Looking forward to hearing more about students' experiences of online teaching. Thanks @MaxineDavid for this great idea! It helps us avoid the trap of thinking only from teacher perspective. #PSAwebinar
Main challenges: lack of social interaction, feeling of isolation, technical problems that can hinder participation, disconnect with the deeper purpose of studying (I find that interesting!) & lots of insecurity regarding the future from the career point of view. #PSAwebinbar
In terms of workload: teachers tend to overcompensate by increasing the nr of activities; there is also a large variety of methods and tools used, not a lot of coordination so that can lead to cognitive overload. #PSAwebinar
Group work: can be quite difficult online, especially without a f2f kick-off meeting. Need to be very organised and manage the workflows in a group. There are many tools available but the processes are not very familiar to students (yet). #PSAwebinar
Getting used to the new tools and finding the right balance in terms of group work dynamics can be time consuming, this should be taken into account. #PSAwebinar
Important question: how often do we need to reach out to students, do we have the right communication channels & strategies? I personally think this is something we really need to work on, as it is even more important online than f2f. #PSAwebinar
Access to books & resources can really be an issue when learning remotely. This is something we might easily forget. Let's be mindful of what our students can access when we assign readings. #PSAwebinar
Learning online can also have (sometimes unexpected) positive aspects (let's not forget that!)- self-organisation, familiarity with online learning & work environments and tools, saves commute time & energy. #PSAwebinar
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Main roles of breakout rooms: supporting active learning, maintaining engagement and creating the sense of commmunity. @RonOwston@ContactNorth
Sustained engagement using breakout rooms throughout the course is more valuable than one-off activities. Assigning pre-work (reading, collecting data) makes sessions more effective. Defining & clearly communicating the activities boundries is important. @RonOwston@ContactNorth
If you have groups discussing different topics you may want to allow students to choose a group. All these options are useful but it's very important to remember that setting all this up takes some extra time (we need to count that in). @RonOwston@ContactNorth
🧵Do you sometimes feel that the narrative of your course would be strengthened by having your students engage with someone *working* in the field you are teaching about? Here are some things to keep in mind when including a guest practitioner in your course. 1/
Most importantly: the practitioner's intervention should be *meaningful* four your students' learning journey. It needs to come at the right time, complement your teaching and provide students with access to *new* knowledge and expertise, or a different perspective. 2/
*Embedding* this activity in your course is equally important. Think about the timing & choose a topic where the expert can bring most added value. Make sure the dialogue with the practitioner is connected to the other course activities & make these links explicit to students. 3/
One thought has been on my mind lately🤔: what is the line between carefully designing your (online) course and over-designing it? If someone follows all my suggestions as a learning designer will they not end up overwhelming the students... and themselves? 1/
We need to be very careful. While thinking & rethinking the content & sequence of learning activities is important, the *bigger picture* is equally crucial. It has to do with the cognitive load. Also, remember these are not *normal* times... 2/
So, every time you create an activity: try to estimate the time it will take, think of the feedback you will provide, reflect whether it needs to be graded or not and most importantly, if/ how it contributes to the learning process. If it's superfluous, leave it out. 3/
💡Having taught fully online for many years, I hardly ever think in terms of sync/async. Live sessions = exception, used for clear purposes. Working w/ faculty that comes from teaching f2f, I need to put myself in their shoes & approach teaching online from a very different angle
As a learning designer, *empathy* is very important. Everyone comes with a different "luggage" of previous experiences & teaching philosophies. I try to listen to their stories & work out together smth that *makes sense to them*. Teaching a course well can be done is so many ways
@leohavemann thanks for the inspiring chat and the first (hopefully) aha moment of the week ;)
Here's a quick "Learning Design Essentials" guide. It builds on threads I've written in the past months and because content on twitter can be so elusive, I thought it's worth trying to capture it in one place. Thanks to all of you who contributed & will contribute :)
1. This is about designing *asynchronous* online learning by using a storyboarding approach. Think about the narrative of your course and find ways to express it through a sequence of engaging learning activities.
2. Here are some thoughts about planning *synchronous* sessions. It's all about scaffolding students' learning by using the benefit of immediacy and creating community learning spaces.
🧵Ok, so I'm a big fan of asynchronous online learning, but if you really want to use live sessions as a part of your online course, here are five things I think can help you create a consistent and enjoyable learning experience. 1/
1. Take a moment to zoom out on your course. From this bird's eye perspective, think about which learning goals can be *best* achieved through sync interaction. Be honest & resist the temptation to answer "all". Conversely, think of what parts of your course could be async. 2/
2. An efective live sessions has clear objectives. It can be a regular checkin/ community building, a feedback session or a deeper exploration of a complex topic. Something that benefits from immediacy. Communicate this to students clearly, incl. any required preparation time 3/