On March 13, I had the delightful opportunity to talk with Peter Carr at the University of Waterloo about an article I wrote for the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology.
The interview covers why I am changing my mind about the article I wrote, how to create more interactive online learning experiences, the need for more authentic assessments, and the various institutional constraints for achieve higher-quality online education.
Recently, Chad Flinn (Dean of Trades & Technology at Medicine Hat College) and I started a podcast to support Trades and Technology instructors at MHC, but the episodes might have a broader appeal to other educational developers and trades faculty interested in Technical Vocational Education & Training (TVET).
Episode 01 - Assessment in Trades and Technology
A lot of trades students come into the trades with a negative history and relationship with schooling, many being told they were smart enough to do anything but go into the trades. Most trades are also governed by a body that requires high-stakes summative exams. This has huge and important implications for how trades instructors prepare their students for these exams and go beyond these exams in their assessment strategies. This episode explores some of the challenges and new opportunities for rethinking assessment in the trades.
https://share.transistor.fm/s/539291b6?trk=public_post-content_share-embed-video_share-article_title
Episode 02 - What worked and what didn’t
If we could go back to February 2020 before the pandemic (not that anyone would want to live through the past year again), and ask trades instructors what they would say if we told them that they would be teaching predominantly online for the next year, the answers probably would have included at least a couple expletives. But it happened. What can we learn from it as we approach the future of trades education?
https://share.transistor.fm/s/255cd8e8?trk=public_post-content_share-embed-video_share-article_title
A director of a Canadian teaching and learning centre described hyflex in the following way: "Hyflex sounds sexy, but it's like beer-goggle sexy. When you soberly look at the costs and the pedagogical challenges, it's far less attractive."
The pandemic has intensified interest in hyflex (hybrid-flexible) learning modalities, but the idea was developed by Brian Beatty in 2006. Hyflex learning environments offer synchronous instruction to both face-to-face and distance students. To paint the prettiest picture of hyflex, all learning activities address and support learning outcomes regardless of the delivery medium, affording students flexibility and freedom. In a hyflex offering, a student could choose to attend class in the face-to-face environment, remotely through their computer, or watch a recording so that the learning objectives and results remain equivalent. At its best, hyflex provides learner choice and enhances accessibility.
But making the learning experience equivalent for the student learning at a distance is the primary challenge. When the instructor is physically present with other human beings in the same space and time, the natural inclination is to favour the in-person students, which is why some recommend building a hyflex course as if it was an online course. To bridge the gap and make the distance student more present, the physical hyflex classroom is often equipped with several, large video screens, ambient microphones and 360 degree cameras so that the instructor and the remote students can be virtually "face-to-face" with the other learners present in the classroom. This increases the technological complexity of the learning experience and increases the cognitive load for the instructor.
Faculty cannot just walk in the room and teach the way they did before. They will be running an in-person classroom AND recording a videoconferencing session. The instructor needs to plan for content and student learning activities. Lectures should be relatively short (15-20 minutes), engage the learners with generative learning activities (utilizing small breakout groups AND breakout rooms), and employ authentic assessments to evaluate student learning.
It’s still too early to tell what permanent changes will result from the pandemic, but that is becoming apparent is the many instructors have changed their approaches to shorter, more engaging video lectures and fewer high-stakes exams, encouraging both group discussion and collaboration. Recent research suggests that, as a result of these pandemic-related adjustments in course design and teaching approaches, students might be studying harder, leading Richard Arum (co-author of Academically Adrift) to say that the pandemic’s big lesson is, “When you move to more engaging, participatory, interactive instructional strategies, student academic engagement goes up.”
Implementing effective active learning strategies presents challenges for many faculty, and low interactivity is a known failing of many online learning opportunities. Creating active/interactive learning experiences for students learning both in-person and at a distance is a formidable challenge
Personally, I am not yet sold on hyflex. Online learning (when it is freely chosen and not forced upon us by a pandemic) has enough evidence behind it to show that it can offer high-quality learning experience when intentionally designed with the distance learner in mind. Face-to-face learning experiences facilitate the construction of a well-connected learning community more easily.
But here's what I know. Several other institutions are exploring hyflex learning and spending lots of money through classroom transformation projects. As several other technological implementations and adoptions have shown, over time, some institutions and their faculty will figure out how to do hyflex well, and those that do will be able to offer academic opportunities that increase competition in the marketplace. That’s the most sobering thought of all, and the best reason to experiment to see how hyflex can work at MHC.
Thank you to Rene Hemenway and Michael Pin-Chuan Lin for helping provide background research for this article.
HyFlex Learning with David Rhoads - Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast
Hybrid-Flexible Course Design: Implementing student-directed hybrid classes by Brian Beatty
What To Expect In A Hyflex Course: Faculty Handbook by Texas A&M San Antonio
High Enrollment and HyFlex: The Case for an Alternative Course Model
Openo, J. (2020). Education’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic reveals online education’s three enduring challenges. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 46(2), 1-12. https://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/27981/20493
https://www.amazon.ca/Between-Truth-Falsity-Education-Discernment/dp/162273937X/
I am proud to have a chapter included in this excellent collection of articles on how liberal education equips us with the ability to discern truth from falsity.
McMurtrie, B. (2021, March 17). Good grades, stressed students. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/good-grades-stressed-students
Many colleges invested in professional development over the spring and summer to help faculty members create online versions of their courses. Instructors learned how to make short, engaging videos, use more formative assessments and fewer high-stakes exams, encourage group discussion and collaboration, and add flexibility to accommodate students challenged by online learning and the pandemic.
There’s a lesson in here, said Arum. “When you move to more engaging, participatory, interactive instructional strategies, student academic engagement goes up.”
Ross. S. (2021, March 17). UPEI prof develops ‘plagiarism-resistant’ online exams. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-online-plagiarism-resistent-exams-1.5954079
Greene, J. (2020, December 13). The strange case of the exploding student workload. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/guest-post-strange-case-exploding-student-workload
students used to having two midterms and a final, or those used to taking their exams only once, might experience continuous low-stakes assessment as continuous a-stress-ment. Similarly, being given the option to take an exam a second time to get a better grade could feel like an offer you can’t say no to, in our grade-driven higher education landscape. And, perhaps most crushingly, no-stakes assessments -- that is, quizzes and assignments that help students gauge their learning but are not graded -- can feel to many students like busywork, a phrase that appears again and again in criticisms of the pandemic learning scene
Nowak, Z. (2020, November 4). Using online quizzing better. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/11/04/how-make-online-quizzes-more-effective-opinion
Davidson, C. N., & Katopodis, C. (2020, October 28). 8 ways to improve group work online. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/10/28/advice-how-successfully-guide-students-group-work-online-opinion
Since students now are contending with such things as illness and even death, unreliable bandwidth, and inadequate work and study environments, it is unfair to burden them with interdependence. They suggest that it is particularly difficult online to manage students who fall away, “ghost” the class for a period of time or fail to contribute, leaving their peers to shoulder the responsibilities for the group. Katz writes, “It serves neither you nor students to spend the semester managing group work dynamics that increase students’ anxiety instead of building community.”
While many of those suggestions are helpful, we would like to push back at the notion that managing group dynamics doesn’t serve students. It is complicated -- almost too complicated. However, guiding students in effective collaboration is one of the best ways to mentor them in this crisis.
Toor, R. (2020, October 27). How to build community in a Zoom class with personal essays. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-build-community-in-a-zoom-class-with-personal-essays
Writing personal essays about their experiences at the beginning of the pandemic helped students cope, they said. Funny stories about toilet-paper hoarding and stress-cleaning mothers abounded, but they also talked about stuff that was hard for them. What they wrote reminded me, as their instructor, to be patient and empathetic. I learned how and what they were struggling with, and the sandbox gave them permission to vent.
Darby, F. (2020, September 24). 7 ways to assess students online and minimize cheating. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/7-ways-to-assess-students-online-and-minimize-cheating
How can you make sure your online students take tests without cheating? It’s one of the most-frequent questions asked by new online instructors and even some experienced ones. The short answer: You can’t.
So mix it up. Give students a variety of ways to show their learning, and not just the usual papers, projects, and homework. Get creative. Ask students to: (a) submit a weekly reflection on the reading, (b) create a brief video or audio about their stance on some current event, or (c) interview professionals in their desired career. Adding other forms of assessment — when weighted intentionally in your grading scheme — allows students who struggle with test anxiety to show their learning in other ways.
CBC. (2020, September 22). University of Regina students worried anti-cheating software will invade privacy. CBCNews. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/university-regina-students-proctortrack-privacy-concerns-1.5734005
Dumbaugh, D. (2020, September 9). Revitalizing classes through oral exams. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/09/09/how-use-oral-examinations-revitalize-online-classes-opinion
With solutions and other resources readily available online, students can gain a false sense of security about content, and faculty members can have a difficult time assessing what a student knows. Oral exams provide a way to deal with both issues simultaneously. Updating oral exams for the 21st-century virtual classroom helps students improve their communication, conquer anxiety, solve problems quickly and think creatively.
McMurtrie, B. (2020, August 27). Teaching: Getting creative with course assessments. The Chronicle of Higher Education [Teaching newsletter]. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/teaching/2020-08-27
Southworth, J. (2020, August 25). The problem with argumentative writing. University Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/the-problem-with-argumentative-writing/
Professors, instructors, and students across the nation are moving various kinds of exhibitions online to showcase students’ term works. Holland College, for example, has moved the exhibition of “All about Hue” –a showcasing of School of Visual Arts students’ works–to the school’s online gallery. Meanwhile art history and museology students and a lecturer at Université du Québec à Montréal have taken their project to organize an exhibit online, showcasing the works of four artists that explores the fragility and complexity of human relationships with living things. In a bit of a different vein, 105 students participating in the University of Fraser Valley’s CityStudio Abbotsford Hububb—a show-and-tell community building event—are delivering their projects addressing civic challenges virtually. “I hope this new method of collaboration in experiential learning will further highlight the role that the higher education plays in the community,” said UFV Experiential Education Coordinator Larissa Horne.
Contact North. (2020, August 20). How assessment is changing in the digital age: Five guiding principles. TeachOnline.ca. Retrieved from https://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/how-assessment-changing-digital-age-five-guiding-principles
Mintz, S. (2020, January 9). The future (revisited) of online education. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/future-revisited-online-education
DeCoster, B. (2020, January 7). 2020 Conference Preview: “Back to reality: Writing assignment, hyperreality, and the ‘problem of plagiarism’”. ICAI blog. Retrieved from https://academicintegrity.org/integrity/2020-conference-preview-back-to-reality-writing-assigments-hyperreality-and-the-problem-of-plagiarism/
However, one thing has persistently failed to advance, and that is the type of assignment and grading used in higher education.
Bowness, S. (2019, November 28). How to bring students into the feedback loop. University Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/how-to-bring-students-into-the-feedback-loop/
Eubanks, D. (2019, November 24). Weaponized learning outcomes. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/guest-post-weaponized-learning-outcomes
Lederman, D. (2019, May 1). Do colleges measure what they value? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/01/study-student-learning-outcomes
Flaherty, C. (2019, April 2). When grading less is more. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/02/professors-reflections-their-experiences-ungrading-spark-renewed-interest-student
Schroeder, R. (2019, January 9). Disrupting the disrupters. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-education-was-disruptive-force-25-years-ago-now-it-being-disrupted
We can begin disruption anew with microcredentialing of just-in-time modules that anticipate the tech-driven training that industry will need in the coming year or two. We can offer microcredentialing of the communication, leadership and social skills that businesses say our graduates lack such as online leadership; communication skills (verbal, video and interactive); creative and innovative thinking; and more. We can serve international markets where growth is faster than domestically and needs are even greater. And we can seek to collaborate with other colleges and universities to jointly offer programs that draw upon the more diverse base of knowledge experts across multiple institutions.
Even if enrollments have not yet reached a plateau in your traditional online programs, now is the time to begin to look at the life-cycle curve and plan for the eventuality that your university will also be disrupted.
Flaherty, C. (2019, January 4). Grading smarter, not harder. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/04/do-historians-miss-ideals-assessment-some-have-suggested
Markowitz, T. (2018, September 16). The seven deadly sins of digital badging in education. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/troymarkowitz/2018/09/16/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-digital-badging-in-education-making-badges-student-centered/
Houck, D. (2018, September 20). Why are we still grading? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/09/20/phd-student-ponders-alternatives-current-grading-approaches-opinion
About two years ago, I slipped on icy stairs after coming in from skating with my son. In the Fall, I hurt my right big toe and could not walk for a couple of days. As a result, I missed a meeting of the newly formed Academic Integrity Advisory Committee. The committee nominated me to chair in my absence (true story). And that is how I became fascinated with academic integrity, a topic that is becoming more and more fascinating with the shift to online learning.
Mintz, S. (2022, August 24). Plagiarism is a structural problem. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/plagiarism-structural-problem
Ross, S. (2021, March 17). UPEI prof develops ‘plagiarism-resistant’ online exams. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-online-plagiarism-resistent-exams-1.5954079
Wong, J. (2020, October 25). Post-secondary students call for changes to online exam rules as cheating concerns rise. CBCNews. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/post-secondary-assessment-integrity-proctoring-1.5767953
With this new generation having grown up so comfortable seeking and sharing information online, "it's really important at higher educational institutions that we're clear about what they can access, what they should access and how they should use that information," McKenzie said.
Supiano, B. (2020, October 21). Students cheat: How much does it matter? The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/students-cheat-how-much-does-it-matter
On one side are professors who consider themselves pedagogically progressive. They’ve adopted the perspective that many prominent teaching experts have been encouraging: Trust your students, and find creative ways to assess their learning. Yes, some students will cheat. That’s unavoidable, and policing them shouldn’t be the North Star of anyone’s teaching. Especially not during a crisis that has put students under tremendous pressure.
To professors on the other side, who tend to be more traditional, that advice falls flat. In some corners of a college, especially large-enrollment courses in quantitative disciplines with highly structured, sequential curricula, exams are seen as essential to learning. Cheating undermines their value. And no one seems to have figured out how to stop it.
Nothing instructors can do will eradicate cheating.
Edwardson, L. (2020, October 7). Calgary post-secondaries see rates of academic misconduct, cheating rise during pandemic. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/post-secondary-cheating-misconduct-covid-1.5752971
"What we had beforehand were regulations and the regulations didn't require us to collect data, provide reports and so on," she said.
Barker said in the 2018-19 school year, before the new policy came into effect, there were 400 instances of academic misconduct reported in the undergrad population, and 13 reported in the graduate population.
But, Barker said those numbers likely under represented the reality.
"I do belive there is the possibility of underreporting people," she said. "Instructors might have wanted to try and deal with it their own way and say to students, 'you shouldn't have done this.' But we're trying to move away from that culture."
Contact North. (2020, September 24). Cheating by student of faculty: What can be done? TeachOnline.ca. Retrieved from https://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/cheating-by-student-or-faculty-what-can-be-done
Alongside of this, there must be severe penalties and a very public sharing of examples of cheating, fraud, fabrication and plagiarism so a community of teachers and students know these behaviours have consequences. Cheating and academic misconduct damages all, not just the individuals who are “caught”, including the reputation of the college or university.
Seth Godin’s blog [1] today inspired me to keep a running bibliography of academic integrity articles that appear in the mainstream news.
The posture of, “cheat if you can,” is the belief in the ends at any cost. It degrades the system, because if everyone cheats, then there is no system left.
Cheaters often brag about their exploits, because they want to normalize them.
Sophisticated competitors, the ones who really want to win, understand that cheating destroys the very thing they set out to do. Because once cheating is normalized, the winner is the person who had the guts to cheat the most and destroy the system, not the one who deserved to win. Being against cheating doesn’t mean you don’t want to compete, it means that you do
Grabish, A. (2020, August 18). University of Manitoba uses anti-cheating software to monitor remote exams. CBCNews. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/anti-cheating-software-university-of-manitoba-1.4223737
Schaffhauser, D. (2020, August 4). Instructors believe students more likely to cheat when class is online. Campus Technology. Retrieved from https://campustechnology.com/articles/2020/08/04/instructors-believe-students-more-likely-to-cheat-when-class-is-online.aspx
A report on the results, "Academic Integrity in the Age of Online Learning," stated that while 62 percent of faculty agreed that students were more likely to cheat in an online class than an in-person class, most students (95 percent) said cheating happened in both environments equally.
I am enjoying with working Sierra Zukowski on the Medicine Hat Covid Experiences project and was excited to see this article in the Medicine Hat News today. The only correction - I am not a professor at Medicine Hat College.
Cranker, M. (2020, June 25). College pair launches COVID experience site. Medicine Hat News. Retrieved from https://medicinehatnews.com/news/local-news/2020/06/25/college-pair-launches-covid-experience-site/
A student and professor at Medicine Hat College have teamed up to create something special for Hatters.
Sierra Zukowski and instructor Jason Openo recently launched the website Medicine Hat COVID Experiences and the duo is asking people to submit their own experiences during the pandemic.
“We built a portal and are crowd sourcing experiences people have had throughout COVID-19,” said Zukowski. “We wanted to create a space where people could share what’s going on, and for people to come in the future to see what the time was like for people.
“It’s an interesting way for people living now to see what others are going through.”
Zukowski and Openo are asking people to submit photos, social media posts, journals, stories, blogs, essays, videos, songs, poems, artwork, posters or signs to the project.
The project has been in the works since the beginning of May, and the two have been constantly collaborating since.
“Right now we have a couple of submissions posted on the site for people to see,” said Zukowski. “We’re hoping now that we’re advertising it a bit, people will start sending more in.”
Zukowski is an Art and Design graduate and created the website and was in charge for the visual design. Inspiration for the design came from sidewalk chalk art that became popular during the pandemic. Students in the program were supposed to have a work term this year, but most were cancelled due to COVID-19. This project is replacing her work term.
Openo, the director of teaching and learning at the college, says this has been a fun project to work on.
“Our students needed meaningful work experience and this is something we came up with to provide that,” he said. “We’re not a research college or an archive college, so we had to find to make this a community college project.
“Our college is really integrated in the community, so this project is going to be for us now and for us in the future.”
Openo hopes this will be a good tool for people.
“We’ve all been living through this, and I don’t know if we’ve really had the time to reflect on what’s going on,” he said. “I think there will come a time when we need to look back and to reflect, and this project can help with that process.”
People can see submissions at http://www.medicinehatcovidexperiences.ca. Each submission will be sent to the site creators to review and approve before posting.
Sierra’s imagery for the project is youthful and playful. They struck me because I wonder how Emmet, my 9-year old son, views the pandemic.
Sierra Zukowski, Artistic Statement: For the design, I took inspiration from experiences of COVID-19 in Medicine Hat, and something that has been a fun and positive light for families and passers-by during this time: sidewalk chalk. I created illustrations in a loose drawing style intended to be calming and welcoming. I wanted to stay far away from any fear mongering that can often be associated with COVID-19 communications. The text for the headers has a hand sketched look as well, going along with the chalk drawn theme. I went with the blue and pink-red colour scheme for a few reasons. Red is very associated with COVID-19, but bright red can be scary and intimidating, so I softened it to a pink-red that aligns with the chalk theme as well. The blue is used as a calming contrast.
Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. (2020). Teaching continuity. https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/teaching-continuity
Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. (2020). Keep teaching. https://keepteaching.ca/
Medicine Hat College. (2020). Teaching online. https://www.mhc.ab.ca/Employees/CITE/TeachingOnline
York University. (2020). Blended and online teaching (BOLD). https://bold.info.yorku.ca/
Athabasca University. (2020). Moving education online: Higher education. https://www.movingeducationonline.org/higher-education/
The University of Winnipeg’s Remote Teaching, Learning, and Research Hub. Retrieved from https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/remote-hub/teaching/index.html
Lethbridge College’s Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Innovation. (2020). CTLI toolkits. Retrieved from https://learninginnovation.ca/toolkits/
MacPherson Institute. (2020). Teaching remotely. McMaster University. Retrieved from https://mi.mcmaster.ca/app/uploads/2020/04/Teaching-Remotely_Final.pdf
Sears, S. (2020, June 8). MacPherson Institute offers support and resources to instructors for transition to online fall term. Education News Canada. Retrieved from https://educationnewscanada.com/article/education/level/university/1/839067/b-macpherson-institute-offers-support-and-resources-to-instructors-for-transition-to-online-fall-term.html
University of Central Florida’s Center for Distributed Learning. (2017). Pedagogical practice: Teaching online pedagogical repository. Retrieved from https://topr.online.ucf.edu/pedagogical-practice/
iDesign. (2020). Online teaching. LX Pathways. https://lxpathways.com/online-instructor/
Darby, F. (2020). How to be a better online teacher: Advice guide. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/advice-online-teaching
Darby, F. (2020, April 14). 5 low-tech, time-saving ways to teach online during Covid-19. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/5-Low-Tech-Time-Saving-Ways/248519
In Pre-COVID Times, I was making steady progress on my dissertation. I had completed phase 1 and started on phase 2. My dissertation explores the strategic imperative of professional development for online learning and makes the argument that professional development for online learning, especially for part-time contingent faculty, is the key for online learning’s continual maturation so that online educators can fulfill online education’s potential and its promise.
There are now a host of online professional development opportunities for online educators. Here is a short list that flowed through my inbox and may prove useful for my concluding discussion:
Online Learning through Instructional Design (Magna Publications)
This course costs between $297 - $497 USD. At MHC, the Centre for Innovation and Teaching Excellence (CITE) recently developed a Course Design for Online Workshop covering the curriculum areas covered in this course. 116 faculty have registered. By developing this home training, the CITE training (spearheaded by our Instructional Designer) saved the college in the neighbourhood of $46,400 CAD
Online Learning Consortium’s Instructional Design Mastery Series
https://my.onlinelearningconsortium.org/s/community-event?id=a1Y1U000001DMBYUA4
This offering is even more expensive, at $600 - $750 USD. At $814/per registrant, this would cost a relatively small college approximately $94,000.
I have no doubt that these professional development opportunities are of high-quality and would be of great value to instructors wishing to improve their practice online. But the importance of resourcing teaching and learning centres appropriately to develop internal professional development opportunities enables the institution to ground their curriculum in the tools supported by their institution and to develop their own teaching philosophy/vocabulary around online education.