learning. 
  • An hourlong lecture on how ineffective lecturing is 
  • A session on student engagement citing the fact that most people only retain the first 10 minutes and last 10 minutes of any lecture, delivered via a 60-minute lecture.  
  • A town hall meeting that left precisely two minutes for questions. 
  • A workshop that began with, “Everything I am about to share is in X document, so you can just read that.” 

Unfortunately, I would guess that almost all professionals who have engaged in PD, not just teachers, can recall examples of their own underwhelming, ineffective, and passive PD experiences.  While instructors at all levels are asked to promote and prioritize social-emotional learning for their students, it is less common for schools to simultaneously invest in fostering a dynamic, supportive staff environment that cultivates the social and emotional competence and capacity of their teachers (CASEL, 2022). 

Imagine a world where professionals are actually excited to participate in PD activities.  Imagine a world where instructors feel like PD truly supports their cultural and social-emotional learning needs while simultaneously helping them do their jobs better… 

https://blog.vantagecircle.com/fun-at-work/

I daresay it’s possible.  Thus, in this investigation I’d like to take a moment to explore the lighter side of PD and highlight a few great ideas for making PD fun (that’s right…fun) and engaging for educators in all contexts. 

For starters, if a PD initiative is going to be meaningful to the participants, they must have the opportunity to interact with one another and collaborate on authentic, relevant, problem-based activities (Teräs & Kartoğlu, 2017).  This means that formal presentations (i.e. lectures) should occupy the smallest portion of time in a PD workshop, and student-centered activities should occupy the largest.  If this is the starting place for any kind of PD initiative, there’s no need for a workshop coordinator to feel like they need to prepare anything flashy to ‘wow’ their attendees and trick them into thinking they’re having fun; prioritizing time for engagement and collaboration is the first and most important step.  From there, the rest might be icing on the cake.   

You’d like some recipe ideas for the icing, you say?  Well allow me to share a few tips and tools which promote collaborative, active learning for adults which could potentially ‘ice’ your PD ‘cake’ beautifully. 

Introduction/Icebreaker Activities 

All good lesson plans have an initial entry point—a hook—that helps students engage with prior learning, share background knowledge, establish social presence, and generally get curious about the content.  Adult learning is no different. Why not try incorporating some of these ideas from Ditch That Texbook (2019) to kick off your next PD gathering? 

  1. Digital Escape Rooms – Digital escape rooms get participants collaborating immediately over a shared problem/objective in a fun way.  The escape room theme can be tied into the learning objectives for the PD, or it can be a stand-alone activity which serves as an example of something to try with students. Here is a link to some free digital escape rooms to offer some initial inspiration. 
  1. Use Flipgrid for Short Intro Videos – either some or all PD event attendees can be tapped to create short intro videos which help them introduce themselves to their colleagues. Videos can be shared to the whole group or in small groups.  Fun prompts for what to share about (e.g. a hobby or a fun fact) can help colleagues connect with each other in new ways and engage on a social-emotional level. 
  1. Use a Google Jamboard, Kahoot, Quizizz, Gimkit, Quizlet, etc. – have participants immediately engaging in a session with a starter quiz, poll, or brainstorm board based on an opening question or theme.  This helps activate prior knowledge, but it also serves as an opportunity for instructors to engage with a tool they may want to use in their classrooms. 

Gamification 

Custom-made Jeopardy games have been used as learning activities in K-12 classrooms for decades, and I’m here to say that they still hold up. When I was a 5th grade classroom teacher (not all that long ago), Jeopardy review day was a hallowed day…even for kids who had never seen an episode of the actual gameshow.  Likewise, I still remember playing Jeopardy when I was a student in my 6th grade social studies classroom many years ago (and our whole class loved it).  This is the power of gamification as a tool for learning.  Of course, kids aren’t the only ones who enjoy games. 

“…adults love to be playful, take risks, and experiment with new ideas just as much as children do.”

(Schmidt, 2015)

So why not gamify PD for adult learners? 

Carl Hooker (2015) offers an example of PD gamification through Interactive Learning Challenges (ILCs).  At its core, an ILC “…starts with the concepts of collaborative problem-solving and interactive creativity and adds an element of competition to learning.” An ILC can take place over the course of several days or in one hour, and it can be done with a relatively small group of people or a very large group of several hundred.  The challenges themselves can take many different forms, but Hooker (2015) describes one particularly successful activity, a scavenger hunt, which he facilitated in place of of a keynote address during a PD event.  In this ILC, the goal was to help a large group of educators better leverage iPad and App use in their classrooms.  He created a custom scavenger hunt activity in which educators worked in groups to complete challenges related to the learning objective.  “I had the entire group line up and self-identify who was the most or least tech-savvy. After that, I paired and grouped the staff to ensure that each team of four included at least one ‘high tech’ person. The way I designed the challenges, every team member had to…participate in the creation of the final product, regardless of tech skills” (Hooker, 2015).  

After the activity, participants noted that they loved being engaged with the actual tools they were meant to be using, they valued learning from/with their peers, they felt empowered to try new things in a safe, collaborative space (especially those who identified as least tech-savvy), and…drumroll please…they had fun! 

https://sse.tulane.edu/k12-stem/teacher-pd/summer-pd

Other ILC examples might include gameshow-style formats (Family Feud, Amazing Race, trivia, etc), or perhaps a STEM-style design challenge in which participants work in groups to build or create a final product given a clear goal and building constraints (Ditch That Textbook, 2019).  These are, once again, activities which educators may choose to replicate or adapt for their own classroom environments.  

Also, offering prizes never hurts… 

EdCamps 

Finally, another option for creating an engaging PD experience is trying an EdCamp format. An EdCamp is an informal, peer-led, collaborative workshop (held either face-to-face or virtually) where educators gather to share stories, experiences, lesson plans, resources, and new ideas with each other, often around a shared theme or learning objective (Schmidt, 2015). EdCamps are usually grassroots “non-conferences” in that there typically isn’t any kind of registration fee, vendors, or keynote speakers; they’re open to everyone, they’re often hosted locally, and sessions are usually led by volunteers (also workshop attendees) who are homegrown experts in their particular fields of interest (Schmidt, 2015).  In other words, at an EdCamp, everyone has something to share, and everyone has something to learn.   

EdCamps are a way for educators to take ownership in their own learning and simultaneously participate in something immediately relevant to their professional needs/interests.  EdCamps honor the rich reservoir of background experiences and professional expertise that all adult learners bring to the table, which is key to effective adult learning.  EdCamps help support and expand professional learning networks/communities and provide ‘playful’ learning environments where adult learners can take risks and experiment with new tools and ideas (Schmidt, 2015). No two EdCamps look alike, and there are endless possibilities for how to structure or format an EdCamp, making them particularly accessible, affordable, and customizable options for PD initiatives, no matter what the theme or learning objective(s) might be. 

Conclusion 

In short, in order to make PD ‘fun’ and engaging, coordinators should look to prioritize time for participant interaction, collaboration on problem-based activities, and opportunities to establish social presence.  There are a variety of ways to do this, and introducing games or an EdCamp format are just a couple of options.  No artificial gimmicks needed in order for PD to be fun, just an opportunity for professionals to learn from and with each other in a space that encourages exploration and experimentation….and did I mention that prizes never hurt? 

References: 

CASEL Guide to Schoolwide SEL (2022, March 1). Strengthen Adult SEL. CASEL. https://schoolguide.casel.org/focus-area-2/overview/ 

Ditch That Textbook (2019, August 16). 12 Engaging Activities to Rock Your Back-to-School PD. Ditch That Textbook. https://ditchthattextbook.com/12-engaging-activities-to-rock-your-back-to-school-pd/ 

Hooker, C. (2015, February 10). It’s Time to Make Learning Fun Again, Even for Adults. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/make-learning-fun-for-adults-carl-hooker 

Nicolas, M. (2019, November 19). Workshops that Work. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/11/19/how-academe-should-improve-its-professional-development-workshops-opinion 

Schmidt, P. (2015, March 20). Promoting Playful Learning Through Teacher Networks. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/changemakers-playful-learning-teacher-networks-philipp-schmidt 

Teräs, H., & Kartoğlu, Ü. (2017). A grounded theory of professional learning in an authentic online professional development program. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(7). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i7.2923 

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Meaningful Feedback in Online Professional Development

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Just as online teaching and learning became a necessity for K-12 and postsecondary students during the COVID-19 pandemic, so too did online professional learning activities for educators at all levels.  Not only have professional development (PD) activities primarily been held in virtual spaces over the last two years (both synchronously and asynchronously), but often the learning goals themselves have orbited around the use of educational technology in service of the immediate improvement of online teaching and learning experiences. 

Of course, even prior to COVID-19, many professional learning and development enterprises took place online in order to meet the needs of busy educators. Asynchronous, “on demand” courses and workshops are commonly used for PD so that instructors may access materials whenever, and however frequently, they want.  Additionally, online PD allows instructors to access valuable resources they might not otherwise have access to, both locally and globally. In a case study performed by Gaumer Erickson, Noonan, and McCall (2012), special education teachers in a rural district were able to collaborate with educators and experts in a non-rural district via an online PD enterprise.  Participating teachers felt that the modality was an asset to their learning since they were given resources and feedback from experts the district might not otherwise be able to provide due to geography or lack of funding (Elliott, 2017).

As mentioned by participants in this case study, one of the key contributors to a successful professional learning experience is the opportunity to receive meaningful feedback.  Feedback and participant interaction is part of an active professional learning experience wherein an adult learner is implementing their learning in an authentic, problem-based activity (Teräs & Kartoğlu, 2017).  Feedback may come from a coach or instructor or from peers (or both), but regardless of the source, getting professional feedback is necessary in order to support learning implementation and critical reflection.  Feedback can feel like an automatic and organic part of the learning process in face-to-face settings.  For example, if an educator is being observed by a coach or mentor in their classroom, they would expect feedback to be shared directly following the observation.  Similarly, if a peer group is working on a project together in a shared space or workshop, they will naturally give instant formative feedback, usually verbally, to each other as they collaborate. 

What about with online PD?  For context, the operational definition I’m using for online PD is any Internet-based form of learning or professional growth that an educator is engaged in (Elliott, 2017). How might feedback for professional development look similar or different in an online learning context?  To what extent might feedback look different in an asynchronous environment? If PD is going to increasingly be situated in online environments, what tools are available to help assist in delivering meaningful feedback?

Teräs & Kartoğlu (2017) approach online professional development (OPD) through a framework called authentic e-learning.  Authentic e-learning has a nine-point framework, the points of which are well supported in PD research and adult learning theories independent of the mode or learning environment (Teräs & Kartoğlu, 2017).  The nine points for an authentic e-learning framework they propose are as follows:

1) Authentic context

2) Authentic tasks

3) Access to expert performances and the modeling of processes

4) Promoting multiple roles and perspectives

5) Collaborative construction of knowledge

6) Reflection

7) Articulation of understanding

8) Coaching & scaffolded support at critical times

9) Authentic assessment

Numbers 5, 8, & 9 are bolded on this list because each of these points requires interactions and communication among learners and instructors which will often take the form of meaningful feedback through a virtual medium.  Within this learner-centered framework, technology should not be thought of primarily as a mode of delivering content.  Rather, it should be viewed as a platform for facilitating interactions.  Knowledge may be transferred using technology, but that’s not it’s most important role in e-learning.  When technology is a conduit for a dynamic web of collaborative interactions, authentic e-learning can take place (Teräs & Kartoğlu, 2017).  It’s certainly possible for information to be delivered in an asynchronous format using technology as the medium, but this shouldn’t be conflated with an authentic e-learning experience.  Interaction are key.

Perhaps one of the most effective ways to facilitate online interactions for professional development purposes is to create a Community of Practice (COP).  Names for similar groupings that surface in the literature include Professional Learning Community (PLC) or a Community of Inquiry (COI).  Despite any nuanced differences that may exist between the three, COPs, PLCs, and COIs have quite a bit in common.  They are all entities distinct from formal learning and organizational structures, and are particularly valuable for their ability to extend beyond them.  Members gather around shared experiences and/or goals and create their own communication channels and behavioral norms (Liu et al., 2009).  These communities can exist within an organization, or they might consist of professionals across multiple organizations, but they are meant to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and tools and encourage critical discourse in a manner that is beneficial for professional growth for each of its members.  COPs are inherently collaborative, and can often be formed around solving authentic, work-based problems (Liu et al., 2009).  Though coaches, mentors, or experts may participate in COPs, peer interaction and collaboration are at the heart of a COP, and thus feedback is most often sourced from peers.  COPs serve as a promising way to deliver timely, effective, relevant, and individualized support for adult learners while simultaneously decreasing the need for feedback coming solely from “experts.”

Online learning communities can be formed in a variety of different platforms, but regardless of the tech tool or medium, or whether the communities engage synchronously or asynchronously, COPs should have a medium in which they can engage in discussion, peer review, and collaborative problem-solving so that meaningful feedback may take place.  Referencing a prior post in March of 2021 (Global research collaboration and the pandemic: How COVID-19 has accelerated networked learning in higher education), some notable computer-based platforms for collaborative enterprises include:

This list represents nine, powerhouse collaboration platforms, all of which rolled out between 2010 and 2020, and many of which depend heavily on the power and popularity of cloud storage or cloud computing, such that platform users may interact and build upon one another’s contributions in both synchronous and asynchronous ways.

When attempting to collaborate asynchronously, especially where coaching or mentoring is concerned, video review software can be another important tool to consider.  Teacher education programs or instructor professional development initiatives often use video review software to conduct remote classroom observations (though of course, video review may be used in a variety of fields for a variety of purposes).  GoReact is just one example of video review software.  This user-friendly review software offers users the opportunity to:

  • Record and share videos easily using any kind of device, including smart phones
  • Utilize cloud-based video storage so that recording, viewing, and grading can happen asynchronously
  • Integrate video evidence seamlessly within common Learning Management Systems
  • Give and receive time-stamped feedback on submitted video evidence, both written and recorded
Image Source

Though I could likely spend a great many more hours discussing possible platforms to use in service of online learning communities, I wish to conclude with this simple, summative takeaway: quality PD requires feedback; therefore, effective PD conducted online must have ample space for interactions to take place among participants.  It really is that simple.

References:

Elliott, J. C. (2017). The evolution from traditional to online professional development: A review. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 33(3), 114-125. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21532974.2017.1305304

Gaumer Erickson, A. S., Noonan, P. M., & McCall, Z. (2012). Effectiveness of online professional development for rural special educators. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 31(1), 22–31.

Liu, W., Carr, R. L., & Strobel, J. (2009). Extending teacher professional development through an online learning community: A case study. Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE), 2(1), https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=jetde

SpeakWorks, Inc. (2021). GoReact. GoReact. https://get.goreact.com/

Teräs, H., & Kartoğlu, Ü. (2017). A grounded theory of professional learning in an authentic online professional development program. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(7).

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Best practices in professional development: What educational institutions might have to learn from the business sector

Though it’s generally acknowledged that education theory and practice inform adult learning and professional development activities in all kinds of domains, the connection between education research/best practices and teaching/learning as it occurs in corporate environments is perhaps less explored.  For the purposes of this investigation, I’m interested in finding exemplars of professional learning design and implementation that are taking place outside of K-12 schools and higher education institutions.  How are best practices in education being applied in corporate environments in innovative ways? Conversely, are there novel approaches to professional development (PD) and adult learning activities being used in corporate America that school systems may want to adopt for themselves? 

For starters, it may be helpful to first draw attention to some of the ways PD activities have been found lacking within education circles.  Drawing from content in my July 2021 post, Professional Development & Technology in Higher Education: What’s Working?, I’ll once again highlight the 2014 report put together by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) working on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  For this report, BCG surveyed over 1,300 stakeholders in education (teachers, administrators, instructional coaches, etc.) on topics related to PD (BCG, 2014).  Research suggested that teachers at all levels were overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the majority of PD offerings made available to them.  Reasons cited included: 

  1. A disconnect between classroom observations by administrators and meaningful coaching interactions 
  1. A lack of trust or authority from those leading the PD initiatives 
  1. PD presented as an exercise in compliance instead of a meaningful opportunity for growth 
  1. Lack of opportunity for collaboration with peers  
  1. Lack of choice 
  1. Lack of relevance to immediate needs 

Suggestions for future practice included a decreased dependence on external vendors for PD workshops and increased attention to teacher-driven needs and collaboration time, as well as considerations for leveraging technology to boost collaboration and streamline workloads (BCG, 2014).  So where might we find examples of these suggestions being put into practice? Let us take a moment to see what the business sector has to offer. 

Image Source https://medium.com

One particular company “walking the walk” in PD is creative media powerhouse, Pixar.  Many will know Pixar as the studio behind the world’s first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story (1995), as well as the slew of creative, narratively diverse, visually stunning, and commercially successful animated films it has released in the decades since (Catmull, 2008).  Yet the secret to Pixar’s success, at least according to Pixar executive Ed Catmull, isn’t just having good ideas.  Rather, it’s a commitment to hiring good people and investing in a dynamic, creative, collaborative professional community, supported by meaningful and ongoing professional development.  Pixar has three operating principles which help shape its professional growth and community building (Catmull, 2008): 

  1. Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone 
  • Prioritize professional relationships built on trust 
  • Don’t get too invested in a hierarchical system, especially as it pertains to lines of communication and problem-solving 
  • Make it easy for people to collaborate across departments 
  1. It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas 
  • Regularly share works in progress 
  • Create opportunities for peer review and feedback 
  • Consider collaboration as an essential part of problem-solving and professional growth 
  1. Stay close to innovations happening in the academic community 
  • Encourage attendance to professional conferences, publishing, and sharing work with others as is appropriate to individuals in their particular fields; this stands in contrast to bringing in outside vendors to deliver PD workshops to the whole company in a “one size fits all” approach. 
  • Pixar University: Pixar offers a collection of in-house, online PD courses responsible for training and cross-training people as they develop in their careers.  It also offers an array of optional classes that give people from different disciplines the opportunity to expand their knowledge base and personal growth, while also appreciating the expertise and contributions of others within the organization. 

If we look at the BCG findings and suggestions for future practice, Pixar seems to be doing several things “right.”  They’re providing much of their PD in-house and reducing dependence on external vendors or workshops, they’re cultivating practical avenues for collaboration and peer review, and they’re leveraging technology to provide opportunities for needs- and interest-based training through Pixar University.  They’re also investing in the company culture at large by widening avenues of vertical and horizontal communication and building trust in their workplace community. 

Regardless of the context, whether it be in a school or business environment, creating pathways towards authentic problem solving and practical application are key to effective PD endeavors. Effective adult learning offers opportunities for growth and development within the student’s context, adding value to their life and work, and ultimately giving them new skills, independence, or autonomy (Merriam, 2017).  Adult learners are often interested in “learning how to learn”—in becoming skilled at learning in a range of different situations and through a range of different styles in order to apply that learning in novel situations in their daily lives (Brookfield, 1995).  Consequently, adult learning should often be more problem-centered than subject-centered with a clear “so what” factor in any given learning experience (Merriam, 2017). In other words, pure knowledge transmission is not the substance of effective adult learning (or really any learning for that matter). 

This does not mean that structured courses have no place in PD. Rather, excellent examples can be found where corporations partner with higher education institutions (HEIs) to anchor structured learning experiences within real work-based problems. 

One example of this approach is described by Collis and Margaryan (2004) in relation to the Shell EP corporation, an organization primarily concerned with finding and producing oil and gas.  In this case study, Shell EP (tasked with the professional learning, growth, and ongoing training of over 30,000 employees scattered across 45 countries), began a research partnership with University of Twente, the aims of which were “…to develop, share, and apply state-of-the-art knowledge and experience relating to new forms of learning in the organization, supported by technology” (Collis & Margaryan, 2004).  Using a web-based platform for blended learning developed by the University of Twente, petroleum engineers, petrophysicists, geologists and other technical professionals from various operating units of Shell EP were brought together to collaborate on a specific problem-based PD initiative (Collis & Margaryan, 2004).  In this specific setting, the problem they tackled as part of their PD was a Health Risk Assessment (HRA), a complex task involving the assessment of possible risks to employees and/or the environment where drilling or the handling of delicate chemicals was required. HRA development was previously addressed through a knowledge transfer course model that required no collaboration among colleagues or practical applications. 

In its redesigned format, the HRA assessment was authentically performed as part of the PD course, meaning a potential health hazard was collaboratively identified by a team of coworkers, and a plan to minimize or eliminate the hazard was presented to supervisors. Some of the benefits of this approach included:  

  1. Leveraging technology to mitigate the need for employees to travel or step out of the workplace into a classroom  
  1. Building communication and collaboration skills among coworkers, even from differing fields/departments 
  1. Creating a meaningful final product which could have an immediate impact on workplace strategy, while also being saved in an employee’s personal portfolio as evidence of professional growth (Collis & Margaryan, 2004). 
Image Source: https://www.aihr.com/blog/collaboration-in-the-workplace/

Tech giant Microsoft offers us another example.  Using a similar model to the one listed above, Microsoft partners with online learning platforms like edX to provide curated professional learning experiences for their employees. In this approach, edX and participating HEIs design the courses and host the self-paced, computer-based learning experiences (including assessments and rubrics, content delivery, course completion, etc.), while Microsoft provides the specialists and integrated expert knowledge which make the course most relevant to the company’s context and industry norms.  Additionally, access to the courses are approved through Microsoft managers such that there is accountability and incentive for employees wanting to expand their professional portfolio. It’s perhaps the best of both worlds when it comes to utilizing the strengths of an external learning designer while still paying particular attention to the needs and interests of the learners within a particular company/context. 

Finally, and by way of concluding these thoughts, I’d like to offer a few final examples/approaches to PD coming out of the business world. Ripplematch, a company that matches early career individuals with prospective job opportunities, interviews, and internships, recently released a curated list of companies which (according to their estimations) offer exceptional professional development programs for their employees (Ripplematch Team, 2021).  In reviewing this list of 27 companies and their various PD enterprises, several themes emerge which reinforce the examples already discussed in this post, as well as the previously noted gaps in PD often found in education. Below you will find my own “Top 10” checklist for PD enterprises, a summary inspired by these examples from the business world: 

  1. PD learning opportunities must be customizable to make sense for individual needs/contexts 
  1. PD activities ought to be curated in-house as much as possible 
  1. PD should help open channels of communication and collaboration between colleagues both horizontally across departments, and vertically between employees, supervisors, and senior leadership. 
  1. PD should help employees better leverage technology in their work environment 
  1. PD opportunities should make space for leadership development 
  1. PD should not be considered extra work on top of established work expectations; PD activities should be embedded into existing work hours and/or should be embedded within appropriate release time 
  1. PD should offer opportunities for collaboration where learners work with each other to accomplish a shared goal 
  1. PD should be problem-based and should produce final products/solutions that are authentically useful to the workplace 
  1. PD should be accessible (often utilizing online platforms) and offered continuously 
  1. PD should allow opportunities to learn from—and be mentored or coached by—experts in the field. 

It’s my opinion that, at the end of the day, PD activities in the business world and in education share the same end in mind: to help adult learners identify goals and learn new skills to help them succeed in their work. And though it’s tempting to assume that the field of education is the ultimate authority on all things teaching and learning, it’s okay to acknowledge that, at least where PD is concerned, schools are usually falling short in their delivery. Consequently, it shouldn’t be taboo to look for exemplars of adult learning practice in other fields; there’s much inspiration and innovation to be found. 

References: 

Boston Consulting Group (2014). Teachers know best: Teachers’ views on professional development. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  https://usprogram.gatesfoundation.org/news-and-insights/usp-resource-center/resources/teachers-know-best-teachers-views-on-professional-development 

Brookfield, S. (1995). Adult Learning: An Overview. In A. Tuinjman (Ed.) International Encyclopedia of Education. Pergamon Press. 

Collis, B. & Margaryan, A. (2004). Applying activity theory to computer-supported collaborative learning and work-based activities in corporate settings. Educational Technology Research and Development, 52(4), 38-52. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF02504717.pdf 

Catmull, E. (September, 2008). How Pixar fosters collective creativity. Harvard Business Review.  https://hbr.org/2008/09/how-pixar-fosters-collective-creativity 

Merriam, S. (2017). Adult learning theory: Evolution and future directions. In K. Illeris (Ed.), Contemporary theories of learning: Learning theorists…in their own words (83-96). Routledge.  

Ripplematch Team (May 9, 2021). 27 companies that offer exceptional professional development programs for entry-level employees.  Ripplematch. https://ripplematch.com/journal/article/companies-that-offer-exceptional-professional-development-programs-for-entry-level-employees-f53abebf/ 

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Instructional Coaching Reflection, Digital Literacy

This quarter I’ve had the opportunity to dust off some of my classroom teaching skills and come alongside a friend and fellow teacher to help her think critically about a 6th grade nonfiction English/Language Arts unit she’ll be teaching this Fall.

Image Source: https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2013/07/157716329.jpg

In this unit, which is approximately one month in length (3-4 weeks), 6th grade students explore the power of nonfiction texts for both reading/writing and complete two writing projects over the course of the unit.  One writing project is an “expert book;” this is meant to be a passion project in which students practice informational paragraph writing on their topic of choice, drawing much of the writing content from their own background knowledge and experiences (though some supplementary research will also be involved).  In addition to this project, students read exemplar informational texts and watch documentaries during their reading blocks.  Student engagement with this content lays the foundation for a final written essay which requires additional research from students into informational texts.  The informational essay is the larger of the two writing projects and focuses on one of five topic categories which were previously voted on by the students.  In regards to improvement goals, my coaching partner and I chose to focus on the current absence of support for building digital literacy skills for informational texts within the unit, and provide new opportunities for students to think critically about their interactions with informational texts in the research process. These improvement goals align with the following standards for WA State:

Technology Standard 3 for grades 6-8: 

Knowledge Constructor – Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others. 

Writing Standard 2 for Grade 6 Students: 

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content. 

A major goal of this unit is to help students better understand the power of nonfiction writing and its role in society.  In order for students to draw on what they have learned to create and use knowledge in the real world and be able to better engage with nonfiction writing and informational sources in their own lives into the future, they ought to have the opportunity to focus on building their own digital literacy skills in the research process for this unit.  Thus, within our coaching partnership, we decided to focus our efforts on creating a supplemental lesson plan, roughly 40 minutes in length, which could be embedded within the first week of the unit.

See suggested Lesson Plan Template for new supplementary lesson outline, timing, teacher directions, needed materials, and essential digital resources.  In this lesson, technology is used to enhance student learning by: 

  1. presenting content in a concise, visually interesting, multimedia format 
  1. showcasing authentic examples of both credible and inaccurate information sources found on the internet 
  1. providing the platforms through which students may engage in quality internet research 

Though a formal reflection of the lesson isn’t possible in this moment due to timing (the unit/lesson won’t be taught for some weeks yet), there are certainly some valuable takeaways and observations that I can make based on my coaching experience this quarter: 

1) Starting with a posture of “how can I best help/serve you” is essential.  When teachers feel like you’ll ultimately be able to take things off their plate and make their lives easier/better (rather than add additional items for them to execute on), they are grateful and much more likely to fully invest in the coaching experience.  More often than not, teachers want to make improvements and changes to their teaching…they just need time and resources to make it happen.

2) A quality coaching experience, especially when digital technology is in the mix, isn’t about suggesting flashy new tech add-ons.  As has been oft-suggested in the literature pertaining to instructional design and tech integration, quality coaching isn’t about the tool(s) used; it’s first and foremost about good pedagogy.  In this project, the actual curriculum suggestions in the lesson plan aren’t mind-blowing or novel where tech integration is concerned.  Rather, the lesson suggestions creat time/space to think about a gap in the unit curriculum that could better address student learning needs, as well as learning standards for both ELA and Ed Tech held by the school/district/state. 

3) I’m holding expectations for the implementation of this suggested lesson loosely.  At the end of the day, I’m not terribly concerned with this lesson being implemented exactly as outlined (if it is, then great, but that’s not the most important thing).  Instead, I’m interested in this suggested lesson bringing valuable resources to the forefront that might not otherwise have been used, or that my coachee might otherwise not have had time to explore on her own.  I’m interested in making sure that a nonfiction unit addresses digital media literacy as an essential part of reading/writing nonfiction text, in whatever form that comes. It is my desire that this coaching experience helped bring thoughtful attention to a gap in the learning pertaining to digital literacy, and that the suggestions put forth were helpful in some capacity. 

I will look forward to future communication from my coachee once the unit instruction is underway; I am eager to hear what worked for her and her grade-level PLC and to what extent it expanded their teaching and learning experiences in meaningful ways. 

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“Put me in, Coach:” A Brief Look at Best Practices for Instructional Coaching in Higher Education

In 2020, Apple TV’s comedy series Ted Lasso starring Jason Sudeikis became an unlikely hit after its debut season, earning rave reviews, excellent ratings, and a platform as a quirky source of inspiration for coaches–and really just ordinary people–everywhere.  The premise of the show has fictional American football coach, the mustachioed Ted Lasso, recruited to coach a British Premier football (soccer) team, a sport which he knows nothing about.  He’s been recruited by an embittered and recently-divorced club owner who wants to see the team fail miserably in order to get back at her ex-husband.  As the season unfolds, Ted Lasso’s folksy wisdom, relentless optimism, vulnerability, and refreshing and profound decency eventually win over the skeptics, both in the show and in real life.

Image Source https://www.si.com/soccer/2021/07/22/ted-lasso-season-two-preview-jason-sudeikis-apple-tv

Indeed, professional athletic coaches such as Quin Snyder of the Utah Jazz and Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors have come out in support of the show and the coaching prowess of its lead (Cohen, 2021).  Snyder was even quoted saying that “[Ted Lasso] should be required watching for coaches” (Cohen, 2021).  Among Ted Lasso’s most notable coaching attributes are his:

  1. Commitment to having a short memory for failure while simultaneously building self-efficacy and resilience in his players
  2. Openness to modeling vulnerability, curiosity, and personal growth
  3. Ability to empower other leaders around him
  4. Varied approaches to coaching different individuals on the team depending on their individual needs, personalities, and backgrounds

Now of course I’m referencing a fictional television series geared at athletic coaching which can only go so far, but I think some of these “stand out” tactics of Mr. Lasso’s are relatable for a reason. As journalist Ben Cohen puts it in his 2021 Wall Street Journal article, “Why Real Coaches Want to be Ted Lasso”:

“There is a takeaway from the series…that applies to any line of work: The best coaches are the best managers of people.”

Ben Cohen, Wall Street Journal

Thus, as I turn to look at instructional coaching relationships in the world of higher education, there are many aspects of “what makes a good coach” that are universal to effective leaders and, dare I say, teachers in all kinds of contexts.  After all, what is a good coach if not a good teacher? What is a teacher if not a ‘manager of people’? Perhaps we are all wise to think on the attributes of a good coach, regardless of whether or not our job titles imply that we are as much.

Anderson and Wallin (2018) offer some excellent “empirical tips” for instructional coaches to help us get started.  You’ll see that many of them, at their core, overlap nicely with some of Ted Lasso’s coaching “best practices” listed above.

  1. Build Relationships: Nothing meaningful can be accomplished without trust and respect between the coach and the coachee.  This takes time.  Establishing trust may even require that coaches acknowledge where their own shortcomings in skills/experience are in order to better listen to and learn from those whom they are coaching.  
  2. Remain Connected to Students: Stay active, connected, and relevant. In other words, “practice what you preach.” Trust and respect are harder to establish with instructors when there is a disconnect between the coach and what’s going on in classrooms.  If possible, continue teaching in some capacity while in a coaching position.
  3. Develop Leadership Skills: Maintain a growth mindset and actively seek out ways to improve upon the coaching and leadership skills you already possess.
  4. Model for Teachers: Be prepared to demonstrate.  Don’t just tell people to “go do” something; focus on active learning opportunities and practical takeaways that can be modeled for those being coached.
  5. Build in Planning Time: Allow for one-on-one time to come alongside those being coached and address their needs individually.  Collaboratively work with educators during this time to plan and implement new strategies. Treat instructors as partners in the process.
  6. Remain Focused on the Goal: It’s easy to be distracted by all the things that might be addressed by an instructional coach, and no single coach can be all things to all teachers.  Lean into your particular areas of expertise and stay attuned to the specific ways you’ll be best equipped to improve instruction.

Of course, when it comes to focusing on your goals as an instructional coach, much will depend on context, and higher education is its own unique ecosystem of teaching and learning.  Higher education is notoriously slow-moving in its shift away from a traditional, lecture-based classroom format.  Reasons for this are many, but they certainly include 1) time constraints for faculty, 2) lack of proper training in teaching practice, and 3) conflicts with instructors’ existing beliefs about teaching and learning (Czajka & McConnell, 2016).  There can also be a tension between faculty members’ prioritization of research activities over and above investing in the improvement of teaching practice, depending on their campus culture and which part of their job has a greater influence on their own professional identity (Czajka & McConnell, 2016).  This, then, is the unpredictable instructional landscape instructional designers/coaches in higher education must navigate.

Czajka & McConnell (2016) conducted a case study wherein an instructor from a large research institution was invited to work with an instructional coach to reform a course taught frequently to undergraduate students. The work in this case study is referred to as “situated instructional coaching.”  Situated instructional coaching has a qualified collaborator (i.e someone familiar with the subject/discipline/curriculum in question) working one-on-one with an instructor to change a course design over time, including class observations and feedback on real-time delivery, as well as creating opportunities for the instructors to reflect on the changes. In its original format, the instructor’s course for this case study was very much lecture-based and revolved around lengthy PowerPoint presentations delivered over the course of 75-minute class sessions twice per week. 

Image Source https://www.society19.com/free-things-to-do-when-youre-bored-and-in-college/

However, after working closely with an instructional coach and implementing changes to her course design and delivery in three phases, the instructor demonstrated measurable changes in attitudes regarding her perceptions of “what worked” when it came to teaching and learning while also implementing changes to her course that were notably more student-centered (such as breakout discussions in small groups).

According to this case study, the situated instructional coaching model seemed to work particularly well in a higher education setting. Having a collaborator who can aid in revisions can significantly reduce the time burden of recreating a course (which is often a major deterrent for faculty).  Additionally, since training is specific to the discipline and occurring in the classroom in real time, instructors are not investing time to attend general training workshops, listen to talks, or read and interpret unfamiliar literature as additive activities on top of their already-full schedules, nor are they having to wonder how certain strategies will actually translate into their specific field of study. Situated instructional coaching occurs in the midst of their normal teaching responsibilities, with feedback and opportunities for reflection provided immediately by the coach (Czajka & McConnell, 2016). It’s worthwhile to imagine how instructional coaches in higher education might ‘situate’ themselves on their own campuses to be the most helpful and relevant to the instructors they hope to assist.

If I may conclude with a return to Ted Lasso, we must remember that coaches and instructors are all on the same team and they need one another to meet their goals. The coach succeeds when the the player/instructor they’re working with succeeds. When coaches seek to openly collaborate with the individuals they’re coaching, faithfully modeling best practices in teaching and investing in the specific needs of the individuals they’re assisting, much growth is possible. And perhaps at the end of the day, it’s more important to see players improve and grow over the course of the season then walk away with the championship trophy.

References:

Anderson, V. & Wallin, P. (2018). Instructional Coaching: Enhancing Instructional Leadership in Schools. National Teacher Education Journal 11(2), 53-59.

Cohen, B. (2021, July 14). Why real coaches want to be Ted Lasso. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ted-lasso-nba-coaches-11626232223

Czajka, C.D. & McConnell, D. (2016). Situated instructional coaching: a case study of faculty professional development. International Journal of STEM Education 3(10). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-016-0044-1

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Professional Development & Technology in Higher Education: What’s Working?

As a former classroom teacher, I am deeply aware of the potential professional development (PD) activities have to positively improve teaching practice; it’s the same potential that PD has to overwhelm instructors and use up valuable time, energy, and resources that might have been used elsewhere in jam-packed school schedules.

Image Source: https://www.appreciationatwork.com

When it comes to effective use of educational technology and online teaching in particular, thoughtful, engaging, and practical PD is essential.  Of course, with the onset of COVID-19, schools and instructors at every level were required to make rapid, comprehensive pivots to online teaching and learning, and ed tech specialists, coaches, and instructional designers found their hands full with the overwhelming need for support and training teachers needed in a condensed time frame. There’s no doubt that the emergency shift to online teaching and learning necessitated by the pandemic was immensely challenging for both students and educators, but it’s also fair to say that there has been more than a few success stories related to online teaching and learning, some of them because of effective PD efforts that were made well in advance of the pandemic.  Considering this, I am curious to explore some recent exemplars of professional development activities in higher education related to pivots to online teaching/learning, COVID-related or otherwise.

To frame this exploration, it’s helpful to first examine some of the research shaping current approaches to PD in education. In 2014, the Boston Consulting Group working on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation surveyed over 1,300 stakeholders in education (teachers, administrators, instructional coaches, etc.) on topics related to PD (BCG, 2014).  Research suggested that teachers at all levels were overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the majority of PD offerings.  Reasons cited included a disconnect between classroom observations by administrators and meaningful coaching interactions, a lack of trust or authority from those leading the PD initiatives, PD presented as an exercise in compliance instead of a meaningful opportunity for growth, lack of opportunity for collaboration with peers, lack of choice, and lack of relevance to immediate needs (BCG, 2014). Suggestions for future practice included a decreased dependence on external vendors for PD workshops and increased attention to teacher-driven needs and collaboration time, as well as considerations for leveraging technology to boost collaboration and streamline workloads (BCG, 2014). 

Image Source, BCG (2014)

These findings were also supported by Cho & Rathburn’s 2013 case study on PD in higher education. Similar to the findings of the Boston Consulting Group, Cho & Rathburn (2013) found that a traditional workshop format for higher education PD constrained active participation, collaboration, and the creation of usable knowledge for teaching.  Cho & Rathburn (2013) proposed a problem-based learning framework for PD in higher education which:

  1. Lets relevant problems guide the learning activities
  2. Has participants self-direct their learning and take responsibility for knowledge acquisition
  3. Encourages social interaction and collaborative knowledge construction among instructors. 

Data from this particular case study supported a teacher-centered approach to PD. It was favored by university instructors and facilitated the creation of usable knowledge which could be immediately applicable in their own teaching contexts.  In this case study, the PD opportunities were provided online and asynchronously in order to counteract constraints of time and place and allow instructors to engage with the PD as it was fitting for their individual departments (Cho & Rathburn, 2013).

In another look at PD initiatives in higher education, Schildkamp et al. (2020) make note of the presence of certain “building blocks” which made for effective professional development and use of educational technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.  In this research, the two PD initiatives examined by Shildkamp et al. (2020) were effective because they prioritized:

  1. The effective use of technology and ways it might need to be customizable to specific content area needs
  2. Active learning activities supported by experts
  3. Clearly defined goals focused on the instructor’s own practice and use of technology with attention to long-term sustainability
Image Source: https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/eventbrite-academy-create-better-events-ds00/

In an effort to highlight and streamline some of the similarities and standouts of the research initiatives mentioned above, I find it helpful to reference Vicki Davis’s list of tips for highly effective PD activities that can serve as a meaningful guide for PD facilitators and coaches in any academic environment (Davis, 2015):

1. Use What You Are Teaching: don’t just lecture about a helpful strategy or tool, model it and have participants actively engage with it

2. Develop Something That You’ll Use Right Away: if it’s relevant, instructors should be able to implement a takeaway within a few weeks

3. Receive Feedback: create opportunity for feedback on the PD “session” as well as peer-to-peer feedback on implementation of the takeaway

4. Improve and Level Up: create opportunities to workshop the initial takeaway with ongoing PD and support; effective PD isn’t “one and done” 

5. Local Responsibility and Buy-In: institutional/school-wide support is needed, it’s not just the responsibility of teachers/instructors to internalize and implement PD initiatives

6. Long-Term Focus: avoid the temptation to chase fads or take a “flavor of the week” approach to PD (especially in regards to technology) which can make takeaways feel disconnected, erratic, and short-lived; make sure PD aligns meaningfully with long-term goals of the school/district/institution 

7. Good Timing: consider the larger ebb and flow of the academic calendar and when instructors will be in the best position to be fully present for a PD initiative

8. Empower Peer Collaboration: give teachers/instructors the time and opportunity to learn from one another.

Finally, I’d like to highlight a comprehensive example of effective PD for online learning sourced from a community college in Hawaii.  This approach to PD places professors in the seat of the student in an online learning context, and it puts many of the tips listed above into action.  At Kapi’olani Community College on the island of Oahu, Instructional Designer Helen Torigoe was charged with training faculty in the process of converting courses for online delivery (this was prior to the onset of the pandemic).   In response, Torigoe created the Teaching Online Prep Program (TOPP) (Schauffhauser, 2019). In TOPP, faculty participate in an online course model as a student, using their own first-hand experience in the program to inform their course creation.  As they participate in the course, faculty are able to use the technology that they will be in charge of as an instructor (which include programs like Zoom, Padlet, Flipgrid, Adobe Spark, Loom, and Screencast-O-Matic), gaining comfort and ease with the tools and increasing their overall digital literacy.  Faculty also get a comprehensive sense for the student experience while concurrently creating an actual course template that they will use in the near future.  Instructors receive guidance, feedback, and support from the TOPP course coordinator and their peers in the course. Such training is mandatory for anybody teaching online for the first time at Kapi’olani Community College. A “Recharge” workshop has also been created to help faculty engage in continued learning for best practice in digital education.  This ensures that faculty do not become static in their teaching methods as they are consistently exposed to new tools and strategies, while also gleaning reminders and refresh opportunities in support of long-term sustainability (Schauffhauser, 2019).  Institutions that participate in online education need to provide adequate training in both pedagogical issues and technology-related skills for their faculty, not only when developing and teaching online courses for the first time, but as an ongoing priority in faculty professional development (Bolliger et al., 2014).

I am curious to know how Kapi’olani Community College fared during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and how faculty and students dealt with the switch to fully remote learning, especially those who weren’t previously involved with distance learning initiatives.  Was TOPP used to onboard instructors who previously only taught face to face?  Did faculty feel like they had the resources and training they needed to make the switch more effectively than colleagues at other institutions?  These aren’t questions I have answers to, but I venture to guess that faculty and instructional designers at Kapi’olani Community College did indeed have a leg up because of the prior investments the institution had already made in timely, meaningful, applicable, teacher-driven, problem-based, technology-rich, and sustainable PD.

References:

Bolliger, D. U., Inan, F. A., & Wasilik, O. (2014). Development and Validation of the Online Instructor Satisfaction Measure (OISM). Educational Technology Society, 17(2), 183–195.

Boston Consulting Group (2014). Teachers know best: Teachers’ Views on professional development. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. https://usprogram.gatesfoundation.org/news-and-insights/usp-resource-center/resources/teachers-know-best-teachers-views-on-professional-development

Cho, M. & Rathbun, G. (2013). Implementing teacher-centred online teacher professional development (oTPD) programme in higher education: a case study. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 50(2), 144-156. 10.1080/14703297.2012.760868

Davis, V. (2015, April 15). 8 Top Tips for Highly Effective PD. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/top-tips-highly-effective-pd-vicki-davis

Schaffhauser, Dian. (2019, October 30). Improving online teaching through training and support. Campus Technology. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/10/30/improving-online-teaching-through-training-and-support.aspx

Schildkamp, K., Wopereis, I., Kat-De Jong, M., Peet, A. & Hoetjes, I. (2020). Building blocks of instructor professional development for innovative ICT use during a pandemic. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 5(3/4), pp. 281-293. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPCC-06-2020-0034

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Resilient pedagogy: The professional development opportunity educators need now more than ever

Resilient pedagogy is an emerging instructional philosophy with extremely timely implications for this current moment in education and the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Though facets of resilient pedagogy have long been practiced by educators in the form of classroom differentiation, and though other frameworks like Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) inform resilient pedagogy, Rebecca Quintana and her colleagues at the University of Michigan have attempted to define a more expansive type of differentiation by building upon these approaches to instructional design and extending beyond them, bringing to the forefront the need for instructors to be agile and intentional in all educational contexts, but especially in moments of crisis and change.  More than just a fancy synonym for differentiation, resilient pedagogy can be defined as “…the ability to facilitate learning experiences that are designed to be adaptable to fluctuating conditions and disruptions” (Quintana & DeVaney, 2020, para. 8). Resilient teaching is an approach that “take[s] into account how a dynamic learning context may require new forms of interactions between teachers, students, content, and tools” (Quintana & DeVaney, 2020, para. 8), and those who practice resilient pedagogy have the capacity to rethink the design of learning experiences based on a nuanced understanding of context (Quintana & DeVaney, 2020).  The key to resilient teaching is a focus on the interactions that facilitate learning, including all the ways that teachers and students need to communicate with one another and actively engage with the learning material (Hart-Davidson, 2020). 

“Teachers often plan carefully for delivering content…but when it comes to planning interactions, we can easily take this very important component of learning for granted.”

(Hart-Davidson, 2020, para. 5)

In 2020, Rebecca Quintana and the University of Michigan released a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) via Coursera titled “Resilient Teaching Through Times of Crisis & Change.”  The MOOC is available in a free, open access format and offers a flexible learning structure which makes it accessible to any educator wanting to engage with the topic. The registration process is simple, and as an asynchronous online learning experience, there are no time constraints on when a participant must register or when a participant must complete the course.  Though the course is aimed at educators who may need to rethink how they teach in the immediate or near future due to the ever-changing circumstances of the pandemic, the course creators “…expect it will remain relevant to instructors who are faced with disruptions and change to their teaching for any number of reasons and must quickly adapt their course designs” (Quintana, 2020). Furthermore, though this MOOC course is especially relevant to the higher education environment, the principles of resilient pedagogy can absolutely be applied in any type of classroom by any type of educator.

Interested educators may engage with the course casually by reviewing videos (thoughtfully ‘chunked’ into appropriately consumable lengths) and reading materials in whatever order and pacing–and to whatever depth–feels pertinent to their needs.  They can choose to purchase the full course and engage in all aspects of the learning experience, including submitting assignments and completing checks for understanding.  In this format, participants can receive a course completion certificate at the end.  This type of engagement may be especially helpful if participating in the course alongside colleagues in a more formal professional development venture.  My personal engagement has been decidedly less formal.

The course content focuses on three key components of resilient pedagogy: designing for extensibility, designing for flexibility, and designing for redundancy.  This three-principle framework helps flesh out the meaning and potential of resilient pedagogy while also serving as a practical guide to course design.

  1. Designing for Extensibility means that a course is designed in such a way that it has a clearly defined purpose and essential, unaltered learning goals, and yet the basic essence of the course content can be extended with new capabilities and functionality as needed.  This may involve the introduction of new tools or a change in format, moving fluidly from synchronous to asynchronous modalities, etc.  
  2. Designing for Flexibility means that a course is designed to respond to the individual needs of learners within a changing learning environment.  In a nod to the UDL framework, designing for flexibility means that a course is structured to meet a variety of student needs and learning styles, even before knowing specific individuals in a given class.  Flexibility will require a learner-centered approach with multiple means of engagement/expression and considerations for student needs which may arise within variable class sizes and modalities.  A course designed for flexibility will also allow instructor expectations and assessments to flex in response to these needs.
  3. Designing for Redundancy, simply put, means having contingency plans in place. Designing for redundancy asks instructors to analyze a course design for possible vulnerabilities.  For example, how will students accustomed to synchronous virtual meetings be given the opportunity to engage in course activities if their internet access becomes unpredictable?  In this design approach, instructors look for alternative ways of accomplishing goals with the hope of eliminating “single points of failure.” This is, of course, incredibly important when learning is situated in a time of crisis or emergency.

These three principles of resilient pedagogy do not stand alone. Rather, they inform one another and will naturally overlap in the instructional design process.  The MOOC contains excellent examples and practical applications of extensibility, flexibility, and redundancy throughout, but Rebecca Quintana and her team aren’t the only academics talking about resilient pedagogy, and examples of resilient pedagogy implemented during the pandemic can be found outside the MOOC.  For the reader who might be thinking about resilient pedagogy for the first time, here are a few examples of what resilient pedagogy may look like in practice:

  • Educators on a staggered schedule or a hybrid return-to-school plan may put together an in-person and virtual lesson plan that can be running at the same time on the same day with students engaging with the same content in two different modalities (Watson, 2020).
  • Instructors may create a spreadsheet for a course which helps track various contingencies and needed adjustments for various modalities: in person, hybrid or hyflex, and fully remote (Quintana, 2020).
  • Resilient pedagogy involves reducing complexity in any way possible.  This can look like establishing a predictable weekly pattern for remote students, having fewer due dates, simplifying assignments, etc. (Tange, 2020). Resilient pedagogy in practice means educators can scale up or down as needed according to student needs, understanding that crisis situations almost always call for some sort of scaling down. It’s OK to pair a course down to its most essential elements.
  • Resilient pedagogy requires an emphasis on feedback and interactions vs. assignments and grading.  Grading fewer assignments while also providing more opportunities for ongoing feedback increases the opportunity for interactions between instructors and students while also lowering the stakes for all parties (Watson, 2020).  It also keeps educators from getting stuck trying to stick a “square-pegged” assignment or assessment into a “round hole” of a specific digital tool, modality, or crisis context, simply because this assignment has always been done as part of the course in the past. 
  • As another way to emphasize the importance of interactions within a course, resilient pedagogy prioritizes small group interactions over and above large group instruction (Watson, 2020).  This can take many forms in both synchronous and asynchronous, online and in-person formats.
  • Resilient pedagogy requires educators to consider the use of digital tools carefully within their course design. If, for example, they are using a particular tool on which the success of their students rests, instructors may dedicate time within their learning activities to help students learn how to use that technology and not make assumptions about their students’ digital literacy (Gardiner, 2020).

Though the application of resilient pedagogy may feel particularly prescient in this current moment of crisis, resilient teaching will benefit students and instructors in all circumstances in the long run, regardless of the circumstance.  At the end of the day, resilient teaching forces instructors to examine student engagement carefully and intentionally and develop a student-centered mindset.  It also helps instructors design a dynamic course once, so that they’re using their time and efforts efficiently and making their courses as resistant to disruption as possible (Gardiner, 2020).  Resilience has been an oft-discussed trait that ‘successful’ students possess, but perhaps it’s time to shift that focus on to educators.  Successful educators must be resilient themselves.  It’s not only necessary for this moment, it’s the right thing to do for students in all contexts moving forward, and the “Resilient Teaching Through Times of Crisis & Change MOOC is a great place to start.

“If it seems like resilient pedagogy is in line with calls for us all to be making learning more inclusive and accessible, it certainly is.”

(Hart-Davidson, 2020, para. 17) 

References:

Gardiner, E. (2020, June 25). Resilient Pedagogy for the Age of Disruption: A Conversation with Josh Eyler. Top Hat. https://tophat.com/blog/resilient-pedagogy-for-the-age-of-disruption-a-conversation-with-josh-eyler/

Hart-Davidson, B. (2020, April 6). Imagining a resilient pedagogy. Medium. https://cal.msu.edu/news/imagining-a-resilient-pedagogy/

Kaston Tange, A. (2020, June 8). Thinking about the humanities. https://andreakastontange.com/teaching/resilient-design-for-remote-teaching-and-learning/

Quintana, R. (2020).  Resilient teaching through times of crisis and change [MOOC]. Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/learn/resilient-teaching-through-times-of-crisis 

Quintana, R., & DeVaney, J. (2020, May 27). Laying the foundation for a resilient teaching community. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/learning-innovation/laying-foundation-resilient-teaching-community 

Watson, A. (2020). Flexible, resilient pedagogy: How to plan activities that work for in-person, remote, AND hybrid instruction.  Truth for Teachers. https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/resilient-pedagogy-hybrid-instruction-remote-learning-activities/

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Diigo as a tool for collaborative learning and research in higher education

There is significant opportunity within higher education environments–indeed, all education environments–to lean into a constructivist educational philosophy and approach knowledge as something co-created by both instructors and students.  Furthermore, as higher education courses and programs are increasingly offered in hybrid and fully online modalities, finding authentic ways for students to increase their social presence and overall engagement-level in coursework is essential (Baran, 2013). Digital tools can greatly assist in the act of socially constructing knowledge by helping to eliminate learning boundaries and extend opportunities for both formal and informal learning in a myriad of ways (Baran, 2013).  

Within higher education, one of the more important realms of knowledge construction between students and instructors, especially at the graduate level, takes place in the academic research process and in the conversations that, quite literally, take place in the margins within that research process (Farber, 2019).  As a graduate student who currently does not use any specific annotation or research collaboration tools for research outside of Microsoft Teams or Google Suite, I am curious to explore the ways in which the social bookmarking tool Diigo (which allows learners to collect, annotate, organize, and share online resources) supports efficient, collaborative research among instructors, students, and their peers in higher education.  Furthermore, I am interested in anecdotally comparing my exploration of this tool with the functionalities of more recently-released (and decidedly more expansive) digital collaboration tools like Teams and Google+.  Does Diigo hold its own in the digital collaboration tool market in 2021?

According to the product website (Diigo Inc., 2021), Diigo supports collaborative learning endeavors in four key ways.  It allows users to:

  • Collect: save and tag online resources to public or private curated libraries for easy access
  • Annotate: annotate web pages, PDFs, and other digital content directly while browsing online
  • Organize: organize links, references and personal input to create a structured research base
  • Share: share research with friends, classmates, colleagues or associates

Originally released in 2011, Diigo (Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff) quickly found a dedicated user-base and distinguished itself from other types of bookmarking applications (most notably its 2003 bookmarking predecessor, Delicious) due to its user-friendly interface, emphasis on social engagement, and extensions specific to use in education, combined with more traditional bookmarking functionalities (Ruffini, 2011).  The table below shows a helpful comparison between Diigo, its initial competitor and predecessor Delicious (now defunct), and the typical bookmarking capabilities of a web browser.

Table 1. Social Bookmarking Comparison Chart (updated by Ruffini, 2011)

FeatureDiigoDeliciousBrowser
Organize bookmarks automatically with tagsxxx
Popular bookmarksXXX
Anytime, anywhere access to bookmarksXX 
Share bookmarks with othersXX 
Powerful, customizable search toolsXX 
Groups of people with similar interestsXX 
Post automatically to blogXX 
Tools and browser extensions for bookmarkingXX 
Lists of grouped bookmarksXX 
Free iPhone and Android appsXThird party 
iPad Safari browser bookmarkletX  
Add and share sticky notesX  
Capture, mark up, share images and textX  
Collect web pictures into albumsX  
Sync bookmarksX  
Tools for educatorsX  
Original table by: Schmidt, Jason. (2010, July 30). Diigo and Delicious. Interactive Inquiry. https://iisquared.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/diigo-and-delicious/

As the table indicates, Diigo offers much more functionality in several categories, but most notably (pun intended) in the realm of annotation.  When installed as a browser extension, Diigo can be integrated fairly seamlessly into existing research habits, and perhaps most importantly, most Diigo tools can be accessed for free.

Since Delicious left the scene, new social learning/annotation tools have surfaced such as Hypothesis.is and Mendeley, both of which deliver many of the same features as Diigo, and both of which are largely open access.  Though a detailed direct comparison of these tools is beyond the scope of this post, a brief exploration seems to suggest that Hypothesis might be most appealing for educators who would like to incorporate the application into their Learning Management System (LMS).  Hypothesis can integrate nicely into all of the major LMS platforms and it offers many resources and training videos for educators so that they can truly maximize their use of the tool within their planned learning activities (Guhlin, 2020). Mendeley, a tool primarily intended for use in higher education, has a handy “cite as you write” plugin that prioritizes the streamlining of the reference process, automatically capturing author, title, and publisher information as needed (Guhlin, 2020).

Though it’s now been a decade since its release, Diigo seems to maintain its relevance and dedicated user base for several reasons:

  1. It is a bit simpler and more user-friendly than its competitors such that it is more easily adapted for use in a variety of learning environments and contexts, including both K-12 and higher education (Guhlin, 2020).
  2. Diigo seems to be the tool with the strongest integrated support for educators independent of an LMS.  Since its early stages, special accounts are available for educators that empower registered teachers with a variety of extra tools and features, leveraging the tool for use and collaboration with an entire class if desired (Education Technology, 2015).
  3. Individual features like Diigo Outliner, which lets you create and share digital outlines within a document, add sustaining value to the tool; these features are more nuanced than the general commenting features or Track Changes available in so many other types of collaboration tools (Guhlin, 2020).
  4. Because of its longevity, Diigo has had time to collect a large, lasting user base and dynamic Interest Groups (i.e. K-12 teachers, higher education instructors, researchers, etc.) which offer grassroots professional development tips and organic user insights accessible to the whole community (Ruffini, 2011).  
  5. Diigo’s longevity is also a testament to the creators’ ability to update the tool to best fit user needs over time, and there continue to be product and app updates on a regular basis. Diigo has evolved over the years, and today it is used more frequently for its collaboration/annotation capabilities than the social bookmarking services it was originally focused on (Guhlin, 2020).

Having recently worked on a collaborative research publication using Microsoft Teams, and as a frequent user of collaborative Google products for both academic and personal endeavors, I was curious if this exploration would support Diigo as a stand-alone tool to be considered for use in collaborative research endeavors, or whether its offerings were more or less synonymous with tools embedded within these larger platforms.  Anecdotally, I think the answer is yes, Diigo does stand alone, at least for specific use cases.

Both Teams and Google have many strengths when it comes to video conferencing, and cloud-based word processing and document sharing, but I do not find that these tools go quite so far to aid in the initial research phase. According to Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (2015), with Diigo, student and faculty researchers may:

  • Search for online content relevant to their project, bookmark the websites and then add them to a shared ‘class’ or group
  • Organize bookmarks by tags and date to organize content around a particular topic and to make it easy to search for it later
  • Highlight specific segments of a webpage or add sticky notes to annotate them for others to read 
  • Take screenshots of useful online content and annotate them for use as well

In these cases, Diigo essentially cuts out a step (or multiple steps) for an instructor or student trying to share research. In the initial research phase, a researcher using Diigo would not need to save and download a PDF or copy the link for a website of interest, only to reupload it or paste it later to a general repository, not having the same ability to annotate the resource or organize it as efficiently as Diigo would allow.  However, I do think Diigo finds its strongest value in working for a specific research purpose with a specific group of people.  Its value is inherently collaborative and is best used when trying to co-construct knowledge.  Consequently, it isn’t a tool I’ll be using regularly in my daily academic activities for just myself, but it is a tool I’ll be reaching for when it comes time to spearhead my next research project.

Resources:

Baran, E. (2013). Connect, participate and learn: Transforming pedagogies in higher education. Bulletin of the IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology, 15(1), p. 9-12. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.681.1177&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Diigo Inc. (2021). Diigo. https://www.diigo.com/

Education Technology and Mobile Learning. (2015, January 14). 7 ways students use Diigo to do research and collaborative project work. https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2015/01/7-ways-students-use-diigo-to-do-research.html

Farber, M. (2019, July 22). Social Annotation in the Digital Age. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/social-annotation-digital-age

Guhlin, M. (2020, April 13). Note-taking and outlining: Five digital helpers. TechNotes. https://blog.tcea.org/note-taking-and-outlining/

Ruffini, M. (2011, September 27). Classroom collaboration using social bookmarking service Diigo. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2011/9/classroom-collaboration-using-social-bookmarking-service-diigo

Schmidt, Jason. (2010, July 30). Diigo and Delicious. Interactive Inquiry. https://iisquared.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/diigo-and-delicious/

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Global research collaboration and the pandemic: How COVID-19 has accelerated networked learning in higher education

Image courtesy of https://www.polyu.edu.hk/web/en/about_polyu/global_network/

According to the National Science Foundation (2019), one out of every five academic research articles are written by authors hailing from more than one country. This fact suggests that the value of international research collaboration was recognized and sought out well in advance of the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, but perhaps it’s only just the beginning.  Reasons to pursue global collaboration in higher education include reaching wider audiences and increasing the impact of published research, reducing bias and broadening perspectives with a diverse research team, and leveraging the ability to offset domestic skill shortages by collaborating across national borders (Lee & Haupt, 2020).  Networked learning in higher education can also encourage new levels of creativity and innovation in all kinds of disciplines, and it expands the potential for authentic global and cultural learning experiences in an increasingly connected world (Cronina et al., 2016).  These benefits apply to even the most scholastically “productive” countries like the USA and China (Lee & Haupt, 2020).  That said, understanding that international collaboration in higher education was valued–at least to a certain extent–prior to 2020, I am curious to explore how recent changes in technology and cultural shifts in academia during the pandemic have worked in tandem to build upon this trend, potentially accelerating technology’s impact on global research collaboration and cooperation into the future.

With the onset of COVID-19, scientists and researchers from every corner of the world scrambled to understand the virus and seek a cure. Information sharing among countries quickly became essential, especially for those countries that were hardest hit early on (Lee & Haupt, 2020).  Though socio-political tensions between countries–and even domestically within countries–were hardly in short supply in 2020, the demands of the pandemic shifted priorities such that many international corporations and research institutions began working together rather than competing with each other to produce a vaccine, and large-scale exchanges of medical and public health data, including possible solutions, was (and still is) shared internationally using digital and online tools (Buitendijk, 2020).

When it comes to information sharing, one way of measuring an increase in international collaboration is through a country’s participation in open access publication platforms.  Open access journals and publication platforms remove barriers for accessing information and research since they do not require payment or subscriptions in order to be read and cited.  Sometimes the cost of publishing is absorbed by these open access platforms through philanthropic efforts, sponsorship, or submission fees paid by the authors, etc., but the bottom line is that there’s typically little profit to be made by academics, researchers, and authors who publish in open access platforms. Thus, the motivation for researchers–either individually or nationally speaking–to publish in an open access platform is often more altruistic in nature, placing higher priority on the sharing of information than any potential gains or notoriety received from publishing, monetary or otherwise.  According to Lee & Haupt (2020), countries with lower GDP who were more severely affected by the pandemic were the most likely to increase participation in open access publishing and international research efforts. It would follow that decisions to increase open-access participation was also meant to illicit reciprocal behavior from other countries, and indeed, the majority of all “knowledge producing” countries increased their participation in open access publishing during the pandemic: “For each of the top 25 COVID-19 research-producing countries, there was a noticeably higher proportion of open-access articles on COVID-19 than during the past 5 years and on non-COVID-19…publications during the same period” (Lee & Haupt, 2020, para. 26).

In addition to the public health concerns that have motivated scholars and researchers to participate in more information sharing during the pandemic, it must also be said that the act of collaboration has gotten exponentially easier in recent years.  In a 2010 publication, Iorio et al. discuss the use of digital tools designed to facilitate international collaboration and interaction amongst higher education scholars.  In this specific case, domestic teams in five different areas of the world were attempting to complete an integrative design task which required synchronous virtual meetings, a way to exchange ideas, brainstorm, and problem solve in real time (though not necessarily synchronously), as well as an appropriate digital repository for their work (building plans, model mapping, cost estimates, etc.) which could be accessed frequently by the members of each team in their respective countries.  The article focused its efforts on reviewing the virtual reality platform Second Life. To me, Second Life now feels woefully insufficient as a project management platform, at least according to 2021 standards, but at the time, the authors found Second Life to be a comparatively “appealing choice” due to its options for customization and tools such as virtual white boards, voice and text chat, scheduling agents, etc., all in one centralized, virtual location. Second Life aside, the authors noted that “To date, very few technological options exist that provide all of [the needed] functionalities to distributed networks. Commonly used tools such as email, instant messaging, and teleconferencing do not provide a framework for interaction that fully satisfies the demands of geographically distributed projects.”

Sample of a virtual meeting room in Second Life; image courtesy of https://marketplace.secondlife.com

In short, Second Life was more or less the best this research team could find in 2010. Since then, there’s been a massive influx of virtual project management/collaboration platforms introduced to the market.  Consider the list below of some of the “big names” in collaboration software along with their launch dates:

This list represents nine, powerhouse collaboration platforms, all of which rolled out between 2010 and 2020, and many of which depend heavily on the power and popularity of cloud storage or cloud computing (which was also expanding significantly during this time frame).  And please note: this list is hardly exhaustive.  There are many more out there (and counting!), and even the ones on this list are constantly being updated and expanded.  Each platform or collection of tools on this list boasts its own strengths and weaknesses (the exploration of which is not the point of this post), but there can be no doubt that no matter the platform, it is easier to make the choice to communicate, collaborate, and innovate with people all over the world in 2021 than it was even ten years ago.  Of course, not only have the tools themselves gotten better, but the pandemic has accelerated digital tool adoption for purposes of collaboration at an extraordinary rate, popularizing already existing tools (e.g.. Zoom teleconferencing) in unprecedented ways, such that millions, if not billions, of students and professionals in myriads of settings worldwide are collaborating and problem solving virtually across distances in ways they were not one year ago.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into stark realization the fact that we need ‘global solutions to global challenges’ (Buitendijk et al, 2020) and that we need not relegate the phenomena of increased global collaboration in higher education to a particular moment in time.  Instead, we might view this as an opportunity to challenge the model of competition between higher education institutions and place lasting value on diversified bodies of knowledge production, dissemination, and consumption (Buitendijk et al, 2020).  We might also recognize that a philosophy of collaboration makes it possible for students and lecturers in all types of higher education settings to have more equal roles in creating content, sharing resources, and asking/answering important questions (Cronina et al., 2016).  As centers of research all over the world, universities have a crucial role to play in helping humans to better care for one another on a global scale, teaching us to become “more empathic, less competitive, and more networked in our research and educational activities” (Buitendijk, 2020).  Let us not lose the momentum of this moment to embrace a new norm in higher education, maintaining a sincere commitment to, and value of, community-minded research and collaboration across borders.

For further discussion on this topic, consider viewing this 60-minute webinar, “The impact of COVID-19 on University Research and International Collaborations” offered through the UC Berkeley Center for Studies in Higher Education. The webinar was recorded in August of 2020.

References:

Buitendijk, B., Ward, H., Shimshon, G., Sam, A., & Sharma, D. (2020). COVID-19: An opportunity to rethink global cooperation in higher education and research. BMJ Global Health. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002790

Cronina, C., Cochraneb, T.,  & Gordonc, A. (2016). Nurturing global collaboration and networked learning in higher education. Research in Learning Technology, 24. 

Iorio, J., Peschiera, G., Taylor, L., & Korpela, L. (2010). Factors impacting usage patterns of collaborative tools designed to support global virtual design project networks. Journal of Information Technology Design in Construction, 16, 209-230. https://itcon.org/papers/2011_14.content.08738.pdf

Lee, J., & Haupt, J. (2020). Scientific globalism during a global crisis: research collaboration and open access publications on COVID-19. Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-020-00589-0


National Science Foundation (2019). Publications Output: U.S. Trends and International Comparisons. National Science Board: Science and Engineering Indicators. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20206/executive-summary

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