>> I took this seminar two
years ago and I came, I think,
probably the reasons that all of
us do that I had certain kinds
of consistent pedagogical
challenges
and I wanted some ways to
think about handling them
and I just found so
many wonderful solutions
and over the course of two
years I have now taught in all
of the formats that they showed.
So I could kind of
experiment with some things
and I thought I might
just say a little bit
about my own experience and
why I have found it helpful,
rather than try to, you
know, do a lot of content
because the experts here are so
terrific and the thing I want
to testify about first is
you really can get the help
you need.
There were so many things
that I was afraid to do,
but the staff here has always
been at the end of the phone,
answered all my questions,
often times within an hour.
I get all the assistance
I need and I'm really,
really grateful for that.
I thought I would just say, you
know, the class I am talking
about is my Theater
Imagination class.
It's an introduction to theater.
Every class has its own
pedagogical challenges.
This one started out as a
very large lecture course.
I have taught it for over 20
years, sometimes to as many
as 500 students in
a lecture format.
Trying to think about some
of the pieces that would go
into moving it online.
It's a GE Arts elective
and that means that part
of the university
requirements is
that students do a
research paper and they come
out of it with citation skills.
So I had to think about
how to do that in a way
that would scale and it has
a live attendance component
where it's not the class, but
you have to go to see the shows
in order to talk about
them in the class
and write these papers.
And I had to think a little bit
about how students were going
to move back and forth
between these two modalities
where they're going and doing
instant live research that's
passing in real time,
and then writing
about it online slowly, later.
So that's the sort
of cross-over issue.
So I want to skip straight
to, sort of, the outcomes
of why this has been successful
experiment for me instead
of talking about what I did
because I think maybe
it's helpful
to know what can really come
from moving online sometimes.
So the biggest thing
that I have discovered,
the biggest change is, in the
lecture format where I'm meeting
with a lot of students,
I hear consistently
from the same set of students.
They're the brightest.
They're the most aggressive.
They sit in the front.
They're really cool.
I love talking to
those students.
I love serving those students.
But how did I discipline
myself to, you know,
get to talk to the
back of the room?
Online, I have almost
the opposite experience.
The really top students often
take care of themselves,
but I hear from a whole
other set of other students.
I realize that students are
willing to ask me things online,
where they're not
publically exposed,
far more than they are --
students are aggressive about
getting help much earlier
if they're having difficulty
in the class and especially,
they are more willing to share
with me the non-academic issues
that are threatening their
progress in various ways,
conflicts, time issues, even
personal life issues that just,
it's helpful for
me to know about.
And it has really changed my
relationship with the students
and I'm really grateful
for that.
The second thing
that I can tell is
that there are really
demonstrable differences
in students who have certain
kinds of language challenges.
I have a very high proportion
of students in this class
because it's a lower
level class,
for whom English is not
their first language
and that was always a big
challenge in the lecture format
because they were trying to
get the information in one try,
strictly through their ear.
The computer gave me more
ways for them to play it again
if they didn't get it,
hear it a second time,
watch the lecture over,
many things that really
changed those outcomes
and I didn't know this.
I didn't intend this, but
it also had the same effect
for students who have learning
disabilities around language.
I have lots of assessment
data to show
that the differences
here are not minor.
They are incredible.
This particular set of
students, I'm reaching
in a really different way.
The reason I know that is
because it is so much easier
for me to collect assessment
data electronically.
I have so much more
information available to me,
both informative and evaluative
ways and I can share it back
out with students in
certain ways that help them.
So what you're seeing
here is some little charts
that I put together where
there is a before chart here,
which is color coded.
I just asked students in a
metacognitive way to tell me,
do they know about this
piece of information,
this piece of content?
If they told me yes,
they could take a test
on it, I coded it green.
If they told me they had
heard of it, but don't want
to be tested, I coded it yellow.
If they told me no, I
have never even heard,
literally never heard of
that, I coded it red and then,
after the unit, after a set of
testing, and again at the end
of the semester, I let
them tell me, again,
strictly metacognitively,
what do they know?
What do they not know?
You can see an outcome there.
This correlates so well with
the final exams I'm considering
maybe I should just give
up final exams all
together [Laughing].
Students can tell me
if they know it or not
and it's really helpful the week
before the final exam to know
that as a piece of
formative assessment.
Look, you told me you
were having troubles here,
you could do better there.
A really big difference it
made for me is that lots
of the resources I was using
and tapping into turned
out to be online and it
shortened the whole loop
if I'm using an online
format for students
to get to those resources.
I used to tell them about
those same resources.
But when you're saying
in class, you know,
write down this web
address, that's slow going.
I could post it to a web
page for a little while
in a technologically
assisted class,
but I was afraid I
was getting into,
just got caused the
document dump.
It was more helpful, I think,
for me to move more
fully towards online
so that it was integrated.
And finally, I know this only
anecdotally, but a huge number
of students tell me that the
online format simply gave them
the opportunity to
take the class.
Even thought this is
a lower division class
or a lower level class, a
lot of the students I have
in it are practically
graduating.
And because they
have never been able
to get their GE class
scheduled into their time,
that isn't such an issue online.
So it really makes a huge
difference who can take it.
So just a couple of things about
how I took some of these steps
that might be worth
sharing with you.
I was worried about how many
things I could handle if I tried
to take an entire class and
move it all online at one time
and so I may have done something
that I think is sort of unusual,
but the first shot
out, I actually went
to a high flex course.
A high flex course is where
I am delivering the class
in person every week, but it's
also being simultaneously filmed
and shared.
So that students
didn't have to come
to the classroom at
their own choice.
They could watch
it at a later date.
That helps them in a lot of ways
and I discovered a large number
of students were coming to class
and watching at a later date.
I thought that was
an interesting piece
of information, but
the thing it did
for me is let me separate
content delivery from assessment
because I could still give the
lectures that I had been giving
for many years and already
had prepared while I worked
on how I was going
to assess online.
How I was going to
do the testing.
How I was going to
get things posted.
How I was going to get
the course organized.
But I wasn't also
trying to figure
out how to deliver lectures.
I was a little worried about
that for a little while
but students have a very
realistic expectation
that if they're in
a high flex course,
they're going to
watch a lecture.
Now online I've had to
learn to break up lectures
in a little different way
because they like them
in shorter, more
digestible pieces,
which I think is correct.
But their expectation of the
high flex was they were going
to watch a two hour lecture
and that was, you know,
that worked out really cool.
It helped me separate Presenting
from Assessment and deal
with two separate problems
in two separate semester
and that was really great.
It also gave me some
time to just think
about course organization.
Literally, many of the things
that Jessica was saying,
I had to learn for myself.
How to create -- so this is
the front page of my class,
but you'll notice, you know, I
now have something right there
that just says, first
things first.
This is the very first
thing you do in this class.
Watch this welcome video.
You know, do this thing now.
Do this thing now.
And how to sort of organize
those blocks visually
around a hierarchy of
information and, again,
the staff was really
helpful here
in helping me understand what
a student expectation was
and how I might meet it.
I want to tell you that I think
the electronic syllabus tool,
the integrated syllabus tool,
is the greatest thing on earth.
I really encourage
you to use it.
It's a one-time set-up, but
you can update it in real time
and students are not carrying
around paper copies
of the syllabus.
It's always available.
If you make syllabus changes,
it goes out to all students
simultaneously at the same time.
It's really fast.
The thing I really love about
it is that there are a number
of university policies that
you just click a button
and then they appear
on your syllabus.
So, things like the
disability policy.
In my college, there's
a plagiarism policy.
Some things that, you know,
three clicks and they are there
and ready to go, and
it's really helpful.
I strongly recommend it.
I also use CourseStream
in both of its forms
when I give a classroom lecture,
record the classroom lecture
and keep it available and
in the Personal Capture
that does things right on the
laptop until I just wanted you
to see, this is what it looks
like when the students
are playing a Personal
Capture CourseStream.
And the thing about
it here is, I mean,
here's the talking head part,
which is not very interesting.
But, still, your full
face is on the screen
and it seems much more
one-on-one and personal
than the same lecture at
a distance in a classroom
when the head is
much further away.
I mean, it's interesting
that going online has created
a tighter personal relationship
and connection to my students
instead of a more distant one,
which was my expectation.
But the other thing is,
as Amy was showing you
and I think really wonderfully,
it captures everything
you're doing on your desktop.
When it's filming you,
you're not watching
yourself being filmed.
You're actually doing
things in process.
So students can watch
you do things
that you are only describing
in a lecture classroom
and I found that really helpful.
So, the big picture here
is, every class is different
and I know you have all
different pedagogical
challenges, but there are some
ways that I think online is --
can provide better pedagogy or
at least equivalent pedagogy
for certain kinds of problems
and all the help you
need will be forthcoming.
I mean you won't know it
all by tomorrow night,
but you'll know a whole lot and
then everybody can help you.
Thanks.