Friday Fragments, July 17
Affective labor, humanizing your online classroom, building online community & the nitty-gritty of the first (online) day of class.
What I’m reading:
This first article speaks to the weight of the work being done by faculty developers, instructional designers, technology support staff, and others - but also could apply (in my take) to faculty’s role in providing affective support to students. In Affective Labor: The Need for, and Cost of, Workplace Equanimity (Lee Skallerup Besset) the author addresses affective labor/emotional labor, “work that a person does to suppress their feelings so as to create a desired feeling in others (in this case, a sense of calm),” and asks readers to consider the weight of this less-visible, but hopefully not unappreciated, work.
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Interesting infographic/presentation on How to Humanize Your Online Class (Michelle Pacansky-Brock and T&L Innovations) that addresses facilitation skills (small clip below), course design, the interrelation of affective & cognitive learning, and developing a community of inquiry.
Humanized learning increases the relevance of content and improves students' motivation to log-in week-after-week. When students relate to an online instructor as something more than a subject matter expert and begin to conceive of themselves as part of a larger community, they are more likely to be motivated, be satisfied with their learning, and succeed in achieving the course objectives.
Image from How to Humanize Your Online Class @CI is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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9 Ways Online Teaching Should be Different from Face-to-Face (Jennifer Gonzalez) shared strategies for teachers moving fully online for the fall. Although her core audience is K12 teachers, there’s plenty of great ideas for higher ed as well. Her strategies here focus on community and instructional design.
Community building & communication: build in time for “community building and digital competency” at the beginning of the semester; communicate in predictable ways; prioritize connecting with colleagues, not just with students.
Instructional design: collaborate/share with colleagues; focus on active learning during synchronous instructional time; don’t try to do too much; instructions/expectations should be presented in multiple ways - text AND video, for example; worry less about grades and more about providing feedback; to dissuade students from copying work, think of ways summative assessments can ask student to create something rather than explain something.
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An interesting blog post outlining step-by-step how one instructor handles the first day back Back to School Online--first session with some helpful thoughts about sending out a welcome email (test send to yourself to make sure your links and formatting view correctly on mobile devices), what to address during the “community building and digital competency” part of the first live session, and more.
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Upcoming events…
Join a discussion on experiential learning & high impact practices (HIP) in the HyFlex/hybrid classroom with the Student Opportunity Center - July 29th at 2pm; there also a panel on July 21st at 2pm to talk about HIP in online learning.
Community College Showcase: Are you Student Ready? on Tuesday, July 28, 2020 from 9:30am-5:30pm (EST) hosted online by the Ed.D. in Community College Leadership program at New Jersey City University.
Thanks for reading - please let me know if there’s a topic you’d like to hear more about in the future!