by Bethanie Hansen | Career, Online Education Trends, Podcast, Professional Development, Teaching Online
This post initially appeared at https://apuedge.com/how-to-navigate-a-career-change-in-online-education/.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
Is it time for you to change jobs or start a new career? In this episode, Dr. Bethanie Hansen shares tips to help with the transition. Learn why it’s important to craft a strong narrative about your career, build a strong network and be prepared to negotiate.
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Dr. 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. This is Bethanie Hansen, your host, and I’m really happy to talk with you today about the potential for changing careers in your online teaching journey. Now, a career change could be a minor thing. It could be, you’re just changing jobs, perhaps you work at one school, and you’d like to work at another. Or maybe the career change is actually in a new direction. Perhaps you’ve been teaching in a face-to-face classroom, and then you’ve had an adjunct role teaching one class at a time online, but maybe you want to just expand that.
Maybe you want to go full time in an online capacity. That does feel like quite a bit of a change, doesn’t it? Maybe you want to leave teaching altogether and go into higher education leadership, or educational administration in the K-12 system. Perhaps you’re leaving the standard classroom and you’re becoming a virtual coach, trainer or consultant.
Whatever type of career change you are contemplating, changing careers can be a challenge. I have changed careers myself several times. And these changes have been interesting, they have been difficult, and in my experience, they have also involved a little bit of identity consideration. For example, when I made my first career change, I was leaving a role of, where I thought, I was a band director.
My job title was band teacher. But we in the band-directing field, when we’re running the entire program, we’re doing a lot of fundraising, we have parent groups and all of those things along the way, we would call that more of band director role versus just teaching. So, I was leaving this role of being a band director, and becoming a 100% online teacher in higher education. That role change involved an identity shift in my mind. I had to stop calling myself a band director, and I had to stop referring to myself as a band director. And a lot of people who knew me did not understand what online teaching was all about, or what I did for a living.
In fact, they kind of didn’t ask about it at all once I told them what I was doing, because they just didn’t understand it. They didn’t relate to that. Now that online education has been around a while, and it has developed into something that is spoken of in the general population, the general public, a career in online education is not as far of a reach if you’re telling someone else about it. Either way, I’m going to give you some steps today that will help you out if you’re thinking about changing careers, either into or out of online education.
Considerations When You’re Changing Careers
The first thing to consider when you’re changing careers is your narrative. The narrative of your career change is really the story behind that career change. One place where we tell that story is a profile network like LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a virtual platform where you have almost a virtual version of a resume. You have a space where you have some paragraphs that summarize who you are, what you’re all about. You also have your jobs listed, what some of the key things were you did in those jobs, what dates they were, where you worked. And you can also provide links to any articles you’ve written, presentations you’ve made, podcasts you’ve hosted, and more. You can add a lot of those things and share them with a network of people that you’re hoping to connect with more fully.
LinkedIn does have jobs posted, and many companies are doing this now, many educational entities also are. So, when you post yourself on LinkedIn, and you really work on your story behind your career change there, and the story of where you’re headed, this can be a helpful place to go.
Develop a Narrative about Your Career Change
One thing to think about in your narrative is why you’re changing careers. You can say it succinctly and diplomatically. That story of why you’re changing careers really never includes the negative judgments you might have made about a prior boss or a prior situation or employer. When you’re telling this story, succinctly and diplomatically as I mentioned, one thing would be to talk about the direction you are growing. The experiences you’ve had in the past and how you’ve learned from them, and now you’re pivoting in a new direction. And what some of those common threads are.
In literature, we call that the “red thread” of your story. So, in my band-directing career, I was helping people grow and develop and transform into adulthood. They were learning musical skills, leadership skills, self-management, all kinds of things. And as I moved into higher education, I was still working on those very same core things. And in my part-time coaching work with people, I also work on helping them develop and change and transform in their direction. So, that thread for me is very consistent, even though the subject matter or the way I played it out has changed over time.
Another thing that you can include in your narrative of your career change would be what transformative skills you bring that are relevant to a new role you’re seeking. For example, if you have primarily taught face to face, and you’re actually just hoping to move into full time online work, you can talk about all of the different methods you have used to communicate with your stakeholders in that face-to-face environment.
If you have led, or attended or developed webinars for people, or presented live, synchronous classes through a virtual mode, like Zoom or something like that, those would be skills that you can bring that are relevant to the new role you’re seeking of being online.
And then, of course, there are past paid and unpaid experiences that might directly relate to the new role you’re hoping to get. And you can talk about those, write about those, list them on your LinkedIn profile and on your resume, and include those in your narrative.
What are the Positive Aspects of Your Career Change?
Something else to consider is how change is positive for you and your fulfillment. In the direction you’re hoping to go, think about what positive aspects of that change will bring into your life. What is good about that change? What are the benefits you’re seeking and hoping for? And how have you been preparing for those very benefits and positives, and seeking them out now and not just waiting for the future change?
For example, if one of the reasons you want to teach online 100% of the time is that you love to travel and you love the flexibility, you could be thinking about how you’ve already been using some flexibility in your current work schedule to fulfill your travel desires, and not just how you’re waiting for the future to play out. So, how is the change is going to be positive for you, and how are you already seeking it and getting some of that?
Omit Details that Don’t Contribute to Your New Direction
Leave out extra details that don’t help you in the direction you’re trying to go. I’ve seen some people write 50-page vitas or resumes that document every job they’ve ever had, every class they’ve ever taught, everywhere they’ve ever been. And a new employer hoping to hire you doesn’t know how to navigate that narrative on their own. So, include the things that tell the story that is important for your career change, and summarize those things that are not, or leave them out altogether. It’s okay to not include every single job you’ve ever had. But you definitely want to include the ones that are relevant and that do pave the way for the direction you’re headed.
You can think about this as a story arc. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end to your professional story. And the way you introduce it could be something that you’ve done or thought about or learned about or experienced in your life that ignited your passion for where you’re headed right now. And places along the way where you got a little bit more experience or insight or direction. And, in the future, you’re going to have that good resolution of being able to fulfill that direction you’re hoping to go.
I would like to recommend also imagining beyond open opportunities. The world we live in has a lot of career options available that are literally invented around a candidate. Not every job exists right now that you could be qualified for, and it’s possible you’ll be able to negotiate something that will build your dream job in the future.
So, that first part of changing careers is to think about the narrative and the story that you’re telling about your professional direction and your past, and all the skills you’re bringing with you. The second tip today about navigating your online career change is to build a network.
Build a Strong Network
Networking is sort of a buzzword in job seeking. Networking is connecting with other people and offering them something while you’re gaining something from them as well. It’s sort of like mutual relationship building. If you have an opportunity to connect with people in your field, you can always ask for advice and receive advice and give advice. It builds trust with other people when you share what you know and what you think, within reason.
Realize what you don’t know. Think about that future online job or that future job away from online, if that’s the direction you’re moving, and what role you would like to fill, what functions it might include and the industry in which that role takes place. And when you realize what you don’t know about that, now you have some questions to ask others.
Learn about how you can fill those knowledge gaps. Are you going to learn something through an online class or workshop? Will you go to a conference or join an organization? Whatever direction you go, you want to dive in. Really get to know people in that space and participate fully so those knowledge gaps will get filled. And you’ll build a new network along the way.
You can explore what the new role would really ask of you day in and day out, and that can happen by talking to those people in the industry, or in the role, and develop your narrative skills. You’ll be talking a lot when you try to build your network. And you’ll talk about where you’ve been, why you want to change, what you’re working on right now to move you in that new direction. And you’ll build a lot of opportunity to talk about your story, your career-change story.
Get Specific about What You Want to Do in Your Career Change
The third tip for navigating your career change will be to narrow, get specific about what you really want to do. For example, at one time, I was thinking about how I did a lot of recruiting and retention as a band director, and in online education, as a leader, we talk a lot about recruiting and retention, so I’m thinking about it a lot.
And in the future where I want to continue to support, strengthen, and develop educators, I would say something like, “I’m looking to do teacher retention work in higher education. I’m going to draw on my skills in coaching, managing and leading others. And the wellbeing training I gained as a coach to help manage and lead online faculty forward in better ways. I want to help people stay in this profession. And I want people to grow in this profession, so I’m prepared to do that.”
So, if I’m getting super specific about what I want to do, I would be saying that I’m looking to do teacher retention work in higher education. And I can give all those details that I just mentioned along the way.
Be Prepared to Negotiate and Compromise
The fourth step in your career change story would be to negotiate. You might have to compromise to achieve the career direction change that you want. If it’s a big change, that might mean accepting a lower salary than the current role you’re filling, until you’re able to gain new skills and move back up. You might lose seniority that you have in your current organization. You might also lose some of the flexibility you currently like. And, especially, if you’re working online right now and you’re moving into a not online position, definitely the flexibility will be something to be thinking about.
Or maybe there are other perks. Perhaps your employer supports you attending conferences and doing a lot of travel, and you won’t be able to do that in the future. That’s a perk you might lose. You can’t keep all the same benefits and perks if you’re changing industries, making a major change, like from K-12 education to higher education or from the higher education to the business industry, or something like that. You won’t have the tested skills that someone who’s been in that field their entire career has.
So, you will need to be a little bit more realistic about the value you’re going to create early in the path, as well as your potential to grow and develop and eventually demonstrate solid skills as an expert in that direction. Can you set aside money now, to make up the difference if you have to have a salary reduction? Can you move up to regain the title and direction you’re going in right now eventually in the new direction? Are there some perks you can let go of right now that you can live without for the rest of your career? Or can you get these perks some other way? Is there something else that will lead to what you want?
If you cannot make that career change right now, anything that you can do to change your existing role to enhance it or bring in more of what you’re looking for, will help you through the process of job crafting. Or you may also be able to gain more fulfillment from hobbies, a side gig, or some volunteer work.
If you’re really intentional about your career change, a thoughtful planning period and a lot of research and some careful narrative crafting of your actual experience, as well as building your network and being realistic about a potential change will bring you the most fulfillment. It’s going to bring you more purpose, and better engagement throughout the process.
I’ve been through several career changes myself, and I know you can have a really positive outcome when you put the time in that it takes to be diligent in your efforts and also think about where you really want to go. I wish you all the best in that pursuit, it can be a tough one. But, again, you can find that fulfillment throughout the future, as you are looking for what you really want, and doing the work it takes to make that change and get there.
And, ultimately, as I’ve said before, if you’re not able to make that change right now, you can consider job crafting your current role, or gaining additional fulfillment from outside activities. Thanks for being here in the Online Teaching Lounge today as we’re talking about navigating an online career change. And I wish you all the best in the next step on that journey, if that’s where you’re headed.
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 | Career, Higher Education, Leadership, Podcast, Professional Development
This content first appeared at APUEdge.com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (Interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
Part of learning and stretching is sharing your knowledge with others. In this episode, APU’s Dr. Bethanie Hansen discusses the benefits of presenting at a professional conference. Learn tips on selecting an engaging topic, writing a conference proposal as well as what mistakes to avoid.
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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 today, I’m Bethanie Hansen. And I want to talk with you about how to write a conference proposal. As an online educator, you may be thinking, you need some professional development, and it’s a great idea to go to a conference. There are so many kinds of conferences you could attend. If there’s one locally in your area, it’s especially good to set aside the time and go attend that conference: Low cost, local area, fast access.
But something across the country or across the state, that’s a different story altogether. Now we’re talking about spending money to attend that conference. And it’s a lot easier to justify spending that money if you’re also going to be presenting at that conference. Or, if your institution is considering sponsoring you, chances are the only way they’re going to do that is if you are presenting at the conference. So how do you write a conference proposal?
Well, before we talk about that, I just want to dive into how we can tap into your genius about what you might present at a conference. First, I’ll tell you a little story about myself.
I used to go to professional development conferences as a band director in California. I would go to the State Music Educator National Conference conventions that were for the state of California. These would rotate between Sacramento and San Diego or Los Angeles, every other year. As I went to these, and I noticed others presenting on topics of interest to me, one day, I realized I had that same knowledge. A woman stood up there and shared some exercises that she used with her band and she taught us all how to use them and talked around them.
And I thought to myself, I could be the person presenting this workshop, I know that same stuff. And suddenly it dawned on me, not everybody knows what I know. And, just like me, not everybody knows what you know, either. And so, in my next step, I wrote up a proposal about what was most important to me as a band director. And, as a band director, and still, as an educator today, the very most important thing to me was recruiting and retention.
Recruiting is a whole process of giving awareness to other people, helping them to notice you notice your band program and get interested in joining it in the future. And then there’s those actions about having them join your band this year. And, all of the steps that have to do with that like getting a band instrument, convincing your parents that you should be in the band, figuring out how you’re going to get started. And all of those things that are part of joining the band, the very first year you’re thinking about it.
There’s also the recruiting at different ages. So, if your school district’s band program starts in sixth grade, maybe in seventh grade, someone has moved in from somewhere else, and they didn’t have that chance, and they still want to join band. So, there’s several different processes to recruiting. There’s even high-school level recruiting, where you might be recruiting people to twirl a flag in your marching band, or play cymbals in your percussion section, or even be a beginner on a band instrument. So, there’s a lot of levels to this and I had experience and passion for all of that.
So, I wrote that proposal. And I drafted it up for that State California conference.
And the other half is retention. Once you recruit kids into your program, or students into any class, you have to help them want to stay there. There’s this whole idea that band directors used to have all over the place where they just assumed kids would stay because band is worth doing all by itself, right? Well, that’s not the case. In fact, when kids join your band, you have to work just as hard to keep them there, as you do to get them there in the first place.
There is so much that competes for your students’ time when you’re a band director. You have to really work with them on balancing all those activities they might be in, what if they’re in sports and band at the same time or different clubs, like debate or going on field trips for academic decathlon? There’s just so much. So that topic of recruiting and retention, it’s kind of two different things that goes nicely together. And that’s what I decided I wanted to present on at a conference. So, I wrote up my proposal and I submitted it. And it was accepted. And it was my very first time presenting at a professional conference.
So, I prepared, I made my PowerPoint slides, created a packet of handouts. And I went to this conference. And this session was in a huge theater. And it was full, totally full of about 200 people. I was amazed at how many people came to that conference session that I presented. I ran out of handouts, I had to give them email copies later. But it was a huge success for me, the very first time out.
Other conferences I have presented at have had varying degrees of interest and attention. I have sometimes presented a session to five people, sometimes 35. So, even when you’re accepted to present at a conference, you can never really know exactly what you’re going to get in terms of who shows up, and what you need to deliver it with success. But what you can assume is that someone will want to hear it, even if it’s just one or two people. So, writing that proposal, I suggest thinking about number one, what you know about.
Determine Your Area of Interest to Present On
What is your area of expertise in your academic discipline? What subject matter do you really want to share something about? It could be a teaching strategy, or like my example of recruiting for band directors, it could be a problem-solving strategy. It could be some kind of community-building, like how you could use labs in your virtual science class. It could be some kind of a networking idea, how you’re going to collaborate with other teachers. And maybe you’re going to present a model of how to do that. There are so many ideas of things you are good at, that you could potentially share at a conference.
If you’re not really sure what would be appropriate for a conference, I suggest looking up the website for a conference you might consider attending and looking at last year’s topics. Many of the websites out there for conferences have a list of the topics and the titles of the presentations for the last several years. These can give you a good idea of what might be interesting to conference attendees, or what might suit the audience, generally.
One example for the online teaching space is the Online Learning Consortium. They have two conferences a year one is in the spring, and it’s called OLC Innovate. And when is in the fall, it’s called OLC Accelerate. And as of right now, at the time of this recording, they have a virtual and a live option. So, even if you could not travel to attend that conference, you could still present, even if it’s virtually.
Tips to Writing a Successful Proposal
So, as you think about the topic, there are some tips to help you get this written well and have a greater chance that your proposal will be accepted. The first one is of course to have a suitable topic, the best way to have a suitable topic for a conference, once you’ve decided on your area of interest, whether it’s a subject matter or a strategy, the best way is to think about the tracks and the topics that conference is requesting.
In the case of the OLC Accelerate conference, there are certain tracks and they are all aimed at different audiences. I’ll just give you an example of what these tracks might be, so you have an idea of the type of variety that conferences can have.
The track descriptions for OCLC Accelerate are:
- access, equity, and open education
- blended learning strategy and practice
- engaged in effective teaching and learning
- instructional design
- leadership and institutional strategy
- research, evaluation and learning analytics
- student support and success
- technology and future trends
And often there will be some big ideas that have lots of sessions connected to them. And if you can propose something to a less-popular area, where what I mean to say is where there are likely to be fewer proposals, but there is still interest in the audience that even increases your chances of getting accepted more.
So, one example would be that a lot of people at that particular conference, propose things in the category of engaged and effective teaching and learning. After all, most things we’re going to think about in online education are about the teaching and learning, right? Now, if you have something specific about the way you set up the classroom, or a method of the instructional design itself, it makes a lot more sense to tailor it to that instructional design topic, where there are fewer proposals. So, yours will be stand out and it gives you a greater likelihood of being accepted.
Now, in terms of your audience, you want to think about the types of audiences that typically attend those conferences. So, in this situation, where I mentioned one in particular, which is OLC Accelerate, the audiences range from K-12, educators, higher ed educators, to the tech people who designed the classroom itself, you might have instructional designers, tech support, all kinds of people who are really good at focusing on the way the classroom is set up.
There’s a whole audience that is interested in alternative or accessibility strategies. So, if you have a really good handle on universal design for learning, or accommodation strategies for diverse learners, then you could tailor your proposal to that angle. If you are in leadership, or you think your idea is great for an institutional-level strategy, or the leadership team over an organization, then you might tailor your presentation to that. And, if you really want to stretch, you could have a topic that you tailor one way for the leadership group, and a totally different way for the instructional design group and that would give you two different proposals.
Determine the Type of Presentation to Create
Now, as you’re fleshing out your topic, you also want to think about what kind of presentation it’s going to be. And those kinds of presentations vary, there are the virtual poster sessions where you create some slides, they play automatically, and a person watches it like a mini-web presentation. There’s also the education session, which is like your typical lecture style presentation. There are short workshops that are hands on where you expect people to bring a device and play along with you. There are gamified sessions. And there are larger workshops, which would be 90 minutes to 2 hours in length. So, if your topic takes more than just that 45-minute window, maybe it has a Part A and Part B or something that builds on that initial stuff, then you’re going to propose it as a larger workshop.
Proposal Writing Tips
As you write up your proposal, some interesting things that stand out are to have a creative title that conveys exactly what it’s about; to have an abstract that tells participants what they would walk away with if they attended this session. And then in the deeper part of your proposal, where you really flesh out what it’s about, what you will do, and how you will engage the audience that comes to be part of this presentation, two helpful tips seem to work all the time.
One is to use references. Support your approach with some scholarly research and some sources that do support your idea. This adds credibility to what you’re submitting.
And second, detail exactly what participants will leave with at the end of the session. Is it an idea? Is it curiosity? Is it a handout? Is it a template? Whatever it is, your participants will be able to leave with, make it very clear, explain it. And, if appropriate during the proposal process, even include a copy.
Most proposals are intended to be entirely anonymous, and you would need to leave your name off of them. You should not mention your school or your institution. And you want to look over these to make sure they are grammatically correct and well written. I know that seems to go without saying, but I’ve been a reviewer for conference proposals myself for many years now. And, every once in a while, I’ll see one where the person just forgot to use spellcheck and forgot to use the right punctuation, like maybe they dictated it and didn’t check it afterwards. So, be sure to check those things because at the very least, you want it to look and sound professional when you submit it.
And then submit it before the deadline, turn everything in that you need to do and then you wait and you’ll hear back at whatever time they tell you you’ll hear back. I always put that date on my calendar so I can check and find out whether something has been accepted. And the more you practice it this, the more likely you are to get presentations accepted to present at conferences.
Then your next steps would be to plan the presentation around your audience so they definitely get out of it what do you say they’re going to get out of it. One of the biggest mistakes is to prepare a proposal, get accepted, show up, and then present on something different than what you said you were going to present. I’ve sat through presentations like that myself, and perhaps you have also, where we’re sitting there thinking we’re going to learn something, and we never get that out of that session. And it seems to be a huge disappointment. Like, why did we sit through that if we were not going to get what we came for? So, addressing the topics that you say you’re going to address is a really important part of this when you come full circle and actually give the presentation.
The bottom line of all of this is that you have a lot of expertise, you know a lot, and you have areas that you can share with other people who are just learning. It’s time to get up and present those things and share them with your professional community. I want to encourage you to do that. And if you’re listening to this around the time of the recording where this podcast is produced, there are proposals right now being accepted for the OLC Innovate conference coming up in the Spring of 2023. And I would encourage you to submit a proposal to that, and stretch, figure out what you can share with the online community.
And if you’re listening to this later, after the initial publication, you can just check the OLC’s website to see when the next conference is coming and when the next set of proposals will be accepted. I want to encourage you to grow and stretch and share because that’s what helps us to stay motivated and keep learning ourselves. I wish you all the best in writing up your proposal and submitting it this coming month or even 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 | Career, Energy, Healthy Habits, Higher Education, Leadership, Life, Podcast, Professional Development, Stress, Teaching Online
This content first appeared on APUEdge.com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (Interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
What motivates you to keep teaching? In this episode, APU’s Dr. Bethanie Hansen discusses tools to assess your true drive and how to track the impact you’re having as an educator.
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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 podcast. Today, I want to talk about some motivation we have to show up for work, why we’re in this game of teaching in the first place. And that question on my mind is, “What fuels you?”
What is it that motivates you to keep teaching, to reach out to help other people? They’ve studied this out. And the research tells us that there are a lot of different orientations we have, to come to teaching. On a practical level, that’s really nice and kind of helpful to figure out about yourself.
If you’re interested in the direction that you’re going with teaching, the Teaching Perspectives Inventory is an awesome tool to assess what your main driver really is, and whether or not you’re actually doing it. The teaching perspectives inventory is one way to see your primary motivation and the comparison between reality and fantasy. So, check it out.
Some people will be the apprenticeship type, some will be the social change type, and there are several others. I’m not an expert in the TPI, but I do know that this was the first thing that opened my awareness to the fact that we are not all educators for the same reasons. Some people are educators for reasons that really light their fire. And it makes them happy and excited to just do what they do. And some people are not as excited about the job that they do but the fact that they get to be with people.
Sometimes people are much more excited about just being involved in that subject area. Like maybe you teach geology and you just love rocks, you just love the mountains and all the different rock formations and everything you can talk about with rocks. If you get to talk about it all day long when you’re teaching, that’s going to bring you that joy and excitement, right?
As a musician myself and a creative, I really love teaching music. I especially loved teaching live music classes, when I was a band teacher, or when I was leading some choir group. It would be so much fun to take something that was very rough, and help people put it together until it was just absolutely beautiful and totally expressive. To me, that was so much fun.
But it was nothing compared to seeing the people that I was working with transform as human beings. And there’s a phrase that I like to bring into my role as an educator. And strangely, it comes from Napoleon Bonaparte. And I didn’t ever know until I looked it up who initially said this phrase. But the phrase is, “A leader is a dealer in hope.” That is so interesting to me. So not only is an educator a leader, by being an online educator, you’re out there creating new things. Helping people into whatever field it is. Helping them learn and grow and transform, and you’re also just leading the future.
So, a leader is a dealer in hope. And that is something we all have that we can do as educators. And hope is absolutely essential to a happy life, or a high-quality life. Hope is that idea that there is something better in the future. We can get through the tough times, because they won’t always be tough. We can look forward and we can look to what will be that hasn’t come to pass yet.
The leader’s hope really comes from the belief that a goal is attainable. We can teach people something new; we can help them to learn, grow and transform. It gives you the strength to take yourself through the tough times. It also helps you to use your own personal creativity. And to think more about ideas that have you stuck, too. You wrestle with them and come up with new possibilities.
And hope also brings the ability to be resilient, which means to get through the tough times, to bounce back, to keep going. When we face uncertain times in our life like the world we’re living in now, we need more inspiration. We need more creativity. And we need more resilience to get through and keep going. And hope can bring us all of those things.
So as a leader, as an educator, we are dealers of hope. We bring hope, we talk about hope. And we provide a frame of reference so others can have hope too. Beyond that, what is it that really does motivate you to teach? What is it that brings you into the arena every single day, to do what you do? If we can pause and just capture that, the fuel behind what you do every day, then we can make sure you have it in your life every day. We can actually be intentional about doing the kinds of things that are going to put that in its proper place.
One of the things that fuels me is the people and the joy of connecting with other people, but also wrestling with things and creating something that is transformed. It could be that we’re wrestling with a problem, a program, or trying to develop a musical number we’re going to polish and perform. It could be anything like that. But that wrestle and the transformative experience, and then the product at the end. That is such a beautiful bright spot in my life. And I look for that all the time when I’m an educator doing my educator thing.
What is it that you look for? Take a moment to just jot down some ideas for yourself. And if you have a reflective journal, this is a great idea to write about today. What is it that you deal in? As an educator primarily, we deal in hope. But what else? What is it for you?
Think about the last week of your life as an educator, just the last seven days. If you’re teaching a class right now, what is it that happened during your day that brought you a ray of sunshine, or made you feel really excited or look forward to doing it again? Whatever that is, I would write that down in your reflective journal. This is going to be a clue of the big picture ideas you need to be pursuing so that you have more satisfaction in your role and more happiness in your job.
One of the things I love most about that, wrestling with problems, is collaborating with other people. And right now, in my current role, I do a lot of collaborating with other educators, with colleagues and peers and leaders of all levels. And we might end the day with a conversation where we’re talking about something that is a challenge we’re working on. I love focusing on some of the wins of the past week. So often, I’ll try to choose a conversation for the end of the day that will bring a spark or a light into that day and end the day really well.
That way, in my own role as an educator, no matter what challenges I’m facing during the day, I’m going to end the day in a way that really leaves me feeling great and having a sense of control over what I’m doing. After all, there is so little we can truly control in our world. And in our lives, we can control the attitude we have. And a great way to do that is to put people in your path that you know you can be positive with or who will celebrate with you, or who are willing to look at the hope and the bright side of things. So if you’re interested in that, that could be a way to end your day as well.
What else brings you a fuel for what you’re doing? What gets you through those hard times and helps you persevere, when things seem really, really difficult? It’s very easy to notice all that’s going wrong, we could list five things that are going wrong right now. But what’s going right for you?
If this is a bit of a struggle, and it’s difficult to know what lights your fire, I’d like to suggest one activity you could try every day for the next week. And pretty soon you’re going to be able to identify those things that do bring you a sense of satisfaction in your work. And then you’ll notice what really lights your fire, not just satisfaction, you’ll get to that next level of being really excited about what you do. This activity is to write three good things that are happening or did happen.
At the end of every day, schedule five minutes, just take a notepad and write down three good things. After you do that for a couple of days, turn them into three good things that you did. Things where you had an impact, where you contributed your strengths or your talents. Something where you had autonomy, or you benefited by collaborating with somebody else. Whatever it is, you want three distinctly different things every single day for one week.
And then at the end of the week, look back for patterns. What similarities do you see? Are there similar activities that were good in your opinion? Did these things bring you hope, satisfaction, happiness? Help you feel glad that you are doing the career field you’re in? Whatever you see in those patterns, you can then decide how to get more of that in your daily work. And that’s going to continue to light your fire.
As you think about what fuels you as an educator, and what really brings you excitement in your day and passion to your work, there are some things we can do to help light the fire of other people around us. This is especially important if we have friends, family members, peers and colleagues who are struggling to feel like the work they do makes a difference.
The first thing we can do to inspire hope in other people and light their fire is to show that we love and care for them. That could be we’re just listening, we’re just being there being present, just spending the time. Everyone needs to feel that they are important, and that others will listen to them and just care for them. So demonstrating the love and care we have for others can be a real bright spot that lights the fire.
Second, remember that everyone deserves happiness. And there are some simple things we can do to inspire happiness. While we may not be able to make anyone feel an emotion, we can definitely invite happiness through the things we do. Sometimes it’s through a thank you note, sometimes a phone call, there are a lot of things that can bring happiness. And if you think about what the person in your life might be most interested in, you can act on that and generate a little more happiness.
A third thing we can do is to help the other person figure out what lights their fire and motivates them most. And this could be a lot of talking about the past, what brought them excitement in the past, why they entered the teaching profession, what they have loved. Sometimes in courses they have taught in times when they’ve had a good experience professionally, or with students, happy memories they have during their career.
There are a lot of ways to get at that and really identify what someone’s passion is in their professional area. And if it’s really, really challenging for a person to get up to the space of finding that, we could also look at recreational interests and life areas, and find something that brings joy, excitement, passion, enthusiasm and happiness for that person. Simply having the conversation and exploring that with someone else can also demonstrate that love and care that was the beginning of this list. Anytime we spread that hope in others, and light the fire for them by identifying what they care most about, that will just bring more of the good that we’re trying to put out there in the world by being educators, teaching others and lifting them to the next level of whatever their career field is, or whatever their professional goal is or their personal development goal. So the more we help other people figure out what lights their fire, the more we’re generating a lot of that.
Alright, so think about what lights your fire. Notice it over the next week, and see if you can share and inspire others to do the same. And of course, I would love to hear from you and hear how you’ve made this a reality in your life and in your work. Go ahead and visit BethanieHansen.com/request, and you can share your comments there. And any tips and strategies you have in this particular area would be wonderful. We can share them with other educators in a future episode. Take care of yourself this coming week and enjoy your students. Now we’re wishing you all the best in your online teaching.
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 | Career, Healthy Habits, Leadership, Life, Personal Growth, Podcast, Professional Development
This content first appeared on APUEdge.Com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Associate Dean (Interim), School of Arts, Humanities and Education
There are many ways to help students retain information, but one of the most successful ways is through reflective practices. Learn how reflective practices can help students “think about their thinking” and include strategies like journaling, blogging, and other self-directed methods to think more deeply about what they’re learning in the online classroom.
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Dr. 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 want to talk with you today about a simple tip to help your students learn more deeply. You may already be familiar with the needs of adult learners, and one of those needs is that they have some kind of ownership of their learning. They are somewhat self-directed. They also need to know what the application of their learning will be, how it’s going to connect to their career, their real life, the real world. This simple tip today is all about helping your students take charge and self-direct their learning to a greater degree.
Ways to Help Students Learn and Retain Information
When learning more deeply, there are a lot of different options available to us. One option is repetition. We can teach the same thing in a lot of different ways, and that is going to help the learner move it from short-term to long-term memory over time.
We can also do action learning, some kind of applied work outside of the online classroom. Students can get out and do something in the real world to help it stick, to be more permanent and more lasting. We can also scaffold the learning and repeat the content while we do it.
For example, in the first week of class, you might introduce a concept, come back in the second week of class, test, quiz and assess that first concept along with the week two concept and cumulatively build the information testing and assessment over the course of the class.
All of these are great options, and they might be strategies that you would like to try with your online students, and especially your adult learners, to help build some retention of the information and increase the likelihood of student success in their learning.
How Reflective Practice Helps Students Learn
But the tip I’m going to give you today is even more simple than all of those strategies, and it is the simple idea of using reflection. Reflective practice, journaling, blogging, self-assessment all of those things fall into that bucket of reflection.
There are some things students can do when they’re preparing for the assignment or the work, during the learning itself, and afterwards that will use reflection in ways to cement their learning and help them learn more deeply. This first tip that I’m sharing today about reflection is really intended to get your students to be more in charge and more autonomous about their own learning.
You don’t need as many crazy strategies or methods in your teaching, or at least not those that take so much of your time to create, if you’re using a lot more student reflection. And the reason for this is that as your students are using that reflective practice, they’re thinking about their thinking. They’re taking that step one step removed from the learning process, and they’re starting to analyze how they learned, how they incorporated the information, how they worked with it, depending on the type of reflection you’re going to use.
Encouraging Students to Journal
So, I’m going to just suggest a few different options to get your students journaling in your online course so they can learn more deeply and do this in a more simple way. Students who find a new concept to be especially difficult can benefit from a reflective practice before even starting the learning activities. There might be some questions to complete ahead of time to ask the student where they might have some connection to what they’re about to learn. You might, for example, ask what they already know about the subject matter, what they think they know, what they guess about it.
You could share a little bit of introductory material to get them curious, and also have them reflect on once they have this little bit of information what they now hope to learn about it, what they expect to know and where they might be most interested in gaining new knowledge.
Some kind of self-direction before the learning activities even begin gives your students the chance to reflect on what they’re about to do and take ownership right from the start. Now, during the learning activities, a student can have some kind of questions they’re going to reflect on, complete, write some narrative about, or even discuss with a peer partner in the discussion section of your online class.
And all of these questions along the way could be about how they’re learning, what they’re understanding, what they’re not, and any kind of reflections on the process they’re experiencing. I had some questions like this in a course I was teaching online in which I asked students about week four, maybe it was week three of an eight-week class how they were learning the content. I asked them what was going well, what they wanted to be more effective at in their learning and where they could use a little bit of support.
I was pleasantly surprised when students came back with all kinds of suggestions and ideas, and some even brought in examples from their own lives and their work to tie to the learning and asked questions to see if they were on the right track. Journaling midpoint and throughout the learning process can really bring those connections along in the process of the learning and help our students to see much more relevance, learning more deeply than they might otherwise do. And we have to admit that when our students are passive consumers just reading the content or just listening to the content or watching the content without doing any kind of activity, they’re much less likely to remember it.
It can go into short-term memory, but it takes a little bit of analysis or manipulating that information or applying it or reflecting on it, or even memorizing it if that’s necessary for it to go into long-term memory storage and later retrieval. So, a reflective practice can help with all of those things and help students take their learning into more long-term memory, where they’re more likely to remember it by the end of the class.
Journaling is a good practice you can use for reflection with students. If students have a journal and they’re writing in it each week about their learning, maybe they’re sharing what the new concepts are, what new applications they can see, what questions they have. I can recall this was used in an English class I took at the college level when I was already a teacher and I changed states for my credential to transfer over, I had to take a literature teaching course. It was basically how to teach literature in any subject area for secondary educators. And since my subject is music, I found that very interesting. We were going to talk about reading in music classes.
There was a journal attached that the professor used throughout our experience and we would write about the readings that we experienced or read in the class, questions, thoughts, applications, and then we would turn those in. At the end of each week, the instructor would give them back to us with kind of like a conversation. So, the instructor would answer questions or ask some in return, maybe write some statements to contribute to our understanding.
It was clearly very time consuming for that instructor to do, but incredibly helpful because it really gave each student the opportunity to reflect as we’re learning and even get some feedback on that reflective practice. So, there’s another thought that you could try in an online class.
Choosing a Method in the LMS
Now, no matter what learning management system you are using, online classes do all have places where you can use journaling, if you want to do it online. One method could be to set up the blog section of the online class, if that exists. I’ve also seen it done where discussion boards were created and groups were made so that each student had their own private group discussion board. That way the instructor and the student could engage back and forth and no other students could read it. So, if you’re concerned about privacy for your online students and the safety for them to really explore their thoughts, reflect on their learning and ask questions to you, that private group feature might be an excellent way to go.
One of the reasons journaling is especially good is that students can think through their opinions they might not otherwise share in a live discussion. Journaling can also help them think internally and really think about how things might unfold in their own life, and it’s not necessarily about everybody else. So, it can be very personalized and help the student also tie to some background knowledge, some things they already know, and try out new vocabulary that they aren’t yet comfortable using in the live discussion or the larger group discussion. So, this is something I’d highly encourage, to get your students to a deeper learning level, and also actually personalize the course quite a bit more.
There’s this idea that in a learning management system, you could do e-journaling. Of course, it’s a reflective practice like we’ve been talking about in this podcast so far, and it is a private entry between the student and the instructor. And it will take a little bit of careful design in your course to figure out how to create this private blog or this private discussion board. Because after all, we don’t want other students to see it, that defeats the whole purpose of a private space.
It is an asynchronous tool. So, just like the handmade or the written journal that I experienced in that college class, the private blog or private discussion board space, or whatever you choose to use for a student’s reflective practice, becomes a really great way to keep the thoughts in one space without having the whole community see it.
So, really the goal for the whole thing is that we’re just trying to give that student a space to really open up, think through their learning, reflect on their learning, make some applications and have the opportunity to connect that with the faculty member.
Adding Structure to the Reflective Practice
So, I would suggest giving some initial questions to your reflective practice for students. When you give them something to think about as they go through the work, go through the learning, or even after the learning is done and they’re doing this as an assessment, some questions can really help students get started thinking through their ideas.
One question could be what is something you’re learning that seems familiar to you, or you anticipate applying in your life or work? What is something that you noticed connects to other things you already know? What questions do you have about what you’re learning so far?
Remember that it’s meant to be reflective, so you don’t need a lot of questions here, but a few to get your students started could help them begin the practice, especially if they’re not already familiar with journaling or very comfortable with it. So, again, you can ask questions or you can have a prompt where it is sort of like a mini-assignment. The student reads the prompt where you ask them how to apply certain ideas from the lesson and they’re going to reflect on that afterwards.
You could give them a prompt asking them to review the concepts that they learned, find ways to connect the current learning to previous learning or last week’s learning, how it builds on itself. Or you could even ask students to write about how their new learning connects to the bigger theme that is being taught or learned in the course. All things that you include in a prompt or a series of questions can be personalized to the student, personalized to the course, the subject matter, or generalized, if you prefer to give students a lot of space.
Grading Considerations for Reflective Practices
Now, once you’ve given your students a good start in reflective practice before, during and after learning activities, how do you grade this? After all, students are going to do this when it’s evaluated and it’s less likely they will consistently do it if it’s not graded. So, one way you can do it is pass-fail based on their participation alone. If you choose to do that, it’s a non-threatening way to give credit and allow a lot of latitude for different types of reflection of varying lengths.
You could create a rubric for the reflective practice or journaling that might happen. And that rubric could be that it’s proficient or advanced, demonstrating solid ideas with detailed support and evidence or experiences or connections. You could have a second category that’s perhaps developing or approaching the standard. And you could have another one where this is missing completely. It’s not demonstrated at all.
And some of the things you might evaluate in student journaling would be the response connecting to the course materials, actually reflecting on learning and connecting to the learning, some coherence throughout their writing, and also application to life, work or other places.
The more you give clarity upfront, and also keep that conversation going with your students, the more they’re likely to benefit from this whole practice and know what to start with, what they’re really aiming for when they start writing. I believe in journaling. I’ve been a journal keeper my whole life and when I’ve seen this used in courses that I have taken as a student, it’s been incredibly beneficial. I notice that I’m thinking more deeply, and I’m also able to remember the experience years afterwards.
That course I mentioned earlier in this podcast was 20 years ago, for example, and I still remember a lot of those journal entries because they took some time to think about and there was a lot of conversation with the faculty member when I got that journal back. So, I want to invite you to consider how you might try reflective practice with your students, how it could naturally be weaved into the course you’re teaching and try it out, see if it works for you. And, of course, I would love to hear your feedback on what you’re trying and whether or not this is working.
Feel free to stop by my website, BethanieHansen.com. There’s a request form where you can add comments and just share your experience with reflective practice and using journaling in your online course with your students. Thanks for being a listener here at the Online Teaching Lounge. It’s great to have you with us and I really hope you’ll come back next week. We have a special guest coming up. It’s going to be a wonderful experience, so definitely check it out. I wish you all the best in your online teaching this coming week and throughout the season ahead.
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 | Life, Personal Growth, Podcast, Professional Development
This content first appeared at APUEdge.com.
Podcast with Dr. Bethanie L. Hansen, Department Chair, School of Arts, Humanities and Education
Dedicating time to reflect can help educators assess their teaching strategy and find ways to improve and become more effective. In this episode, Dr. Bethanie Hansen shares what reflective practice means, how to get started, and tips for making the most of reflective writing.
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Dr. 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 podcast. I’m Bethanie Hansen, and I’m very happy to talk with you today about reflective writing. That’s right, reflective writing is one practice that will improve your online teaching quickly.
When you reflect about what you’re doing and think about the habits you’re creating in your online teaching journey, you can then make small adjustments and improve things over time, to save yourself time. Reflective teaching means that you’re going to look at what you do when you’re teaching. Think about why you do it, and think about whether it works.
What is Reflective Practice?
This is an overall process of observing yourself, or self-observation. And, it’s also self-evaluation. When you’re evaluating your own teaching, you won’t be surprised if someone else comes along and evaluates you and sees something similar.
John Dewey said, “We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.” That’s absolutely right. I keep a journal; I’ve been keeping a journal since I was 12 years old. That’s a lot of journaling! I’ve written about many experiences I’ve had, and I’ve also written about thoughts I had, and day-to-day experiences that are pretty mundane. And, I have gone through some of those journals from my earlier life, and I find fascinating things that I wrote. I also remember things afresh because I don’t remember them for real, but I remember them by reading about my experiences as I wrote them. This is been really insight-producing for me, but it’s also helpful as an educator.
Early in my career, when I was a public school music teacher, we were encouraged to write down some reflective thoughts at the end of our teaching day. I found that a helpful way to consider what was going well, as well as what I wanted to fix. I hope you will find this a positive practice to quickly improve your online teaching as well. Here are some things that reflective educators do.
Planning Ahead Makes Reflective Practice Possible
First, dedicate time to reflect. If you don’t plan ahead to set this time aside in your day, you won’t do it. There’s no common time for reflecting, except perhaps when one’s preparing to go to bed. You might have a reading habit, or a journaling habit, at that time, in which case you could add reflective journaling to that routine.
I prefer to do reflective writing about my professional life at the end of the workday, and not at the end of the day. Earlier in the evening is better, because it’s fresh, and I can think about what I did during my workday, and kind of close that part of my day. Dedicate time to reflect by selecting whether this will be a daily habit, a weekly habit, or a monthly habit. Or if you prefer, you might reflect after certain lessons that you’re giving that you’re especially concerned about or excited about.
Reflective Practice Can Help Us Be Intentional
Number two, reflect to make specific teaching decisions. As you reflect on your practice, you’ll be able to see things a little bit more objectively. Some of us are hard on ourselves. We judge our teaching very harshly. Others, we give ourselves a lot of latitude, and we like to acknowledge everything that’s going right.
As you’re reflecting on your teaching, notice where you find patterns. As you notice these patterns, for example, your own teaching is difficult in certain lessons that you’re giving, or you find certain assignments very boring or very difficult to grade, as you notice those kinds of patterns you can make new decisions about the way design your course and about the way you teach the course.
Reflection is very helpful to make specific teaching decisions that improve your teaching and also improve student learning.
Reflective Practice Improves Our Time Management
Number three, reflect about how to approach tasks and challenges. One of the things I do occasionally is note how I spent my time throughout the day.
I will write down how much of my time was spent grading work, how much of my time was spent reading e-mails, how much of my time was spent creating videos to put in my class, and all of those other tasks I do as an online professor. Have you ever done that?
Have you ever written down how you spend your day? When you do that, and you write down the time log, you can think about how to approach the tasks and challenges you face as an online educator and find new approaches.
In fact, as you reflect on the tasks that you do as an online educator, it might even occur to you to research those tasks and find out how other people approach them. The more you think about the way you approach your tasks and challenges, the more you can plug holes in time. Such as where time just slips away from you, or feels kind of wasted. You can pull that in, tighten it up, and make your teaching even more effective.
Reflective Practice Helps Us Consider Our Strategies
Fourth, reflect to consider strategies and andragogy. As you are teaching your course from week to week, or month to month, as you reflect on your teaching, you can consider whether you’re using strategies the way you had hoped and if they went the way you hoped they would. You can also consider what adult learners truly need in the online classroom.
Good principles of andragogy, or andragogy theory, includes ideas like adults having choice in their learning process, adults being able to bring their life experiences into their learning, and many other good principles.
As you think about the principles of andragogy or theory of andragogy and reflect on whether you’re using them in your teaching, or in the design of your course, you might consider new approaches for the future.
Reflective Practice Helps Us Analyze How We Teach
And lastly, number five, reflect to analyze your teaching. Many of the things that I would do to analyze my teaching in a live class would be to notice how I was talking to my students, how I was pacing the lesson, how it was structuring the content, whether we needed a different kind of warm-up activity or closure activity, and that was easy to do, when it was about real time.
When you’re doing it in an asynchronous course, analyzing your teaching in that setting can be a little different. You might need to read through some of the things you’ve written in the class and some of the answers you’ve given your students, or forum replies you’ve posted.
As you look over these things, then you can take out a notebook or a Word document on your computer, and you can type some thoughts about your teaching in those different parts of the classroom.
One of the questions I would respond to when analyzing my teaching was: How did the approach I used land with my students?
- How did students appear to respond to the approach I used in this particular week?
- How did students format their assignments for the goals that I put forth for that assignment? Did it land?
- Does it look like students understood the content enough to answer those questions, or do I need to take some other approach?
Whenever I write about my teaching, it takes some time to think it through. To notice what is really happening in the classroom and how I’m feeling about my teaching. And the more I do it, the better I am as an educator.
How to Make Reflective Practice Work for You
Now that I’ve talked with you a little bit about what reflective teachers do, let’s consider how we do it. This would be the logistical “nuts and bolts” of journaling.
You might use a coaching journal or a teaching journal of sorts, and you can answer these three questions when you think about your teaching.
- How did I think like an educator?
- How did I act like an educator?
- How did I exercise curiosity with my students and a beginner’s mind like an educator? Like a lifelong learner?
You might use a journal if you like the hardcopy version. I personally do, and I’ve read some research out there about how writing by hand has a much bigger impact than just typing or just dictating. But if you don’t like to write by hand, it’s definitely still worth your time to use one of those other methods.
You might consider getting a spiral notebook. These are cheap. You can find them at just about any store that sells pens and paper. You might consider using Post-it notes, scraps of paper, a three-ring binder with some paper in there, or you could use an actual bound journal, where you’re going to write regularly.
If you’re going to use electronic methods, you might use Microsoft Word, Penzu or another journaling software, a Rocket Book or another kind of e-notebook, pen to computer, or you can dictate to an electronic notepad, such as on your iPad, your iPhone, or your Samsung device.
Technical Reflection
If you’re going to make a technical reflection as you’re journaling or reflecting on your online teaching, consider reflecting about your general instruction and management behaviors that you use, based on educational theory and research. Those things you learned as you are preparing to become an educator.
You can also reflect on the various best practices of online teaching and consider how they might or might not be working for you. And then in the quality of your reflection, think about how you can get into some depth there, and think about really what is and is not working.
A management behavior you might reflect about would be whether or not your netiquette policy is helpful or if you need a netiquette policy. What kind of things you notice about the way students respond in forum discussions? And, how have you tried to help them show up even more academically there?
Reflection In-Action and On-Action
If you’re going to do a reflection in-action and on-action, that would be reflecting while you’re in the online classroom and doing the teaching. Or afterwards, when you’re reflecting about the actions you’ve already performed.
This would be you reflecting on your own personal teaching performance. And you might base your decisions on your own situation. There are certainly some circumstances in which our online teaching may be less than stellar for various reasons; maybe we’re in an emergency situation. Maybe we have a crisis in our family, and we are just trying to get through the course and there might not be back up. So we do the best that we can, but whatever’s going on might be part of your reflection.
Deliberative Reflection
You might also consider a deliberative reflection, and this could be on a range of teaching concerns. You might reflect on how you’ve seen other online educators do things or whether you’d like to observe others.
You could also think about teaching methods, strategies, and management that you’d like to try and intentionally write about those. You can weigh different viewpoints or research findings you read about. You might even reflect on what you learn from this podcast right here.
Personalistic Reflection
And then of course, there’s the personalistic reflection, and this might be about your emotional response or your analysis of the entire teaching experience:
- How are you experiencing being an online educator right now?
- What’s tough for you?
- What’s refreshing and new and wonderful for you?
That kind of personal insight that you look at from day to day or week to week can really help you see how far you’ve come. As you look over it near the end of the course, or end of the session or semester, you might see some growth in your confidence as well as the quality of your reflections.
You can of course do it weekly, daily, or monthly, whatever works for you. But I do also can suggest using at least some kind of beginning and end of the course reflection, so you can think about what’s coming up and also reflect on what has been.
Smaller Reflections Get You Started
And lastly, if you’re not really sure you’re interested in a reflection habit, start small and use a timer. Giving yourself five or 10 minutes to reflect, and focusing on just one thing at a time can help you keep it tightly controlled so it doesn’t end up taking more of your time than you’d like to spend.
Over time, reflection can help you grow as an educator. This is particularly important when you’re teaching online, and you might have fewer peers than you do in a live situation. I hope you’ll try starting a reflective practice about your online teaching this coming week, and I wish you all the best in your online teaching.
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 | Best practices, Online Education Trends, Podcast, Professional Development, Teaching Online, Technology Tools
This content first appeared at APUEdge.com.
Teachers and trainers can develop effective blended learning using this quick guide to course design. In this episode, Dr. Bethanie Hansen shares tips to help online educators set a clear goal for the course, write a course outline, detail both the online and live portions of the course, design collaboration and interactivity, plan communication, consider learning resources, and design assessments.
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Dr. 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 Podcast. I’m so glad you’re here, and I want to welcome our listeners from all around the world who enjoy this podcast. One of our listeners in India this past week sent a message asking for help with blended learning. Today’s episode is a quick guide to blended learning for all of you who may be facing this kind of pattern.
Blended learning means that some of your learning is taking place in the virtual classroom. This could be in a learning management system of some kind or by email, whatever method that you choose to deliver that online content. The other half or other segments of the learning are delivered face-to-face. This could be in a live classroom, say you’re going down to the local campus and meeting as a group. It could be a tele-class where there are groups distributed in different geographical areas all meeting by videoconference. Or, it could be individually through Zoom or some other kind of web conferencing. But that other half of the blended learning is taking place live.
Whatever your method of the live component of your learning, the online learning component can be challenging to design and set up—especially if you’re not sure how to design two different halves without duplicating your efforts. I have some experience with this. I designed some hybrid courses several years ago for a local community college, and I also taught those courses. I’ll share some of what I’ve learned and also what are some good best practices.
Here are your seven steps to create blended learning courses. I’ll share all steps with you up front and then I’ll go through each one and give you some details to help you out.
- Set a clear goal for the course.
- Outline what you’ll accomplish. That includes what you will do online as well as what you will do face-to-face.
- In your outline, detail those online and live portions of the course.
- Design collaboration and interactivity.
- Create a communication plan.
- Cultivate resources.
- Design your assessments.
Tip 1: Set a Clear Goal for the Course
Let’s go with number one: set a clear goal for your course. When you’re designing a blended learning situation, or a hybrid course, you want to know what you’re going to teach the students during that course. Define the learning outcomes.
When you’re backward mapping, in true backward mapping, this part of the process will also include some idea of your assessments that will ultimately measure students’ learning at the end of the course. If you know how you’re going to measure that learning as you’re designing it from the beginning, this is a really cohesive approach to outlining content later on.
Think about whether students need to pass a major exam, provide a practical demonstration of their learning, write about their experience, or provide some other artifact to show mastery of what you will teach them. This big-picture goal helps you design the scope of the course, in general. For example, if I’m going to be teaching some kind of music appreciation course, I will decide what eras in history to include, what genres and styles, what nationalities of music I might bring in, which major composers, and which interesting selections that I might have. Generally speaking, this is going to be part of my thinking as I’m setting that goal. But those details won’t really be nailed down until later.
I’m also going to be thinking about what students will be able to do with that knowledge and what they will need to demonstrate at the end of the course with that knowledge. So, that first goal upfront is helping you to set boundaries around what you’re going to teach and also clarify what you’re going to teach.
Tip 2: Outline The Weekly Goals, Topics, and Content of your Course
Number two: outline the weekly goals, topics, and content of your course. This will help you break down each week into manageable chunks of content, learning activities, and formative assessments to guide students along.
Formative assessments are those smaller ways of assessing your students to know how they’re doing. Formative assessments can be small, like a discussion board in an online section of the course. They can be quizzes. They can be just discussions in the live part of your hybrid or blended course. Whatever you do for formative assessments, these should be ways for the instructor to check in along the way to know how students are doing in the class, and also ways for students to gauge their own mastery along the way.
They should be able to do formative assessments to adjust their approach, to study more, to go back and review or to somehow adjust their progress and make sure that they can pass that course by the end of the term together.
When you’re doing this outline of weekly goals, topics, and content, I suggest something like a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. On one column, you can list the different weeks of the course. This is basically a timeline. In the next column, you can list the topics, or the weekly goals, or both. Then in the next column, this would be the column to list the things you might consider doing in the online part of your class. What will need to be placed in the online classroom? What kinds of online content would you like to provide, and activities? And then, in the next column you can list what you would need to do during the live parts of the class.
And I suggest that during the live part, you’re going to have a lot of different information to share those first few weeks, and I’ll get to that in just a minute. So, outlining your weekly goals, topics, and content can take place very easily in some kind of a spreadsheet or database type of software.
Tip 3: In your Outline, Detail Those Online and Live Portions of the Course
On your outline, give the details of options for the online teaching and engagement, and the face-to-face time. You’ll want to break these down into significant activities in both places. There will be learning content and there will be some kind of interactivity, but it’s important not to duplicate your activities.
So if you have a discussion online, then you’re also going to meet live, that we can have the same kind of discussion. That’s what I mean when I say: don’t duplicate. You can have that discussion in the live space and then have some kind of a follow-up question-answer or message board. But having an additional online discussion when you’ve already had a live discussion is quite a bit for students to be doing.
Ask yourself, “Will both parts be online?” Asynchronous learning is the LMS component or the online component of the course. And that’s the part that students should be able to access any time during the week and engage in throughout the week on their own. The synchronous learning will be done live, and this could be done entirely through videoconferencing like Zoom or some other platform. It could be done face-to-face in the live classroom, all in one group, or maybe students are distributed in different geographic locations just coming together through a teleconference in groups. Regardless of the live format, you want to figure out whether this live format is online as well as the course, or if it is actually taking place physically?
If it’s going to be online as well, you might consider adding some additional guidance and details about how to engage in the live parts, and how to engage in the asynchronous parts. That will make your blended learning experience a lot more positive for students, because they’ll know what to expect. And they’ll have no trouble getting online and engaging in both parts of your class.
If you have a live section where students will be physically face-to-face with you, that can be explained or demonstrated and you won’t have to have as much guidance about the live portion in your online section. As you’re doing the outline and detailing what you’ll do online and what you’ll do face-to-face, use Bloom’s taxonomy to design depth and engaged learning that goes beyond fact-based recall and basic knowledge. Now this is especially important if you’re teaching a training, and not just an academic course.
If you’re doing some kind of training where people need to be able to reproduce the skills or have basic knowledge and skills with that training, it is very tempting just to have quizzes and things that measure whether the students heard you or understood the content. But that tells you nothing about whether the students are able to reproduce that, act on what they’re learning, or do something else with it.
Bloom’s taxonomy is a great tool to create depth in your online portion and also consider what you might do in the live portion to get to a place way beyond fact-based recall. Bloom’s taxonomy is developed to provide a common language for teachers to talk about learning and assessment. If you use Bloom’s taxonomy, that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing you can use. There’s also Costa’s levels and there are other ways to scaffold the different levels of learning that might happen in your course.
Bloom’s taxonomy basically includes six levels. It starts with basic knowledge, and that would be your fact-based recall, multiple-choice quizzing, question-answer about just the basic details.
And then, the next level is comprehension. This is where your students will demonstrate back to you that not only did they learn the facts about what they were learning in the class, but they comprehended. They have a greater depth of knowledge, and there’s some activity that has to be done with the learning to get to that point of comprehension demonstration.
The third level, is application what can students do with what they’re learning. As you think about application, this is where assessments come into play. If students are taught something and given some skills, and then they need to put it together to apply it, that can be demonstrated through some sort of assessment beyond quizzing.
The fourth level is analysis. Analysis is much more complex, and when you ask your students to do analysis with the content, some demonstration of what analysis is would be helpful. You can explain analysis and demonstrate analysis, and then ask your students to do the analysis.
The next level is synthesis. That’s bringing a lot of different things together.
And the final step in Bloom’s taxonomy, the top level, is evaluation. If you think about these different levels of learning activities or thinking that you might do in either your face-to-face or the online component of that blended course, it’s going to help you to also scaffold the activities from week one all the way through the end of the course. Say, for example, week one might begin with a lot of very basic-level knowledge and structural information, academic vocabulary, build up to the big ideas. Then later a few weeks into the course, you might have some comprehension and application of that knowledge.
As you’re moving through the course, ultimately students should be able to demonstrate some higher-order thinking. Analysis, synthesis, and evaluation by the end of that course, at whatever appropriate level you select for the content. As you think about Bloom’s taxonomy throughout the course, but also throughout your assessments, this will help you to know: Did students really learn what you needed them to learn and understand in the class?
Tip 4: Design Collaboration and Interactivity
The next level is, on the next step in designing your blended learning course is, to create reasons for students to collaborate, interact with each other and their instructor, and work with the knowledge. This connects very well to Bloom’s taxonomy we just covered, when you consider that higher-order thinking activities require time, contemplation, and application of the learning to develop. If students can collaborate in real time during the face-to-face setting, you can design group work. You can do jigsaw conversations. There are many strategies you can employ during the live section to get students talking to each other and working together.
You can also use group activities online. This is very easy to do using the groups feature in Bright Space or other LMSs. You can also use discussion boards. You can have them do group projects. They can even schedule time outside of their asynchronous learning to get together on their own, live, to do a group project.
Tip 5: Create a Communication Plan
Because you have all these moving parts with your online content, in your live face-to-face teaching, a communication plan is essential to help your students know what to do.
You might have an online question-answer location, or a message board. If you’re having the live face-to-face portion first, this is a great time to guide students to engage with the online portion. So in the face-to-face meeting, you can pull up the screen, and you can walk them through the online part of your class. And then, of course, giving them some sort of handout or downloadable outline of each week of the course and where and when they should engage with each part of the course can also help your students follow along.
In my experience teaching a hybrid class several years ago, I spent most of the time during the live class over the first two weeks simply guiding students to get online and find their way around the classroom. If you don’t have a long period of time, you might create a video of yourself going to the classroom, and the face-to-face content, and showing students how to get each one. And what each one will involve.
Tip 6: Cultivate Resources, Online Content, and Learning Materials
Number six: cultivate resources, online content, and learning materials. Just like any class, these might include your textbooks, your video lessons, interactive web-based tools, and other content.
Whatever you put online can be as basic as reading and watching the videos, if needed. But if you can get a little bit more sophisticated, that will be more engaging for students. Ideally, it should be interactive in the online portion and take full advantage of the options available through modern technology. If you are going to create a lot of videos for the online portion, I suggest segmenting these into shorter videos of, maybe, five minutes each. That will help your students stay engaged and get through them one at a time, when their time allows.
Tip 7: Design your Assessments
I suggested during step one, thinking about your assessments early on, as you are setting the course goals. Now, this final step is to actually flesh out and design your assessments. And that could take place online, it could take place live, face-to-face. But those assessments need very clear guidance and instructions.
And as you review them yourself, ensure that they do map to the course goals. Do they actually measure what you intended to teach and what you did teach? Do they help students demonstrate those higher levels in Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking at the application and the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation stages?
If all you need is knowledge and comprehension, that’s pretty simple to do and could be done through essays and exams or oral activities as well.
Launching Your Blended Course
As you launch your blended course, review these seven steps to ensure you haven’t missed anything. And of course, “test drive” the content that you have. Make sure everything in your online segment of the course is accessible and viewable by your students, and works properly.
I wish you all the best in your quest of creating blended learning, and again hello to our friends in India who sent us this question. Thank you, and have a great week teaching online!
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.
