Thread by @karenraycosta

Hi friends,
A colleague of ours is in need of research to support pushing back on a planned move to make all fall courses online and FULLY SYNCHRONOUS!!!
Tagging a few of you...
@tjoosten @OnlineCrsLady @RyanStraight @actualham @readywriting @calimorrison @greeneterry & others?

I threw together a Google doc on this for those who want to contribute. Prob worth having this in one place as this keeps coming up.

bit.ly/onlinebalance2…

#highered
#onlinelearning
#remoteteaching

Adding @MDMillerPHD

and I don't know if someone said this already, but you know, I don't think these would actually be FULLY synch courses, but they would likely lean far to heavily on synch methods in an attempt to mimic land-based courses, which also aren't fully synch...

What I think we're touching on here is the need to have language and approaches for "seasoned" online educators to communicate with leadership who might not understand pedagogy, whether land-based or remote/online.

I think some #highered leaders are in panic mode, and they feel like advertising a "fully" synch fall might mitigate their enrollment challenges, when that's actually the opposite of what you want to do.

Rather than trying to force solutions, my take is that you build a kicka** online fall guided by seasoned online faculty, IDs, and faculty developers. You weave in robust online communities (there are people who are experts in this too, it's not something you throw together).

But you don't go into it saying we want to be "fully" synchronous. You don't start there. That doesn't make any sense. You go into working with the reality of a global pandemic, prioritizing lives and care, and then you let pedagogy and experts lead the way.