Overview

With the move to remote teaching prompted by the invasion of COVID 19 into the education space, it has been interesting for me to listen to how colleagues from different universities have responded to the need for approaching teaching online.

I’ll share my reflection based on what I’ve gleaned from my PBL group members sharing on Topic 4.

Online Learning as an Emergency Response

There were a range of responses about how universities responded to the remote teaching mode. In some institutions, I heard that the teaching faculty helped one another and pushed toward learning new ways of teaching within a short time. In the other extreme, one member mentioned, that teaching faculty merely executed face-to-face teaching in an online environment by recording lessons without any other change. There was completely no awareness that faculty needed to thinking about how engagement and collaboration in a face-to-face environment can be facilitated in an online environment.

Others reported that, there was a lack of institutional support for teaching faculty to guide them through the transition from face-to-face to online teaching. The other extreme was an institution like mine in new Zealand where an emergency response team was formed comprising of learning designers and those well versed in the online space (university wide) to conduct systematic training on the issues to consider around remote teaching and how some relevant tools can be used effectively. Examples of issues addressed were related to how to keep teaching in the online space interactive and how to maximize the use of zoom. These workshops were recorded for staff to continue reviewing the content.

In summary, there was certainly a need to upskill teaching faculty during the transition into the online space because it was not simply a matter of converting the approach used in face-to-face teaching by simply recording lectures. It sounds to me that such an approach was adopted by those whose teaching pedagogy was fundamentally instructional rather than constructivist.

Online and Blended Learning

While the emergency response strategy for teaching was online, it differs from what I would call an “authentic” online and blended learning approach. This is because such an approach requires a systematic transforming from face-to-face teaching to online and blended teaching.

In my curriculum innovation which was presented in Ascilite, I had to start with a draft design of a curriculum for the content I wanted to teach. I then worked out what learning outcomes I was after and what modes I could use to accomplish it. I engaged the help of a learning designer and collaborated to map put the design. We incorporated into the design strategies to scaffold students and to help them become self-directed and deep learners by reading up the relevant literature.

To me, fundamental to all teaching, be it face-to-face or online, is the need to ensure that my design allows students to participate purposefully in a community of inquiry. This means, I must consider how to facilitate the development of trusting relations and to develop them among students and with me (social presence). Apart form that, I must be able in my design to direct social and cognitive processes to achieve meaningful educational outcomes (teaching presence).Finally, I must consider how I can facilitate the learners ability to construct and make meaning ( cognitive presence). Providing constructive feedback at the right time will facilitate this. Some useful articles include

Anderson, T., Liam, R., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 61-72.

Garrison, D. R. (2006). Online collaboration principles. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(1), 25-34.

Garrison, D. R. (2007). Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(1), 61-72.

Garrison, D. R., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Fung, T. S. (2010). Exploring causal relationships among teaching, cognitive and social presence: Student perceptions of the community of inquiry framework. The Internet and Higher Education, 13(1-2), 31-36.

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054

More information on the blended curriculum innovation can be found in

https://www.ascilite.org/conferences/melbourne08/procs/thanasingam.pdf

Conclusion

Designing for online and blended learning spaces is both an art and a science. It involves understanding how learning takes place and facilitating it in the medium of choice. It is not just a response to an emergency need where we have to switch from a face-to-face to and online and blended learning mode!