by Bethanie Hansen | Career, Energy, Healthy Habits, Higher Education, Life, Personal Growth, Podcast, Teaching Online, Time Management, Time Managment
This content first appeared on APUEdge.com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (Interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
Teaching online can be time consuming and seep into instructors’ personal time. In this episode, APU’s Dr. Bethanie Hansen provides insight into how to plan a strong work routine. Learn about the importance of surveying your workload ahead of time, writing it down and tracking it, and reflecting and adapting to improve your time management.
Listen to the Episode:
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Read the Transcript:
Bethanie Hansen: This podcast is for educators, academics, and parents, who know that online teaching can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding, engaging, and fun! Welcome to the Online Teaching Lounge. I’m your host, Dr. Bethanie Hansen. And I’ll be your guide for online teaching tips, topics, and strategies. Walk with me into the Online Teaching Lounge.
Thank you for joining me here today on the Online Teaching Lounge podcast. I’m very excited to share with you some ideas to help you plan your online teaching routine. If you’ve taught online before, you already know this can expand to fill every inch of available time. It can become something that takes more and more time all the time, because there is so much more we can do when we’re working online.
The other reason this can expand to fill all of our space is that when we teach online, many times we succumb to interruptions and diversions and other courses of action. So, we might be in the middle of writing discussion responses to our students when a child comes in and wants our attention. So, we’ll get up and go attend to that. And then a lot of time has passed. And when we get back in the room to do more of our online teaching, we’ve lost our train of thought. We have to back up and get started all over again. Examples like this, and many others, are very much reality for all of us who teach online.
Even though my children are fully grown, and they’re not going to walk into the room and ask for my attention while I’m teaching, I do know exactly what it’s like because I’ve been there. And in my experience, planning ahead and sticking to that plan can help everyone function better while you’re an online educator, and expect when you’ll be free, and spend time with you later.
So, today, I’m going to share three tips with you for some good planning of your routine when you’re teaching and working online. And those are to survey ahead of time, write it down, and reflect and adapt, no matter what.
Survey Your Activities and Needs
So, we start out with surveying, and surveying is simply looking ahead to see what our tasks are going to be and how long they’re going to take. I know, we don’t always know exactly how much time it’s going to take. But we can give it our best guesstimate.
For example, if we’re going to grade papers, and we have some kind of estimate about how long it takes to grade an essay, then we can look at how many papers we could logically expect to grade that week and divide it up over how much time. And pretty soon, we know exactly how much time we need to spend.
Perhaps we’re going to plan ahead to do it all in one day. Or we’re going to break it up to do over several days. But it involves surveying and looking ahead in a way that I’ve heard of called pragmatic prospection. I know, that’s a little bit of a mouthful. But pragmatic prospection is about being practical. And looking ahead.
The pragmatic part is, “What’s it really going to look like?” Am I really going to read a lot of messages from students? Am I going to answer a lot of questions? Will I need to make some kind of asset, like a video or a handout to post in my class? Will I have a lot of things to grade? How much do I expect to engage in that discussion?
And as I’m looking pragmatically about the realities of my particular online course, I’m also looking ahead. That’s the prospection part. I’m thinking, “What do I want that to look like?”
What does the quality of my comment need to be? What do I really want to invest for it to be good quality, but not take up more and more and more time? So, as you’re looking ahead, you can start to envision what the workload is going to look like, what you’re going to need to do, and what the rest of your life will be like when you’re teaching that online course.
As part of doing this habit of surveying, or looking ahead to the different types of tasks and the time it’s going to take, don’t forget to include all of the things that you do outside of work. So, we’re going to look at the online teaching first and write it down and think about it. And then we’re going to look at the rest of our life.
If there’s some kind of family obligation happening, I want to be able to plan for that. And so, I want to set aside the time for those things as well. And maybe I need to prepare for that by going shopping or calling some of my relatives, getting some of that done. So, I’m surveying all that I need to do. And I’m thinking ahead. I might also be surveying what it’s going to look like when I’m doing some grocery shopping, if that falls on me this week, and if I’m doing any household chores, and how much rest I want, and all of those sorts of things.
So, the survey is kind of like an overview, where I’m just thinking through my day, and my week, and I’m thinking about what it needs to look like, what it’s got to include, and where I want to be at the end of the week.
Write it Down and Schedule Your Time
Step two is to write it all down. Now after I’ve taken the initial survey, I’m going to start writing down the actual plan.
When we’re taking the time to write things down that we’re working on, like a calendaring habit or a schedule for online teaching, the goal is to realistically write down exactly what is expected to happen. And, yes, that might be painstakingly writing every 15 to 20 minutes of activity, and then tracking it while you’re doing it. So, not only will you write down what you expect to do, you want to make little notes about when you had to modify, spend more time than expected, or spend less.
Writing it down is going to help you realize how much time you actually spend in your online teaching. And that will also help you know if you are over anticipating how much time it will spend, or under budgeting the time. Writing it down could be every single day for a week, and then reassess. Or it could be every day for an ongoing duration. You have to decide what will work best for you in terms of tracking this, but the goal is that once you write it down ahead of time, that you stick with that schedule, no matter what.
I don’t know about you, but many times in my experience, I will sit down and think about grading some essays. And sometimes my mind will just be not very focused for grading essays. And I’ll think, “You know, I’m going to do something else. And I’ll come back to this in a little while when I’m a little bit more focused for that.”
And in doing this plan, the way I’m suggesting today, surveying ahead of time, writing it down, scheduling your time in advance, and then reflecting afterwards, we have to stick to that plan to know if it’s going to work. So, if I’m going to approach it from a mindset of not really being focused and wanting to delay the work that I’ve planned for myself, I’m going to have to do something to get myself in a mental frame of mind to do the work, not just when I’m in the mood to do the work.
So, if that’s your experience, I want to suggest thinking about a time when you were focused on doing that work, and figuring out what it’s going to take to get your brain back in gear in the moment that you need to do it now. So, whatever it takes to help you reframe your mental energy, and your focus and concentration, you can kind of play with that and try a lot of different approaches to help yourself get back in the game, and do the thing that you wrote down that you would do.
Reflect on Your Time, and Adapt as Needed
And then step three, this is reflect and adapt. Looking back on the week, we’re going to look over what worked and what didn’t work. Were there some things that took a lot of mental energy that were hard to do late in the day? Do they need to be scheduled earlier in the day? Did something take a lot longer and need to be scheduled for a longer duration with breaks in the middle?
As you’re reflecting on what works and what didn’t work in planning your routine, you’re going to get better and better at planning your online teaching routine. Reflection isn’t just about what didn’t work, it’s also about what did work. If you notice that certain tasks go really well together, make a note of that, and notice it so that you can plan it ahead and do it again next time.
Adapting means that you’re going to take the plans you made this week, and you’re going to change them a little bit based on what your reflection has turned up. If, when you’re reflecting, you happen to notice that something was really hard to do at a certain time of day, adapting would mean you’re going to do it differently next time.
And maybe instead of a specific task, and maybe you want to give yourself a choice between two certain tasks at one time of day and the same two tasks later in the day. Whichever one seems most challenging, do it first when your mental energy is at its best. And then you can come to the easier one later when that same window of time comes around.
As you’re reflecting, celebrate some of the growth and achievement that you’ve attained. If grading essays or posting in discussions is particularly troublesome for you, if it takes a lot of time and energy, but you were able to get it a little faster, or streamline it a little bit, maybe you could celebrate that success and notice what’s going really well.
And then the other thing to celebrate is if you really did make yourself stick to the plan you made. When you write your schedule and you stick to it no matter what, even if you’re not in the mood, you can celebrate that afterward because you pushed through that mental challenge or that energy-level challenge.
Another tip about all three of these things, surveying, writing it down, reflecting and adapting. These steps can be used with family members, if you have family members living in the home with you. You could share your planned schedule and ask for their input. Is there anything that they suggest adding to your work schedule that maybe you didn’t notice that you spend time on? Or is there something in your family and personal life that they’d like to make sure goes on your calendar at a certain day and time?
All of those suggestions and ideas can be really useful to you in getting a very realistic sense of what your routine should be like when you’re working and teaching online. And, of course, when you’re reflecting on the week and deciding what did work for you, you can also run that by family members, or those people that live with you, and ask them for input in that case as well. Maybe they will have noticed that certain things worked really well and certain things need to change.
Anytime you write up a schedule, and you’re really trying to stick to it, it also helps to post that schedule, so other people know exactly what to expect and when you’re going to be available. If they want to spend time with you in the middle of the day and they’re used to interrupting you, but now you’re going to take a break at a certain set time, they’re more likely to leave you alone until that time, when they know when it’s coming up and what exactly they can expect. So, share that information with your family members or people who live with you.
And I say “people who live with you” because not everyone is living with a spouse and children. Some of you may have roommates. Or you may live with other extended family members, whoever is important to you in your life. Include them in your planning, and the survey of all that is involved in your online teaching time, and all the things that are important in your life outside of that. And get their help when you’re reflecting. The more eyes you get on your plan, the more refined it’s going to be. And the better it’ll be.
Wrapping it up today, I want to just share my own experience planning the routine and sticking to it. Whenever I do this, and I share it with my family members, it’s so much easier for me to have a rewarding life, in my workday and outside of it. My family members are ready to spend time with me and really excited to see me at the end of the day. And also, they know what they can expect when I’m working. And they know what my schedule is. It’s super helpful to me to plan it ahead of time and also to communicate out.
And, on the flip side, when I failed to do that, and I’m trying to get it going, I might start and stop two or three different tasks without completing any of them. If I’m not aware of what I need to do and what my timeline is. And pretty soon my work is going to fill up all of the available time, including the family time after work. So, I know firsthand from experience how important it is to plan and keep track of the time spent.
It can also help me feel really great about all that I accomplished during the workday and realize that I really did get a lot done, and I contributed to my students and all of the other people that I’m working with. I hope you’ll try this out, doing the survey, writing it down, then reflecting and adapting and see what works for you. Let’s get some input. There’s a form on bethaniehansen.com/request where you can share your experience and let us know what works in terms of scheduling your online teaching, and what doesn’t. Stop by and give us a note.
If this podcast has been valuable to you, and you enjoy what you hear, share it with your colleagues. We would love to extend our audience and also help other people teach well online. There’s so much we can do to improve our practice and make this a better experience for everyone. Thanks again for being here and best wishes in your online teaching this coming week.
This is Dr. Bethanie Hansen, your host for the Online Teaching Lounge podcast. To share comments and requests for future episodes, please visit bethaniehansen.com/request. Best wishes this coming week in your online teaching journey.
by Bethanie Hansen | Podcast, Technology Tools, Video
This content first appeared on APUEdge.com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (Interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
In this week’s episode, APU’s Dr. Bethanie Hansen discusses best practices and quick tips for adding video or other multimedia assets to the online classroom to enhance student learning.
Listen to the Episode:
Subscribe to Online Teaching Lounge
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Pandora
Read the Transcript:
Bethanie Hansen: This podcast is for educators, academics and parents, who know that online teaching can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding, engaging, and fun! Welcome to the Online Teaching Lounge. I’m your host, Dr. Bethanie Hansen. And I’ll be your guide for online teaching tips, topics and strategies. Walk with me into the Online Teaching Lounge.
Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me today. We’re going to be talking about seven tips to use video and multimedia in your online teaching. I love this topic because anything that includes multimedia or video makes that whole class so much more engaging for your students.
These seven tips I’m going to give you today will be:
- Personalize it.
- Make it evergreen.
- Keep it short.
- Focus on one topic or concept in each asset.
- Show what to do.
- Make it accessible.
- Streamline your process.
Now before I dive into these seven quick tips, I’d like to define one word that I’m going to use a lot today. And that is the word asset. An asset is anything that you’re going to include in your online teaching that could be a chunk of information or a resource. So, an asset could be a small video segment, it could be a PDF, it could be a worksheet. It could be a tool, an interactive element, any of those sorts of things. An asset is that individual piece.
Personalize It.
And the first tip I’d like to share with you today is to personalize it. Your students are looking for your presence throughout that class, and they really want to know you. They want to know who’s teaching them. They want to trust you. And they want to feel like they’re part of your class. So, if you personalize your assets, it’s wonderful to see you in those.
If it’s a video, record yourself. Don’t worry about perfection. It doesn’t have to be overly professional and perfect. Keep it conversational and friendly.
If you’re on camera, make your appearance inviting and think about your background. For example, if your office is in your bedroom, don’t film yourself in front of a messy, unmade bed with laundry everywhere. Check the background and clean it up. You could always use Zoom with a fuzzy background and that’s going to make it all better.
And, of course, when you’re being filmed or when you’re on video or audio, speak clearly, use simple language. If you use any jargon, idioms or acronyms, be sure to explain those.
Use good lighting and a microphone that produces high quality audio and limit distractions. Now a lot of devices you might use today already do these things. Even a good smartphone will give you great audio for something like a video. So, consider that it doesn’t have to be super expensive, and you don’t have to run out and buy the latest Blue Yeti microphone. But you can try to improve these over time, if you do want to upgrade your audio or your video.
If it’s a screencast, include your image on screen as you’re narrating or talking to your students, or your narrated voice at least to guide your students. And if you include your own thoughts and opinions on the topic that you’re teaching about, make it clear what is part of the curriculum, and what is part of your own thinking. This is especially important to make it obvious when students need to think for themselves about a topic and also when students need to think for themselves on a topic, and when they also need to be able to critically think so they can differentiate between what’s just your opinion and what is really essential.
Make it Evergreen.
This word evergreen just means what it sounds like. It needs to last. If you’re going to go to the trouble of making a video that you want to include as part of your lesson content. Unless it’s a weekly announcement you’re only going to use once, don’t talk about today’s date, or the time of year. Create it in a way that allows you to reuse it the next time you teach this class. This will save you time and effort.
Be sure to include whatever details and context you need to keep it relevant in the upcoming sections of the class so that even if you change out another part of the course, that content is standalone and is complete.
Provide transcripts and captions. When you’re making a video, you want to include this as part of your process so you avoid having to do more work and add it later.
There are a lot of tools out there and services that provide fairly accurate captions. Now, you can get these in zoom Kaltura on YouTube and a lot of other tools. You’ll want to check the transcripting or the captioning to do some minor editing, though, because it’s not always perfect. And we would hate for students to completely misunderstand just because we didn’t check those captions and clean them up.
Keep it Short.
Keep it short, especially if you’re creating something on video, five to seven minutes total per segment is the maximum. Some people out there will tell you go ahead and make a video up to 10 minutes long. That really is pushing the envelope here for a student’s attention span. It’s easy to update and revise a chunk of video later. If you keep the segments five to seven minutes or fewer.
You can also maintain your students’ attention better, and you give them time to process the information from one piece of content to the next. This is a really good thing when you have working adults in your class. If you have short five-to-seven-minute segments, they can watch one video on their lunch break, they can fit another video in on their afternoon break.
Whatever it is, they’re going to be able to get through this content better when it’s in smaller segments. And they’ll be able to learn the content that way. So, think about student attention span and also that maximum time per segment.
Focus on One Topic or Concept in Each Asset.
If you put just one topic or concept in each asset, this gives your students better choice as to where they want to start. They can pick and choose from the assets you give them. And they can go in an order that makes sense to them. It also gives them the chance to view in smaller bits of time, as I previously mentioned, like a lunch break or an afternoon break whatever they have available.
And, of course, it’s going to be more comprehensible when it’s just one topic or one concept. If you really need to give your students an overview of how those concepts fit together, that could be its own asset, its own standalone piece that sort of weaves the elements together. So, think about how you can chunk the content and break it down into these different assets you might create.
Show What to Do.
Show what to do, both as content and as introduction to any multimedia that you’re going to use. You can share your screen, there is a lot of screen casting software out there that makes this a lot easier. Screencastify.com is just one of many. I like to use Kaltura. But you might have your own favorite.
Keep slides light and limit the text. If you have a PowerPoint or a slide deck of any kind, here are a few tips to make it even better, so you can show what to do in a way that makes it simple and comprehensible for your students:
Use high contrast between colors on any slides. Keep the font easy to read with simple fonts that have consistent thickness all throughout the lettering. Make the text big enough to easily read. If you include any motion and animation that is necessary for your topic, explain it and use it. But if it’s unnecessary for actually understanding the content, just avoid it. Fancy slide transitions are not helpful. Include images, graphics, illustrations or animations with descriptions for accessibility.
Learn how to make your PowerPoint presentations accessible using these practices as you build out the slides. Be sure to check out the transcript of this podcast, because I have a lot of links to websites that are going to help you improve your accessibility in presentations and other types of media you’re going to include.
Make it Accessible.
If you develop a solution that meets the needs of all users with and without disabilities, then you’re doing something we call Universal Design. And creating accessible assets as part of your process is a great way to go. There are a lot of tools available online to help you with this.
There’s a website called Section508.gov, which is a great place to start. If you’re using documents, PDFs, presentations and spreadsheets, there are a lot of tips, tools and strategies available to guide you online.
If you have images as part of your assets, check the alternative text decision tree. It’s available at W3.org. And it helps you to understand what kind of alternative text you might need for decorative images, functional images and informative images. Always think about this when you’re including some kind of picture or drawing or something like that to illustrate in your classroom.
Now if you’re using diagrams, think about how that content can be a screen reader friendly. This can be something we overlook, and we need to pay attention to it when we include interactive or media elements. I’ve got a great example from a website linked in the transcript notes from this podcast, so check it out.
And in video or interactive media, if you have any text displayed in the video, and if it’s necessary to understand the video, be sure to describe that text for those who are visually impaired and also used captions and transcripts to support learners.
Lastly, there are a lot of tools online that will help you test your videos and media assets for accessibility. I’ve got a link to one of those resources in the podcast transcript. So, take a look.
Streamline Your Process.
Whenever you’re creating videos, audio content slides, or any kind of interactive media, keep track of your process. Make it a system that you can easily repeat and find ways to accomplish many of those steps at one time.
One example of this might be to have video options that automatically provide captions. Or you could just write a script for yourself upfront and use that script to record the video. It could even be an outline that you flesh out afterwards.
When you streamline and simplify the process you’re using, you make it a lot easier to do this in the future. And if it’s too complicated and takes too much time, you’re not going to want to repeat it. But adding these kinds of elements into your online classroom enriches the learning experience for everyone. And students really enjoy seeing and understanding the content better when you illustrate it, you show a video about it, you explain it in audio, and all of that. It’s worth doing even though you want to take the extra steps that it does take to make it accessible for everyone.
And then once you’ve got a process that works for you, consider sharing what you’re doing at a professional conference. Like you could propose it at the Online Learning Consortium’s OLCInnovate conference in the spring, it’s held every year. And it’s a great place to share ideas for doing multimedia video, and other interesting practices in our online teaching.
They have a lot of opportunity to share things that you’re doing to enhance accessibility for all learners as well. So, if you’re branching out in these areas, and you’re really working on that, that’s something you could share that the Innovate conference also. And then, of course, OLC has a fall conference called OLC Accelerate, which is another great place to propose your sharing and share your strategies with other people.
Thanks for being here today to listen on the seven tips for helping you include videos and multimedia in the online classroom. We have a few other episodes on video and multimedia, which are linked right here in the transcript. So, take a look at the transcript notes. And you’ll find links out to those other episodes just in case you want a deep dive on video creation or multimedia assets further.
#47: Tips for Adding Audio, Video, and Multimedia to the Online Classroom#39: Creative Methods and Strategies for Teaching Online#24: How to Make Videos for Your Online Class
Until then, thanks for being here. And I wish you all the best in your online teaching this coming week.
This is Dr. Bethanie Hansen, your host for the Online Teaching Lounge podcast. To share comments and requests for future episodes, please visit bethaniehansen.com/request. Best wishes this coming week in your online teaching journey.
by Bethanie Hansen | Podcast, Students, Teaching Online
This content first appeared on APUEdge.Com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (Interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
Listening is both a simple and complex skill. In this episode, APU’s Dr. Bethanie Hansen discusses the importance of “listening” in the online classroom, even when classes are delivered asynchronously. Learn about four types of listening as well as three tools to help online educators effectively respond to students.
Listen to the Episode:
Subscribe to Online Teaching Lounge
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Pandora
Read the Transcript:
Bethanie Hansen: This podcast is for educators, academics and parents, who know that online teaching can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding, engaging, and fun! Welcome to the Online Teaching Lounge. I’m your host, Dr. Bethanie Hansen. And I’ll be your guide for online teaching tips, topics and strategies. Walk with me into the Online Teaching Lounge.
Hello, I’m Bethanie Hansen, and I help online educators through this Online Teaching Lounge podcast. We’re going to hear something about listening today, and how listening is both simple and complex. It is a skill that can serve us incredibly well in life, generally, and, it’s essential to our work as online educators.
We find the job of teaching online to be both simple and complex. There are so many areas that we can explore, expand, refine, and improve.
The simplicity of teaching online means that we can see this experience as simpler than teaching a live, face-to-face class. You basically put content into the LMS, guide students through it, and evaluate their progress. And viewed in its simplicity, we might wonder what can make it a better, richer, a better experience for everyone. And we might ask how we can assure that it is a quality experience. Or, in other words, what makes it worth doing?
The complexity of teaching online means that we can get lost in the many things to do to assure that it is a transformative experience for students. We have frameworks to help us develop curriculum and content. We have accessibility measures that must be followed to help all learners access the content appropriately for their needs. We have various media tactics, including text, picture, video, audio, and interactive forms. We have models of interaction and engagement throughout the learning journey. We have types of instructor presence and strategies to achieve these aspects. And there are quality checks we can use through the OLC Scorecard, or the Quality Matters rubric, or something else. If you’re deeply involved in all of these things I’ve mentioned, you know online education can be rich and quality-focused, designed to promote the growth and transformation of our students from every angle.
In all of its simplicity and complexity, because it is done online, listening is not a topic that often comes up. After all, if online education is asynchronous, there is no live talking happening. But there is asynchronous talking of all kinds. This includes text, timing, tone, perspective, and assumptions. And if there is all of this “talking” going on, there must also be listening.
As an online educator, how do you focus on listening in the online space? How do you interpret what you hear? And how do you respond?
Today, I’m sharing four types of listening and three tools to respond to what you hear. These types of listening are:
- listen for social connection
- listen for big ideas and concepts
- listen for facts and authority and
- listen for application and relevance
When listening in each of these four ways, some helpful responding tools include acknowledging, validating, and affirming. Beyond these strategies, most educators will naturally add questioning, challenging, building their students’ ideas, and redirecting when needed.
Listen for Social Connection
Building social connection is one way of listening to others. If you’ve ever been in a meeting in which someone was smiling and nodding at the speaker the whole time, it’s possible that his person was listening for social connection. A person listening in this way is not concerned about what is being communicated. Instead, they are participating in the social experience of building relationships by listening to connect with others.
Listening in this way means that I might be trying to see the person behind the speaker or writer. I’m primarily concerned with who they are and how I might understand them as a human being. I might engage in ways that help me build a bridge with the other person and put aside any other agenda to get fully present in the social space. If I listen to build social connection, my primary concern is to build empathy.
As an online educator, social presence is part of our community of inquiry model. To listen in this way, you might make special note of the background of your students. You might listen to their goals and degree plans. And you might also become aware of all that they bring into the online space, and what challenges they are facing as they participate in your class. With this kind of listening, you’re building relationships and becoming more informed and empathetic at the same time.
Listen for Big Ideas and Concepts
A conceptual listener is one who is most interested in the big idea behind a person’s words. It is the underlying theme or big-picture concept. The details might help paint this picture, but listening in this way doesn’t get lost in the details or require them to all be lined up in order perfectly.
Listening in this way means I might try seeing the big concept presented in a speaker or writer’s entire message. I’m primarily concerned with the idea itself and how I might observe their own understanding of this big idea. I might engage in ways that help me see more fully how the other person understands this big picture, rather than trying to impose my own understanding of that idea or concept. By putting aside my own ideas about it, I’m more able to hear how they see the concept.
As an online educator, cognitive presence is partly satisfied through the communication of big ideas and concepts. Listening in this way helps us learn how students construct knowledge for themselves and how they understand the concepts needed in any subject area. This kind of listening can help us detect where additional knowledge might be helpful or where we can support and redirect our students. With this kind of listening, you’re going to know when your students have sufficient understanding to play with theories and work to apply them.
Listen for Facts and Authority
A listener focused on facts and authority is most interested in the primary subject matter experts in the field, and the ways in which students use them in writing and speaking. Facts are just that—undeniable details. These might be core principles, dates, names, and other evidence or data. Authority means that well-developed source materials and quotes are integrated into the conversation, and where needed, these are cited appropriately.
Listening in this way means that I might hear what is said but wait for the supporting evidence or authority to back it up. I’m mainly concerned that the ideas are not just one person’s opinion, but something more well-known and research-based. I might engage in ways that provide this kind of information to others, showing by example. I might ask follow-up questions to prompt my students to share more about what they read and what they said and what they wrote.
As an online educator, facts and authority are another way in which we satisfy cognitive presence. Listening in this way helps us detect what students are actually learning specific to the subject matter and about engaging as academics and scholars themselves. And listening for these details, we can help mentor them to communicate on an academic level about ideas in the field that others believe are essential.
Listen for Application and Relevance
A listener focused on application and relevance is mostly interested in what can be done with the ideas being shared. The facts and authority might be important, and a solid discussion of the big picture concept. But more than that, it would be all about what we can do with these ideas.
Listening in this way means I might think, “This is nice, but why does it matter? What can we do with it in the real world?” I’m mainly concerned with how it can apply to me in my own life. Or how it can be implemented in the workplace. I might engage in ways that bring up various scenarios or what-if proposals. I might ask questions about making it real and trying it out.
As an online educator, especially with adult learners, applying the learning is a priority. Our students want to know how the ideas and details are relevant to them, and they want to be able to do something with the knowledge they have gained. Listening in this way helps us communicate on that same level with our students about areas they care most about. And this brings us full circle from learning social connection about who they are to the application of learning into more of who they are.
Respond by Acknowledging, Validating, and Affirming
Even when listening in different ways, it can be challenging to know how to respond. Three easy responses that help online students feel seen, heard, and understood can be learned and practiced and chances are, you’re already doing them.
Acknowledging means that we let others know they were heard. In the online classroom, this might mean that we provide a statement about the student’s message to indicate we have seen it or read it. Even a simple “thank you for posting about the topic,” and adding a few details you noticed in the post, helps a student know you read it. Acknowledging is a basic exchange and does not require additional interpretation or any discussion.
Validating goes beyond just acknowledging. Validating means that in some way, we let others know we accept their point of view and their feelings, even if we don’t agree. We are basically saying that their statements are valid. You don’t try to correct them, persuade them, or tell them their viewpoint is wrong. Validation is an empathetic way of communicating and is not judgmental. This isn’t about facts and data but much more about others’ life experiences and preferences and opinions. To be helpful, validating must show that you really hear the other person and understand why they feel the way they do.
Affirming is a way to recognize a person’s strengths or positive behaviors and improvements. The intention behind these statements is that they support a person’s growth and their capacity to learn and change. They are only effective when they are true. As online educators, we might respond to a student’s idea as a helpful suggestion or respond to their application of the concepts as original and resourceful. As they continue to learn and develop, affirming statements help our students feel seen and understood, and they also praise evidence of their growth with specific evidence along the way.
As we close out this episode about types of listening and three ways to acknowledge what we hear, I realize this is a lot of information! My suggestion is to pick only of these ideas to try out and see what happens. And remember, that these are foundational ideas. It’s likely you’re already going beyond these strategies by questioning, challenging, building on students’ ideas, and redirecting them when needed. And by trying one new concept this coming week, you’re going to add variety to your listening approach online. And who knows? Your students might even like it! Thank you for listening today, and best wishes in your online teaching this coming week.
This is Dr. Bethanie Hansen, your host for the Online Teaching Lounge podcast. To share comments and requests for future episodes, please visit bethaniehansen.com/request. Best switches this coming week in your online teaching journey.
by Bethanie Hansen | Career, Energy, Life, Personal Growth, Podcast
This content first appeared on APUEdge.com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (Interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
What motivated you to be an educator in the first place? How do you find meaning in your life and work? In this episode, APU’s Dr. Bethanie Hansen provides guidance on how to identify your “why” and how that information can help you get through challenging times.
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Bethanie Hansen: This podcast is for educators, academics and parents, who know that online teaching can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding, engaging, and fun! Welcome to the Online Teaching Lounge. I’m your host, Dr. Bethanie Hansen. And I’ll be your guide for online teaching tips, topics and strategies. Walk with me into the Online Teaching Lounge.
Welcome to the online teaching lounge today, I’m glad you’re with me. And, likely, you have an interest in teaching online, or perhaps you’ve been doing it a very long time. Either way, this podcast is typically targeted or focused on those of you who are out there doing the good work of teaching online.
This can be a very challenging profession and professional endeavor. And it can sometimes be just downright discouraging. There are times where we have to really pick ourselves up and push hard to get through the toughest times in online teaching. And if you’ve been doing this very long, you know exactly what I’m talking about. So, today we’re going to talk about what fuels you. Or in other words, what is your “why” behind what you’re doing, as you’re teaching online?
The more clarity and the more direction we can get around the why behind what we’re doing, the easier it’s going to be to continuously push through those tougher times that tend to discourage or be disheartening to us all as we’re teaching online.
What kind of things might come along that could put us in a funk or in a space where we need that connection with our why behind what we’re doing? Really, it could be anything. It could be some kind of outside situation in the world, something happening, clear across the world that, for some reason, really impacts us personally, or for which we emotionally feel quite invested in.
It could be something in the organization for which we teach, maybe things are becoming difficult in that organization. Or we might be suffering from lack of resources, lack of time, overwork, overburdened workloads, lots of different things can create stress in the work situation that we have.
Maybe we teach for more than one institution, and we’re struggling to balance deadlines, timelines, the deliverables we need to turn in, or all that work we need to grade for our students.
Or, maybe it’s something totally personal. Some of the things that impact us personally could be our own health, our mental, physical or emotional health, our ability to connect with other people, or the frequency of connecting with others to enrich ourselves. Maybe we’re feeling lonely, isolated, detached from those around us. Other things that could happen might be in our home situation or our relationships. Maybe we’re struggling with a child that’s having challenges or a spouse.
Whatever it is, there are so many reasons why it’s powerful and useful to find the why behind everything we’re doing in our online work. So today, think about what led you to become an educator, first of all, and let’s start with all those things that easily pop into your mind.
What Drove You to be an Educator?
For example, did you ever have an educator that you really admired? Did you have one that inspired you or made you feel like you really belonged? If you can think about an educator who promoted your value as a human being and really pushed you to become who you are today, perhaps you became an educator so you could give back or so you could be like that person. Think about that initial start that got you into teaching.
Maybe it’s the subject matter. Maybe it wasn’t a person at all, but more the topics, the interest, the path you took through college studying this stuff? Is there a bigger meaning behind all of that that really drives your passion to teach it to other people?
Is it the ability you have to make an impact? Do you see the value of your teaching on other people easily? Are you able to notice what they can glean from you? The somewhat-apprentice learning they get from you? The way they’re nurtured by you? Are you able to help people feel connected, like they have purpose and they have belonging? Let’s start thinking about all those deeper meaning type of feelings that we have about what we do.
How Do You Find Meaning?
There’s a man named Viktor Frankl who is well known for his philosophies that came out of his experience living in the concentration camp for a time. And he created this theory that we really gain meaning from three different things. We’re going to get meaning in life through our work, through love and through suffering. And sometimes the work we do every day when we’re teaching, whether we’re teaching face to face, or we’re teaching online, that work brings us a sense of meaning, like, we’re just contributing to the world.
We’re putting good out there, we’re giving every day, and we have the ability to get meaning from that very thing we’re doing. If you’re in that group, you’re not alone, a lot of people, their why is the work. You can lose yourself in the work, you can feel a great purpose in the work. And daily, if you get out of bed excited about doing the work, it’s very likely that the work of teaching itself really excites you, and you get meaning in life from this endeavor.
This idea of getting meaning in life through love. Now, this is the idea of those cherished personal relationships that are closest to you, the deep love that you have for others, and the way you want to be with them, and build relationships with them and connect with them. Is there something about your students that really brings out your love for humanity, for individuals, for other people? Do you feel this deeper feeling for them that drives your work? Is the meaning that you’re getting in your educating coming from that love?
And lastly, through suffering. Many times, if we suffer some very difficult thing, it could be an illness, or an accident or tragedy or any kind of external or internal suffering, there can be this constructed meaning through the suffering. One can decide to turn that suffering into transformative development and growth, and really find deep purpose and meaning in that suffering.
Sometimes in our online teaching work, we might be motivated through the work itself. And maybe at other times through the love. This last year, when our institution had its large graduation exercise, there were hundreds, even thousands of people there. And it would be very easy to connect to the students there, face to face and feel love for them, especially if you taught them in several courses over time. It’s also very easy to feel connected to this work by loving colleagues, really feeling like those relationships have developed over years. And there’s a deep love and respect for those that one works with.
And then, of course, there are those hard times where things just all come together into a horrible crucible of suffering. And it could be the late nights struggling through teaching a tough concept, grading hundreds of essays, and just pushing through when there are other things competing for our time as well. Or it could be even beyond that—the personal challenges, the health challenges, the world challenges, and all the suffering involved with those things.
So, looking at all three of those ways people find meaning in life and in work. What resonates most with you today? What seems to light your fire? What brings the why into what you do? Why did you decide to be an educator? And why do you keep doing it?
It might be easy to say, “Well, I do it because it’s a paycheck. Well, I have student loans, and I do it because I need to pay them off.” Or “I do it because, well that’s the job I have, or because I work here.” If any of those ideas come into your mind, I want to encourage you to just set them aside temporarily. Those are important ideas and worth thinking about. If we take it to a little bit of a deeper level, what beyond that keeps you showing up every day? Because you could work anywhere.
With your brain capacity, experience, intelligence and educational background, you could get a job anywhere, but you work where you work, doing what you do with your gifts, talents, attributes, and the ability to make your unique contribution. Why is it that you’re doing it?
What is it that you love about it, or that you get out of doing that? What motivates you to be there?
I encourage you to find a place where you can brainstorm these ideas, write them down and list everything that comes to mind. You’re not going to show it to anyone else. And it’s okay if some of the things that come out are things that you wouldn’t be proud to share. Like if you don’t really want to tell anyone that the main reason you do what you do is for the money. It’s okay to write it down. You don’t have to share it. It’s your business. But write all the different reasons why you’re doing online teaching.
Some people like this because they can reach a lot of people all over the world and really engage with many different cultures and people from different backgrounds and learn as well as teach at the same time. And some people do it for convenience, they could teach face to face, but they like the flexibility that comes from teaching online. Whatever comes to your mind, write it all, make a huge list—some people call this a “brain dump”—and sort it all out.
And once you’ve written down all the different reasons why you do what you do teaching online, sort them into different levels. So, we have the very practical, basic “why.” Maybe because it’s flexible, maybe because it brings us a good paycheck, or whatever that is.
And then start to look for those things that you might have listed, that go to a slightly higher level or a deeper level of thinking for you. Maybe you have a connection to your students that you can’t get any other way. Maybe you feel a huge reward in certain types of situations, when you’re teaching online. Whatever that is, let’s sort them into kind of levels to see what, ultimately, is your biggest “why.”
Does it really boil down to the practical arrangement? Does it hit your deeper level of getting the meaning through the work itself or through the love you have? Or through the suffering that it might involve?
And then we’ll take this one step further. Once you’ve made your list that creates your why behind what you do, what kinds of words and language do you use when you talk about your online teaching? “I have to go do this.” “Well, I’m late again.” I mean, things like this, do they come out?
Or is it, “I get to go do this,” “I’m really fortunate to have this opportunity” and “I can’t wait to get back in that classroom”? The words we use can actually create meaning all by themselves for our thinking and for our brains. So, if we’re constantly saying things in somewhat a negative, pressured light, like a “have to,” that starts to make us feel like the meaning is very superficial, or maybe it’s less than it really is.
And if we use words that empower us to find that sense of meaning through what we’re doing, then as we go to the work, it gives us this subconscious desire to get that meaning out of it, to have a deeper purpose behind what we do.
I have thought about this a lot. I have a son who works in restoration work. And in his company, he goes into people’s basements when they’ve had a flood or some kind of disaster that has destroyed part of their home. And he is part of the crew that initially arrives when they’ve had this disaster and tears up and mucks out and cleans out whatever has overflowed or exploded or erupted underneath their home.
Sometimes it’s a very disgusting job that most people would not want to do, especially when something like a sewer has backed up. And when I was speaking to my son about what he does, and asking him why he does this job, he had a really positive why behind it.
He said, he works with people in their most desperate hour, in some pretty devastating circumstances through which they are suffering, and they can’t see a way out. And he is there, superhero in his way, able to completely block it off, make it a sterile environment, clean it out, tear it out and refresh it so that they can have the new materials put in and have their house back into a livable condition, even better than it was before. And, in this way, it is like being a superhero, saving people in their darkest hour.
As he thinks about his why, of course, there are some pretty bad experiences that he’s going to have in that job. The dirty work of restoration before it’s time to do the restoration itself, getting rid of the old stuff that’s there. That’s the hardest part. So, I admire that why, and I’m sure it comes in handy a lot of times when he’s thinking about the hard parts of the job.
Just like that job, as online educators we have wonderful things we can do for people meeting them wherever they are and helping them become educated when they might not otherwise have access to this kind of opportunity.
And during the hard times, if we can create a few statements like my son did about his restoration work and remind ourselves of those things when we are in our toughest moments, knowing the why behind what we do for our own selves and our own work will empower us and help us more than anyone else ever could. I hope you’ll think about your why and take it home today and write up a few statements that help you remember it.
Keep it in a place you can look at it often. And enjoy being the online educator that you are, through the hard times and through the good times.
Thank you for being here. We’re all in this together getting through the profession we have of being online educators. I wish you all the best and hope that you feel uplifted this week. And I wish you all the best in your teaching this coming week as well.
This is Dr. Bethanie Hansen, your host for the Online Teaching Lounge podcast. To share comments and requests for future episodes, please visit bethaniehansen.com/request. Best switches this coming week in your online teaching journey.
by Bethanie Hansen | Higher Education, Online Education Trends, Podcast, Teaching Online, Technology Tools, Video
This content first appeared on APUEdge.com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (Interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
Want to increase engagement in the classroom, but not sure where to start? In this episode, APU’s Dr. Bethanie Hansen shares three interactive platforms to add a creative approach to student engagement. Learn what platforms work best for asynchronous, synchronous and hybrid classes.
Listen to the Episode:
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Read the Transcript:
Bethanie Hansen: This podcast is for educators, academics and parents, who know that online teaching can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding, engaging, and fun! Welcome to the Online Teaching Lounge. I’m your host, Dr. Bethanie Hansen. And I’ll be your guide for online teaching tips, topics and strategies. Walk with me into the Online Teaching Lounge.
Welcome to the Online Teaching Lounge. I’m Bethanie Hansen your host, and I’m here to talk with you today about three interactive platforms to try in your online teaching. With so many things to try out there, it can be very difficult to decide what will work for you and for your students when you’re teaching online.
Today, we’re going to look at three interactive platforms. The first one is called Knovio: K-N-O-V-I-O; you can learn more about it at Knovio.com. And I’ll talk about it here today. The second one is called Vimeo: V-I-M-E-O and, of course, you can look this one up at vimeo.com. It’s a little bit like a YouTube-style hosting platform, but with some additional interesting features. And thirdly, we’ll look at Mentimeter M-E-N-T-I-M-E-T-E-R, at mentimeter.com. This one can have interactive slide presentations, and quizzing features, and all kinds of different questions and polling that you can include.
Each one has its own place in your online teaching. And some of these work well asynchronously. Some work well synchronously, but still online. And some can work for both. So, we’ll check out all three of these interesting interactive platforms and give you some ideas of things you might want to try in your next online class.
What to Know about Knovio
First, if you’re interested in helping your students create their own interactive presentations, where they can video record themselves next to some slides that they are also presenting, a great platform would be Knovio. Knovio.com has a lot of different options. There is the educator pricing and the educator platform. But more specifically, today I want to talk about the student version of this product. So, this is an opportunity for your students to create presentations that they are featured in with video and slides side by side.
It’s easy to use; they can narrate their slides, or they can record the videos side by side, or they can just do audio with no video and those slides. They can share it with their friends, they can share it with the entire class, send it to their professor for grading. It can be featured on a web page in your online classroom as part of a showcase when you have students submit projects. It’s mobile-friendly and, of course, there’s a free version. So, students can make a seven-minute video, and it’s free. Or for a longer video or more of them, they can have a very inexpensive student plan, I think it’s something like $5 per month.
So, there’s student pricing. And there’s the opportunity for students to save these and share them. And of course, they can continue to edit them and work together with others in a group if they’d like to do that. So, the Student Edition gives all the Knovio Pro features, but at an inexpensive price your students would be able to invest in, it gives the five hours of storage for students, unlimited video presentation lengths, up to like a five-hour presentation. And also high-definition video exports. So, they can either export the entire video, or they can share just through a link.
When students use Knovio to make presentations, they’re much more interactive than just a simple PowerPoint alone. They can have that live video next to it and it’s really engaging, just like being in a presentation in a live classroom. So, it brings that personal touch into the presentation.
They can use different languages and have it translated. Or you can have it narrated and just in English, whatever works for your students. So, if you’re doing another language, like teaching a Spanish class, it might be interesting to have the translation there. And you can also post these online, upload them to your favorite hosting service.
You can also check out the statistics to see whether they’ve been viewed, how many times they’ve been viewed. And you can also give it a bookmark so that you can move from slide to slide and each one will play the narration and then just stop there so you can skip around. So, there are a lot of options available in the student version here and its very user friendly.
I myself first was exposed to Knovio years ago through a colleague at American Public University. After I first tried it out at the time, I was also teaching at the local community college, so I brought it into my face-to-face music appreciation class. And I had students make their presentations using Knovio. And then in the web version of our class where we had our grading, and we could also store things, I had students upload their Knovios in there so there was sort of this showcase. And between class sessions, students could look at all the different presentations and share their comments and study more than they would get in the live class.
So, there are a lot of options here with Knovio. It works great in live classes, hybrid classes, and asynchronous classes. Now, what if you want to use Knovio as the faculty member? There is also this ability to put quizzing in between your narrated sections. So, you can have yourself on video talking through parts of a lecture, and you can have a slide up there with the different pieces of information, then you can have your students pause and take the quiz questions in between and then move on to the next slide. So, if you like it enough to try the teacher version, you’ll find there are a lot more features, especially if you try the pro version. And it might be worth keeping and using over and over.
And, of course, you can save your work and use it in the next session of that class. So, once you’ve invested the time to build this big presentation and put your video up there, you can use it repeatedly. So that’s one option to you, Knovio. It’s an interactive slide presentation type of application. And we’ll go on to the second option for you today, which is Vimeo.
Considerations for Using Vimeo
Now, what is Vimeo you might be wondering? Vimeo is an all-in-one video hosting platform. So, you can make, manage and share your videos, you can have live virtual events that you engage your audience with. And you can also send out these videos, keep track of the statistics and know who’s watching them. You can password protect them, you can have them listed or unlisted, you can put them as part of a showcase, you can embed them anywhere.
There are a lot of ways to use Vimeo. And there are a lot more personal controls that you can employ in your Vimeo hosting. One of the reasons people use Vimeo now, of course, is for all kinds of video marketing and video monetization. But, as an educator, you can see that there would be a lot of benefit to tracking the views of your videos and adding captions and different things.
You can use them to teach a lesson, you can also embed them in your LMS. So, if you compare this to YouTube, there’s just a little bit more in terms of control and features. I encourage you to take a look at Vimeo and see whether it might be something that you want to try out. There are various levels of plans, and it just might be something that your students connect well with.
Now, why would you want to try Vimeo instead of YouTube? That is an interesting question that really depends on the user. Some people use YouTube and like to use either private or unlisted videos. Unlisted is probably the best way to go, because then you can use those videos that you’ve created and you can do them without the whole web finding them. The problem with unlisted videos on YouTube is that the date that you created them, and the number of watches is public. And if you try Vimeo, you can hide a lot of that information, you can hide the branding, you can hide the statistics.
And you really can choose how much about the video other people can see. So, there’s a little more control there. And as I mentioned, you can embed it anywhere, link it anywhere and use it whenever you see fit. So, all kinds of great things can happen with your Vimeo videos. And, even though, there is a small cost associated with that, you might find that it’s helpful for interactive things, screen recording, and also editing videos in a professional way with very little learning required.
It’s user friendly, easy to learn. And you can also with the same link, if you decide you want to change out the video or or add an updated version, you can have the same link to the video but replace it with a newer version of your video without changing the URL or the address of that video. So, that’s a bonus of Vimeo, it preserves that address for you and allows you to use it over and over, even when you’ve subbed out to a new version of the video.
So, Vimeo is worth trying in your online education experience. It’s especially good for asynchronous learning where you’re building a class and putting lots of different videos in there that you have created. And it’s also good for hybrid situations if you’re teaching some live and some of the work they’re going to be doing at home. So, look at Vimeo and see if it’s a video solution you might want to try in your online teaching.
What is Mentimeter?
And lastly, today we’re talking about Mentimeter. Mentimeter is a fun way to interact with your students either synchronously or asynchronously. Mentimeter is a platform where you build presentations. You can build your entire presentation on this platform, you can prepare it to be interactive, you can use the online editor to add questions, polls, quizzes, slides, images, GIFs, and all kinds of exciting things. And you can make these really engaging presentations that your students will view.
Additionally, you could just use it for one or two slides to create a poll that you insert into your classroom. Now, your audience, your students, are going to use their smartphones to connect to the presentation and answer the questions. So, if you send it out for the engagement feature alone, you could just post the link or embed the Mentimeter presentation in your online class. You can send the link in your announcement, or you can put it in there as an actual piece of content. They can see their responses coming together as more and more students respond. So, when one student adds information, they’re going to see in real time, the interactive responses pop up there. And the more students come in throughout the week and participate asynchronously in this engagement, the more those answers are going to change.
For example, if you have a word cloud on one slide, and Sarah goes in on Monday and adds her answers, and Johnny goes in on Tuesday, the existing parts of the answer will be there. And the next student’s answers will be added to it. And it’ll become more and more rich, engaging and interesting for everyone, as the week goes on. Then at the end of the week, you can close out the Mentimeter and it’ll save all those responses. So, you could send that out as a follow up that everyone can view and see the collective contributions to that presentation.
So, it’s a very interesting way to get people to interact, whether it’s synchronously or asynchronously throughout the week. And then you can just close that off and have everybody take a look together and have a fun closing product. So that’s mentimeter.com. And I really believe that it works well for both synchronous and asynchronous audiences. And I encourage you to try it for the fun interactivity that it might provide to your online students.
So, today, we’ve just looked at three different media applications. The first one was Knovio. A great way for students to create presentations that have live-looking video next to their slide presentation narrated or faculty members can also do that, and even embed quizzing in the middle.
Secondly, we have Vimeo, which also allows you to add some interesting interactivity, including quizzing, if you have one of the paid versions of that plan. And then lastly, Mentimeter, which also provides a lot of different types of interactivity in a slide-based application that you can either share the link, you can use it on a smartphone or you can embed it in the classroom, and it can collect all kinds of responses. And you can use a creative approach to share this engagement with your students.
This coming week, I hope you’ll try at least one of these new and interesting ways to engage and find a way to liven up your online teaching and increase the engagement through an interesting media app. Best wishes to you in your online teaching this coming week.
This is Dr. Bethanie Hansen, your host for the Online Teaching Lounge podcast. To share comments and requests for future episodes, please visit bethaniehansen.com/request. Best wishes this coming week in your online teaching journey.
