Emergent design

 I've been participating in an online teaching Community of Practice recently. The focus this term is Emergent Design. As a group we've been grappling with what this actually means. Initial conceptions were different to how it is defined by experts in this area.

In lay terms, it boils down to learning design that is responsive. This doesn't mean that it is unplanned and unstructured. Rather "It maintains people as the centerpiece and raison d'être" (Smart Sparrow, n.d.), it is flexible and adaptable to the needs of the needs of the learners. There isn't just a whole year planned out in advance, with a set and forget mentality, rather there are blocks of learning. These could be days, weeks or months. The key things is that there is space for quick reflections and modifications, based on teacher observations, feedback and unexpected outcomes. As this is a learner-centred process, over time the students will have increasing levels of "ownership of the learning process and environment" (Sudlow, Whalley, and King; 2021). This is the ideal. It won't happen overnight, but with careful planning design from the teacher, conditions can be created to nurture learners who "who work together as a community to generate content and build knowledge"(Sudlow, Whalley, and King; 2021).

This requires a different mindset, facilitator rathers than the font of all knowledge. I teach Art History. Traditionally there has been quite a dense set of knowledge that students are examined on. There have been shifts in recent years to make the end of year (it was always the externals that constrained learning in Art History) exam more flexible in terms of knowledge students are allowed to demonstrate. Even so, there are still large sets of information students are expected to know. With that in mind there is a fine, fine balance between students knowing the right things and the right things to do; and providing the flexibility to explore interesting ideas that spark the passion and really absorb students.

• https://www.smartsparrow.com/what-is-learning-design/
• The NetNZ Community, Pedagogy and Practice of Online Teaching

Using the online class well: Making the most of the synchronous time with your class

When I started teaching online, I figured out pretty quickly that I couldn't simply squeeze four hours of teaching and learning into the hour I had with my class. The first few years of online teaching felt like being a beginning teacher again. I had to fundamentally rethink how I organised things as those 60 minutes were such a precious commodity.

For my class, I am interested in developing a Knowledge Building Community. Well. That's the goal. This means that discussion and collaboration are central and everything we do hangs off of these principles.

Often my students are the only Art Historians at their school, sometimes they are the only online learners. They work in isolation during the week, so it is ultra important that collaborative opportunities are maximised during our synchronous time together; whether we are collaborating in a slide, in a breakout room or discussion in Knowledge Forum. Everyone has a responsibility to add to our collective knowledge and they know that they have a part to play. Our work as a collective is highly visible to everyone in that learning community.

And when I talk to my students about what they value in their learning, it is that discussion and connection to the class that is important to them.

When I think about learning design that will help to support this, the SAMR model (Dr Ruben Puentedura) comes to mind. As the image above shows, the emphasis is on the affordances that technology allows. So how can you leverage the Zoom call or even the tools you use with the class to connect in ways that previously wouldn't have been possible?

How do they know what to do?

With online learning, because the teacher is not physically present with the students "It is thus essential that the eTeacher provides a clear course structure and makes assessment guidelines explicit, as well as giving regular feedback to the eStudents to enable them to track learning progress." (Lai and Pratt, 2020)

This sounds like an obvious question, but how do your online students know what to do?

Do you have an outline, that covers a block of learning (be it a week, a fortnight, or longer)?

If so, is it accessible? 

Let's pull apart that word accessible. 

• Firstly is your outline easy to find within three clicks or less? If I'm a student how easily can I find it in your class community? If it is buried and too hard to find, students are less likely to engage with it regularly.

• Is it accessible in terms of using plain language? Online learning can be quite overwhelming for some students, Clear, direct language is really important.

• And is it accessible in terms of multi-modal ways of sharing information? Recently I have been making short videos on Loom to go with the instructions. I've found this to be powerful for a couple of reasons. I can model how something works if we are using a new tool or doing something that students may find challenging. I can also see how many times my video has been viewed in Loom's analytics, which gives me a picture of how students are engaging with the work over the week.

However your course is structured, there are a few things you should try to cover in our outlines:

The Why

• The objectives (these might be developed with or by the students)
• An overview/explanation of the work. (Students are more likely to engage in the learning and engage more deeply if they have a clear picture of the purpose of it)

The How and When

• The tasks to be completed (choices could be available in how or what students do)
• Supporting resources (students could also find and share resources)
• Some assessment of/for learning (this could be informal and synchronous e.g. a discussion in the next Zoom meeting or asynchronous e.g. sharing of work in a Google Doc or Slide with feedback using comments. This need not be teacher assessed. Peer assessment or metareflection can be powerful)

EXAMPLE OF A MODULE OF LEARNING

 

 

Online learning - Who is in the centre?

Who is most present in your online class? And by present, I mean socially and cognitively (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000). Or in plain language who influences your class the most, who do you see and hear the most? Who controls the flow of the discussion?

A finding from the recent pedagogical report (Affordances and Barriers of the VLN Classes User Experience and Perception, Lai and Pratt, 2020) highlighted that online classes tend to "that the eTeacher was often at the centre of the class, providing content, giving out instructions on assignments, or answering individual questions, but there was little interaction between the teacher and the class, and between students".

Though we need to keep in mind that this drew upon online classes from across New Zealand, it is fitting for NetNZ teachers to look at our own practice in our online classes and ask 'Who is in the centre'.  We value community, connectedness and student agency. This is clear when we talk at our annual hui. However, in the pedagogical report, almost half of the students responding to the survey (n=21)  raised the issue of lack of discussions in their online classes.

Students  are interested in connecting on a social and cognitive level, this is exemplified by a comment made by a student when interviewed for the report 'I think it would have been good to have more class discussion ... you talk with your friends and your teacher of what you are working in, it gives you more ideas ... '

If you were to playback a recent class what percentage of the Zoom call do you spend talking? How many opportunities do students have to share their thoughts, practice skills or collaborate? 

This is something I have been reflecting on personally. I navigate a tension within my Art History course. That is, on one hand, there is the pressure to cover the very dense course content of Art History. On the other hand, I aspire to work within a Knowledge Building Communities framework. Knowledge Building in crude and simple terms is students working as a community to build/develop knowledge around issues and questions that matter to them. It's honestly a fine balance between these two. 

Some days the teacher does sit directly in the middle. I will give a short lecture about a key concept. However, I'm not too fond of hearing my own voice at length, so I try to leverage student participation or reflection out of this. For example, we'll pull apart the language around an idea and I will put it to students 'So what is your understanding of this?'

Other days the students absolutely sit in the centre. They may have been researching a topic in Art History. Each student will have been responsible for researching an aspect. The Zoom meeting becomes a seminar session, where students teach other students about where they've got to with their research. Students will reflect on what next, what do we need to find out, what are we curious about, etc.

I keep persisting with this fine balance because experience tells me it is worth it.   It is useful and engaging for students. Students have reported when reflecting on their year in Art History they felt connected to a class despite being the only student studying it at their school. Also, I hear every year from students that collaborating with others and considering different viewpoints helps to clarify and expand their own thinking. 

My question to you is which way is the seesaw tilted most of the time? If it is weighted towards teacher presence how could you tilt it towards students more often? How can you optimise the 60 minutes you have in the class Zoom for students to participate as fully and as actively as possible? If your class is student centred I encourage you to share your practice with other NetNZ teachers. This could be a snapshot posted into the staff room, a task that was great for collaboration, or even a Hail article. Go on, you know you want to.

 

Garrison, D., Anderson, T., & Archer, W.R. (1999). Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education. Internet and Higher Education, 2, 87-105.

Lai, K. W., & Pratt, K. (2020). Affordances and Barriers of the VLN Classes User Experience and Perception. https://drive.google.com/file/d/17euqZrqnPs4RK0ILC0-bjqpLkAPob3ow/view?usp=sharing