Sustainable Virtual Classrooms

While it’s clear no one was a fan of the rapid transition to online learning in Spring 2020, do you know what distinguishes sustainable, enjoyable remote learning from Spring’s emergency remote teaching? Join Dr. Allison Case, along with her guests Lauren Wright, Director of Program Development at Wiley Education Services, and Jimmy Arvan, a senior at Boston University, as they explore the hallmarks of sustainable online learning, and how to create intentional, meaningful online environments where students thrive and faculty presence is felt throughout.

Show Notes
Teaching Online:  A Practical Guide- By Susan Ko and Steve Rossen
How Learning Works By Susan Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman
Online Teaching At Its Best By Linda Nilson and Ludwika A. Goodson
Small Teaching Online:  Practical Strategies to Increase Student Engagement and Learning By Flower Darby

Disclosure: The resources Lauren shared with us are published by Wiley.

Transcript

Introduction (00:00):

Pedagogo, the show that brings education to your ears and metamastery to your assessments. Today's episode covers the hallmarks of sustainable virtual learning with strategies and tools to give over Zoomed and under engaged students a virtual learning experience worth logging on for. Pedagogo - brought to you by ExamSoft, the assessment software that keeps security and integrity in your exams while providing you actionable data for your outcomes. For all of the toughest testing challenges, ExamSoft has you covered.

Allison Case (00:34):

Hey, Education Nation. How are you holding up? I hope well. My thoughts are with you all as you balance online and on-ground teaching, supervising online learning of your own children at home, while managing the stresses of a pandemic and revolutionary time in our world.  Keep going!  I think today’s discussion will help. Today, I get to talk with Lauren Wright, Director of Program Development at Wiley about what we should be looking for to distinguish sustainable online learning from last spring’s emergency remote teaching. You’ll hear in our discussion today that the answer is intentionality, design, and YOU. We’ll also hear from Jimmy Arvan, a senior at Boston University and intern for Pedagogo talk to Lauren about online learning from the student’s perspective. Let’s get started. 

Allison Case (00:38):

Jimmy and Lauren. Just thank you so much for joining us today for this discussion about sustainable virtual classrooms. To kick us off, could you tell us your name and what you do on a daily basis?

Lauren Wright (00:50):

Thank you. Allison. I'm Lauren Wright, the Director of Program Development at Wiley Education Services. Day to day, I lead a team of colleagues who work with our institutional program directors and faculty to implement the best practices and processes for their academic services, um, of their programs. And this includes curriculum mapping, a learner centered course designed focus that meets rigor and quality standards, as well as the support services. That includes faculty development, analytics and editorial. I've been with Wiley for over 10 years now, supporting many of our partners or programs from startup now all the way through to maturity.

Jimmy Arvan (01:30):

My name is Jimmy Arvan and Lauren thanks again for joining us. It's great to have you. Um, by day I am a student at Boston university. I'll be entering my senior year, uh, but I was fortunate enough to join the Pedagogo production team in June of this past summer. I'm happy to be able to make my debut appearance on Pedagogo, and really, it's interested in hearing what Lauren has to say about the upcoming semester, because I will be experiencing it firsthand. So, I think this is going to be a really interesting conversation.

Allison Case (02:02):

Wonderful. It's the colliding of worlds.

Lauren Wright (02:05):

Absolutely.

Allison Case (02:06):

Well, Lauren, to kick us off, could you establish a baseline and just define online learning for us? I know people use that term on a daily basis.

Lauren Wright (02:16):

There isn't a single definition of online learning. You might hear it used in terms of synchronous learning, asynchronous learning hyflex, hybrid, fully online, but for the purposes of our discussion today, I'm focusing on the designing of courses that are largely asynchronous and what a robust experience can look like for faculty and students in that largely asynchronous learning experience.

Allison Case (02:44):

Wonderful. I've heard synchronous versus asynchronous. And the idea being that the instructor is synchronizing face time with their students. So, in synchronous learning students and instructors log-on alike and have live real time, face to face discussions, um, with the notion of asynchronous being that there is content waiting for students that they are able to consume, uh, even when the instructor is not logged on. Um, can you clarify if, if that's not correct, would you clarify those definitions and if those are correct, would you move on to hyflex and hybrid?

Lauren Wright (03:22):

Absolutely. So, I think, I think you're really on point with the definition of synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous learning is where the learning and everything is there and the instructors providing it. Asynchronous, your material is largely there in the classroom or the online classroom. A hybrid learning experiences is really a, a mixture where some of the course may be happening on ground, and some of it may be happening online. Now, hyflex as a term has gotten a lot of discussion and I think as a result of COVID, and that's where you may have some students learning online from a remote location, whether it's home or their dorm, but then you could equally have students in your classroom watching the lecture. And so, you're going to have students coming at you from different directions and, um, experiencing the, the learning experience and in different ways,

Allison Case (04:21):

Lauren, when instructors say they've gone fully online, can that mean synchronous or asynchronous, or is there a connotation that fully online classes have no face to face interaction with the instructor?

Lauren Wright (04:33):

A fully online learning experience, I'd like to say can be largely asynchronous, but it doesn't mean you can't have a synchronous component. I think what varies around that is a fully online course does not have a mandatory synchronous element to it. There's always going to be opportunities to schedule a synchronous meeting. We're about to have a, a midterm and the students are asking some really great questions. Let's all just get together. If we can't I'll record it for those who can't make it, but let's have a discussion. And so again, it may not be required, but it's recorded for students that can attend at a later time. And that's where you get an asynchronous really a fully asynchronous course, but you really are leveraging all of the different tools and resources available to you to create that learning experience you want for students.

Allison Case (05:26):

So, Lauren, you mentioned that this upcoming semester is not so much about the teaching experience, meaning if I'm the faculty member, it's not so much about me focusing on my teaching experience in a virtual classroom, but more about the student learning experience. Can you expand on that? What, what does this mean for professors and faculty as we enter the fall semester?

Lauren Wright (05:51):

Absolutely. Because I think that this is one of the, um, really critical shifts that you can experience when you're thinking about and considering, and then actually designing an online course and that it's the separation or split between design and facilitation or, or teaching. I think in many times when we're, you know, to, to take this back to a traditional learning experience, when we're on ground, we often think of, um, designing your course and teaching your course as synonymous. Yet, with an online course, design comes first. Then, the teaching and facilitation. We know what we teach on ground. We've posted it online and we think we're ready to go. We are not. Posting content that we used to do on ground into an LMS is not a student learning focused approach. The students have the material, but you know, the, the organic communication and the organic connections that we have that just happens naturally when we're in proximity on ground, things just happens. There's no physical proximity in an online course, but we can make it. And it comes together,  how we really think about how we're constructing the learning experiences, how students are going to progress through a week of content, and where are there opportunities for them now to apply and, and really reflect on the kinds of questions that you might just pepper throughout your lecture. Now we can turn those and translate those into scenarios or case studies or things for them to just think about. That, that's the lens of that learner centered. The focus isn't on how I, as the faculty member will teach the course, but rather how will my students be enriched through the learning resources and assignments that I've designed to guide them through with the ultimate goal of meeting the course outcomes. I still want students to get to a place at the end of this course that shows that they've met mastery at this material and then can move on. And I think that's where you start to see that shift now into not so much the teaching experience for faculty but designing a course for the students' learning experience. Um, when you focus on design, this is where we're architecting the course from the first day to the last day that we're, we're blueprinting each week. Um, and I don't advise faculty on designing their course as they're teaching it because there's so many small parts that can make the experience overwhelming for the faculty. Um, and it makes them difficult to attend to the students.

Allison Case (09:33)

I think what I hear you saying is if I'm designing an, an asynchronous online class, I'm imagining, if my student is at home at 11 o'clock at night, and they've just watched this video and worked through these examples, what are their questions going to be? What in their curiosity have I peaked? What resources do I want to provide them that will provide answers to those questions will satisfy that curiosity and spur them on to the next objective?

Lauren Wright (09:50):

I think that's where, um, some of our faculty may get stuck, like, wait a second. I really know what students need to struggle with, and I guide them through the process. Yes, you've got your videos, you've posted it. You've got your examples, but now the way you've created those to be discovery for the students to get them thinking about it, online, we still want to do the same thing, and it can be through a number of ways in which students not only have to perhaps work through those scenarios, but how do they communicate and convey that back to you that they've got it.      

Allison Case (10:38):

Aha.

Lauren Wright (10:38):

You're still there. Whether you're posting videos of video recordings of how everybody's progressing through the week, or, "hey, I just saw this relevant research article, come out, I'm going to share it with you. And you know, I'm going to start a discussion thread, let me know your thoughts". Not everybody will respond, but those willing much like what you have on ground. You don't hear everybody responding, but those that where this resonates, you're going to hear from them. But the students are now seeing you there. They feel you guiding and supporting the hard learning and the hard work that they're doing right now. And, and that's where richness, to me, comes into play and knowing, the tools and the resources available to us as we're designing an online course. And the online experiences really helps and becomes the key to ensuring that we don't feel as faculty that we're missing a step. Developing and delivering really dynamic, exciting, challenging problem sets, and then asking students to not just show me the work, but tell me about it, you know, record a video and walk me through what you're doing and post it online. Now you're actually seeing the, you see that face. You hear the voice; you can tell if they're getting it or they're pausing. Those are some ways that you really can help continue to develop the skills that deep learning that we want our students to have and what we can see when we're with them face to face and those aha moments.

Allison Case (12:14):

Wonderful. And so, it sounds like if we offer this fully virtual classroom experience, it doesn't sound like we've thrown deadlines out the door or rigor out the door. It just sounds like we're designing it at a new pace.

Lauren Wright (12:28):

We are, we are. And I think that getting comfortable with that pace is as part of the strategy, but also the technique and designing an online course. And that's where the quality learning experience comes into play and, and approaching this from a student-centered perspective, as opposed to, I know what I need to teach. I know what I'm going to assess. We're done.

Allison Case (12:53):

Talk to us a little bit about the central role of assessment in a successful virtual classroom.

Lauren Wright (12:59):

Assessment is critical in an online classroom, but I think it starts even before the class launches and the students are completing the assessment. You can have the greatest assessment in the course, but if it doesn't map to your outcomes for the program, if it doesn't map to the objectives of a course, it's a missed opportunity. And that's where to me assessment is about alignment. Alignment between the learning resources and materials, the practice opportunities that students have, and then their demonstration of mastery to you. There's opportunities for formative assessment and summative assessments. And I think sometimes we may, we may parlay the formative assessments because we feel that they are busy work or not necessary, if they're busy work, they're not appropriate. But if formative assessments have opportunities to build to those, to the summative we offer...

Allison Case (14:13):

Absolutely, and inform teaching.

Lauren Wright (14:17):

And so, what happens in the course is, is the pinnacle, but it starts way upstream in...

Lauren Wright (14:52):

Conceptualizing the focus of the course. "Why are we having this course? It is for this assessment or these series of assessments?" Well, let's design the course around that.

Allison Case (15:03):

Yeah, well, and so much of quality assessment overlaps with quality virtual classroom environments. The intentionality, the design that goes into a great assessment. Um, the planning, you know. I'm a strong advocate in my consulting work for tying each and every assessment item back to an objective back to an accreditation standard, back to a licensing standard, you know, mapping it to Bloom's. So, the intentionality you're talking about in these virtual classrooms is also so true for high quality assessment. It's interesting to see that overlap.

Lauren Wright (15:39):

Yes, they're not mutually exclusive. It is a different learning experience and students learn online differently than they learn on ground. And it requires a different way of design, designing that learning experience. But what goes into a great ground course are the same things that go into a great online course and assessment is in both of them.

Allison Case 

Lauren, shifting gears a little bit, I know from the survey results of students and faculty alike that no one enjoyed “emergency remote teaching”.

Allison Case (16:11):

So, what specifically makes a quality online experience different from the emergency remote teaching we were just talking about?

Lauren Wright (16:18):

Oh, that's a great, great question. And I think of it as emergency remote virtual instruction. Um, I don't look at what we did in the, in the spring, as online learning online design, online courses, there, it's a discipline and an art and a science to having a really well-designed online course that is mapped to your accreditation guidelines, is mapped to your program outcomes, has rigor, has quality. I think some of the elements that come to my mind that make a really strong online learning experiences, you know, first and foremost, it's the consideration of course, navigation of both the overall course and the module, whether you're calling it a week or a lesson or a module, consistency is super key. Um, if students come in and actually take an entire program online, it becomes even more essential. Nobody wants to hunt and peck for where's the textbook, where's the syllabus.

Allison Case (17:21):

Right.

Lauren Wright (17:21):

That, that becomes that, that just becomes cognitive overload. And that's where, you know, the materials that students will review and work through to prepare for the assignments such as your text readings and research articles, videos, or recorded lectures, those tied to the outcomes and expectations that faculty have. And Allison thinking about the subjects that you're teaching in your course, you've identified those, those four or five challenge, um, pieces of, of problems that if they can get, if your students can get these four or five, they got the rest we can build in those experiences for students, whether it's through completing case studies or scenarios or problem sets or larger small group discussions, even practice quizzes that are low stakes that allow students to test themselves. "Do they know it?" If they don't go back and study it some more.

Allison Case (18:15):

Right.

Lauren Wright (18:16):

One-minute papers, projects, and assessments. Those are the facets that, you know, can be incorporated into an online course and makes that quality experience. Students want to be challenged in their learning, um, that, you know, I think that there's, and Jimmy, keep me honest here. You're about to experience this as an online, as an online student.

Jimmy Arvan (18:42):

I think that's a really good point to make, because as you were saying that I was thinking about some of the experiences that I've had in comparing classes that I go back to and I say, wow, I really enjoyed that class. And then other classes that I think about, I kind of just entered into this survival mode where you enter into this routine, and it's extremely repetitive over the course of a semester, and there's not a lot of dynamic changes that happen. Um, and you kind of just get into this mentality that, okay, I just need to get through this course and I'm going to do my assignments and I'm going to take my midterms and quizzes, and that's kind of all that I'm going to get out of it. So, I think like you mentioned, the best courses, you know, keeps students on their toes and there's like a healthy amount of variety that you could still be challenged and you can still interact with your peers and the professor in a way that leads to lasting connections.

Lauren Wright (19:34):

Every once in a while, we, we like a rhythm where, okay, I know what I need to read. I know where the quizzes are and I've got my papers, great. But too much of that becomes where's the challenge? Where's the, where's the excitement in my learning? Help challenge me to go deeper than I ever thought I could with this learning material. That's what our students want from us in our learning experiences, challenged me in the ways I don't even know I want to be, but push me to do more than I ever thought I could because when the students graduate, that's what's going to be expected. And, and the, the courses that you were describing that had a healthy degree of variety and, and challenged you, I think you brought up a great point. They're not easy to design. They take time, they take effort. And that's key. That's where really thinking about the architecture of the course, the blueprint, where am I going? Where do I want the students to go? And what is the what's creative? What's a really good way to bring home a point, even if it's not super creative, but it's that...

Allison Case (20:38):

Facilitating discovery, not regurgitation.

Lauren Wright (20:41):

Exactly. And that level of diligence, when you're starting to think about an online course, that foundation and framework really then does help you downstream when you're working through each week and you're wanting to make sure everything's connected and that what, what I'm focusing on and week 10 reinforces what we introduced in week four. And I've added three other elements. You need to see that laid out in order to make it. It doesn't naturally, ...

Allison Case (21:08):

It doesn't just happen.

Lauren Wright (21:09):

It doesn't just happen. And you're not going to see it without the discipline.

Allison Case (21:13):

And Lauren, which you're helping me to realize is it's not diversity in assignment type and activity is good, is great, but it's not diversity for diversity's sake. We're not throwing Darden, hoard and saying today, we'll do a minute paper. It's that intentionality of what levels and layers of, of diverse activities do I need to lead to discovery, to mastery, to curiosity?

Lauren Wright (21:38):

Absolutely. Yes.

Allison Case (21:39):

In hearing that the sustainable virtual classroom experiences need to be intelligently designed and easy to navigate, how much of a, an individual faculty member's job is it, do you think to establish the template of their online course and the navigation, um, versus how much outside help should they be seeking? Should faculty members be spending time, you know, getting the font right, and where the syllabus is going to be, or are there areas where they can ask outside groups, either other groups within their own organization or outside their own organization to help with the nuts and bolts so that they can focus on the teaching and the content?

Lauren Wright (22:26):

On most campuses, there are resources available to just provide that framework or, or orientation to what does it mean? And what does it take to design that, that online course, it's your instructional design team. You're going to be in your center of teaching and learning or your teaching for excellence, instructional designers and learning designers have gone to school and have made learning, design their, you know, their core. They understand how students connect the dots and how students learn and can develop mastery from a number of different educational theories and, and, uh, methodologies. You put that on top of a discipline faculty have a wonderful resource and, and giving them some really strong foundation to just gain a sense of what am I about to do and what do I do? Um,

Allison Case (23:23):

Lauren, how common is it that programs or faculty, or even universities reach out to instructional designers

Lauren Wright (23:29):

Due to COVID-19, it's really emphasized the different centers for teaching and learning that campuses have and their instructional and learning designers and learning technologists that are a part of those schools, uh, and an, a part of those teams. They can take a lot of the framework that faculty may feel like they're, they're needing to start with. They can take it off their shoulders. There are a number of resources. And, you know, there are a number of really great online design books, you know, that are designed for faculty to be able to pick up. And

Allison Case (24:09):

Lauren, if a faculty member wants to make the leap from emergency teaching, which is, "I have my content it's online, you're welcome", to the sustainable online learning. What is the size of that commitment? And this very much goes back to what we were just discussing, what training should they seek out and what training should could, or should administration provide?

Lauren Wright (24:31):

My team, we ask faculty, how how's it going at the end of every development cycle we ask, how much time did you invest in designing your course? And, and it, it does vary across scale, but I would say on an average repeated back and from faculty that I hear is 50 to 70 hours, and it's over a good 12 to 14 weeks from beginning to end.

Allison Case (24:56):

Hmm. And is this before their semester starts?

Lauren Wright (24:58):

It is all before the semester starts. We, I mean, my team, we really advocate for not trying to design, build and teach at the same time. There's so many moving parts. And in online classes, you've like, uh, you know, you have students that could be pinging you at any time of the day, trying to, uh, you know, ascertain what, what did you mean by the sentence in the assignment? Or what did you mean by this? And on-ground, they might hold it to the lecture on Thursday, or they might hold it to the lecture on Tuesday. But online there is that sense of, of immediacy. I've got to ask him now; I want to know I got to get this going. Faculty will, will be receiving these communications throughout the day, throughout the week. And there are some trust strategies and techniques that I think faculty can, can use to help support all of the students that are reaching out to them, because it, it just brings home what students are needing to ensure they're delivering what faculty want in that online classroom. Without there being that face to face component, there are a lot of resources that are available to faculty as they're shifting from face to face to online. Um, I think it's really helpful for administration though, to help faculty find them again. You don't want them to be drinking from a fire hose, and there are a number of resources we can get to second base or third base. On the first time you've designed a course because I've provided you as an administration, some key materials and resources, I know students are going to be getting the focus that the learning experiences that we want that represents us, as a school. And, you know, I think what really out, um, in facilitation is faculty presence. And this is, and this is where another point of intentionality really comes into play. It's not, you have designed it, you built it, and now students are going through their courses. And I'm, I'm good.

Allison Case (27:01):

Autopilot.

Lauren Wright (27:03):

Autopilot. You're not, you're not even done now. It's about you really being present and being that, that teacher, that facilitator of knowledge and learning that we've wanted from weekly announcements to reminders of important deadlines to weekly video recaps. If you've, if you've seen some of the homework assignments that have been coming in, or some of the one-minute papers that students have written in, you're seeing a couple of things that aren't sinking in. Well, now you have an opportunity to do a real short video. Let's come back, let's talk about this, let me present some, some more points. I want to clear up any kind of confusion. That's the intentionality of, of instructor presence and guiding and supporting the learning experiences for students.

Allison Case (27:49):

Right. Well, and gosh, as a student, you just feel so seen and heard and understood when you have that kind of interaction. Jimmy, I'd love to hear what kind of questions students might have and what insight Lauren would be able to provide.

Jimmy Arvan (28:04):

I think the first question that I wanted to lead off with is what can students do on their end to ensure a successful school year? How can students adjust their expectations and attitudes towards online learning to ensure that they get the most out of remote classes?

Lauren Wright (28:21):

Jimmy, I thank you for that question. I, I think that's a very important question. And I think it's also helpful to first begin with speaking to the responsibility that students have for owning their learning experiences. And, and I see this as regardless of modality, whether it's virtual or in person learning is largely an independent experience. You're reading, you're processing the information and making meaning and building knowledge. You're studying students are given materials to work through, but the connecting the dots is largely independent. Yet, I think on-ground students, or in that face-to-face instruction students, they have faculty and TAs, they can provide that support system and that framework that they don't even know it's there, but it's there. For the online student, those buffers aren't there, and learning's still largely independent. You can start to feel alone and isolated in your learning. Um, I would say a skilled online course designers able to organize that learning though in such a way that it promotes and activates deep learning and the way we want students to reach it. And the faculty member is right there asking those trigger questions through other means in, in their course. I, you know, to ensure that students have a successful remote school year, I think there's an opportunity for schools to develop the resources that speak to this and guide students in owning their learning experience. To students who are transitioning to that online and are the driver of their learning process, do we ask them to think about their thinking and how do you know about this and what do you think about that? And I think it goes back into that quality online course, it's not recording 90-minute lecture in your online classroom and posting content. It's that rich connective tissue that weaves the thread between reading resource materials and helping to frame, frame knowledge.

Jimmy Arvan (30:26):

Yeah.

Lauren Wright (30:26):

I think we can help students adjust their expectations by calling out their role in the learning process doesn't mean they're going to get it right, but that's what college is all about. This is where, "hey, how are we helping students be better citizens and owning their learning and their knowledge and their decisions"?

Jimmy Arvan (30:46):

I think something that a lot of students are wondering, regardless of where they are in their journey to college is should the definition of student success be reexamined for the upcoming semester?

Lauren Wright (30:58):

You're right on target. When you said, you know, success is going to be different depending on where you are. Um, and I think that's really true if you're, if you're in your first year and you're starting, you know, you're not coming to a physical campus, but you're starting your higher education college experience, your definition and expectation for success has now completely shifted and is going to be different. And, you know, that's, that's where as schools, we need to still shore up those foundations. And so, if I was a first-year student, if we have first year programs, they need to stay intact. They need to build, still be offered. We need to be able to provide all of those resources and services to students living on campus, or now whether they're, they're virtual too, to give them that additional support. If I'm a, if I'm in my final year, I might have been visiting the career center a little bit more, or there may have been internships that I was interested in, but I can't get to campus to look at the board. Where are they? And this is where now, um, schools need to think about those, those students that are getting ready to exit as, as well. How, what programs, what resources, big zoom meetings, big zoom gatherings to come in and ensure that you're, you're still able to create the resources and provide the resources that students need to feel successful. Um, you're marching towards earning your degree. How do we help keep you moving forward?

Jimmy Arvan (32:36):

Yeah, it's, uh, I, I have definitely experienced a number of the things that you mentioned, um, particularly during the job search, which has obviously changed just as much as, uh, the academic side of going to college has, and that could be covered in a whole other podcast itself. A question that would be good to conclude on is, is how can we empower students and make them feel comfortable to communicate what is working with all the things we've mentioned, what isn't, what isn't, you know, the lessons that they've learned and where they might need more support.

Lauren Wright (33:08):

Two words come to my mind when you say empowering students, and that is empowerment and voice. And that's where college for many of our students is about finding that voice and learning how to communicate, what one needs in terms of learning, support, learning, life. And now they're not on campus and they need help. And I think that we can guide as faculty and administration to expectation setting, through modeling the behavior we want students to see in others. And of course, now we're virtual, and what does that mean? I think it goes back to that expectation setting, being clear on what we expect from students, helping to illustrate what that looks like. If I'm now teaching an online course, that's where the intentionality of, of the faculty member being there, guiding, communicating, giving feedback on work, holding uh, virtual office hours, um, really can still help the students feel like they're a part of the learning experience and that learning isn't happening around them, but they're a part of it. And it's there they're being, um, guided through so that, so that they can find their footing and they can find that foundation.

Jimmy Arvan (34:24):

I think that's a great, uh, summary of kind of a lot of the keys to success for students for the upcoming semester. And hopefully some of this change will result in a lot of positive change in higher education as a whole, because even before the pandemic, it was a field that was undergoing a lot of change. And the thing that this has only accelerated the need to really reexamined the purpose of higher education and the value that it provides to students. So, it'll be an interesting, not only semester, but next few, uh, next few years.

Lauren Wright (34:56):

I think so, too.

Allison Case (34:58):

I agree. That's awesome, you guys. Well with that, I think we've done it Lauren Wright. Thank you so much for your time today, Jimmy Arvan, thank you so much for your time today. 

Lauren Wright

You're so welcome. Thank you so much for the invitation was just lovely talking with both of you.

Allison Case

Today I learned that going online is so much more than getting my content here. It’s making sure that my students can feel me there, even when I’m not, and see me there from time to time, even in an asynchronous course. You heard Lauren share that even in asynchronous classes, teachers are monitoring their students’ progress and dropping in to share a video, hold a review session, or give some additional instruction to help students where they are.  I know when I was in the classroom, I got a kick of being one step ahead of the students and being ready to help them discover the answers to their questions.  Lauren shared with us that an online classroom should feature this kind of anticipatory content as well. When it’s 11pm on a Tuesday, and students have just learned new content, we can be there with an article post, video, or comic to address the lingering questions in our students’ minds. I also learned a lot about taking advantage of resources already available on campus. Had you ever considered recruiting an instructional designer to help you?  I never had, and after talking to Lauren, I can’t believe I ever posted online content without their input. We got to hear that even in asynchronous classes, assessment is CENTRAL and plays a role in ensuring our curriculum is aligned to our objectives in addition to serving as a way to measure student content mastery.  Finally, what’d you think about Lauren and Jimmy’s great discussion of student support services online? With so much time and focus dedicated to getting us online, have we supported our incoming and outgoing students with services like orientation experiences, job boards and internships? It’s a lot to think about, but even if we just adopt a few of Lauren’s tips, it will benefit our students. 

My thanks again to my two guests today. I hope you picked up a tip or two and got some clarity about being “online”. For a transcript of today’s show, additional resources, or to listen to previous episodes, come visit us online at ExamSoft.com/Pedagogo. While you’re there, take advantage of the other assessment resources we have including on-demand webinars, white papers, blog posts and more. Until next week, I’m rooting for you, Education Nation. 

Outro (35:46):

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Disclaimer (36:03):

This podcast was produced by Allison Case and the ExamSoft team. Audio engineering and editing by Adam Karsten and the A2K production crew, including me Keeley Karsten. This podcast is intended as a public service for entertainment and educational purposes only and is not a legal interpretation nor a statement of ExamSoft policy, products, or services. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts or guests of this show are their own and do not necessarily the views of ExamSoft or any of its officials, nor does any appearance on this program imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Additionally, reference to any specific product, service, or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by ExamSoft. This podcast is the property of ExamSoft Worldwide and is protected under U S and international copyright and trademark laws. No other use, including without limitation, reproduction, retransmission, or editing of this podcast may be made without the prior written permission of exams.