In March 2020, when the pandemic changed the world forever, the way I delivered lectures and taught clinical skills came to a halt. It was evident that I had to change how I delivered my lectures to my students, and I had to be creative with new ways to assess clinical skills. Our program was defiantly not prepared to teach online, and there was a lot of resistance from other instructors, which put more pressure on those who were ready to leap into online teaching. Reading Bates book on Teaching in the digital age made me realize that there is no right or wrong way to teach online its more about the subject we teach and what we are trying to focus on as Bates stated, “The key shift is towards greater emphasis on skills, particularly knowledge management, and less on memorizing content. We need design models for teaching and learning that lead to developing the skills required in a digital age.” (Bates 2015) In chapter 4, Bates discusses classes using lecture capture, recording lectures, and making them available for students to re-watch. He also discusses using a learning management system (LMSs) it allows instructors to present learning material to a large group of learners. Bates discusses the difference between LMS and in-person lectures, with LMS you can access the information anytime over the internet and they are mainly asynchronous. In-person lectures are held at a specific time with all the students together. I have to agree with his thought in a physical classroom environment. As a teacher, I have had to modify my lesson plans to adjust to the different learning styles of the learners. I could recognize if a learner needs another explanation with body language or with the look on their faces. With LMS it is harder to gauge students learning styles and engagement. I feel that I still have a lot to learn in regards to online teaching and using tools to teach to different learning styles within a group of learners online.
References
Bates, T. (2015). Chapter 4.3 The ADDIE Model, Chapter 4.7 ‘Agile’ Design: flexible designs for learning, and Chapter 1Trends in Open Education. In Teaching in the digital age. BCcampus. http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage
Hey Cheryl,
Thanks for sharing. I find it interesting that so many higher education professors are still stuck in a behaviourist approach to teaching. Don’t get me wrong; I see the value in understanding (memorizing, I guess) vocabulary, but I feel that is a very small lens to view and identify learning in. With the forced move to online, I hope that educators will see the value of change within their practice and learners. Sure, consistency is nice and easy, but without change, we can create no innovation.
I’m so grateful that the courses I teach work quite well within an online environment, but I know that there are many subjects that face huge struggles outside of a classroom environment. I also find the lack of student connection quite frustrating. What have been some of the most important things you’ve learned about adapting to online learning environments?
The transition from face-to-face to online due to the pandemic was extremely difficult. I can identify with your point about some faculty resisting the move. The same was true with us. Many courses in our program don’t work well online… but just as many do. I think our greatest source of difficulty has come from a lack of creativity… and lack of understanding of the instructional design process.
Can you give an example of how you changed your approach when you moved online?
I second that there has been a lot of resistance regarding the switch to online learning since the start of the pandemic. In fact, countless behaviorist-style instructors who have not adapted to Edtech. have lost their jobs – whole institutions have gone through system-wide overhauls to accommodate this pandemic and learning revolution. Now it’s on the ID teams, operations managers, and instructors to get on-board with various technologies that fit within popular LMS’s and teacher competencies to address things like learning preferences and experience, etc. From my experience, the technology is there, but its a matter of implementing it into stubborn, slow to change systems that have gotten too comfortable with the ways of old. I think you and I, and the rest of our wonderful cohort, have entered this MA just at the right time! Cheers.
I taught prior to COVID in a flipped classroom environment and like David, haven’t had as much difficulty adjusting to online as some of my fellow instructors. And while I have missed the face-to-face interactions, I do think that the flipped model is easier to convert to online teaching. With the flipped model, students are already used to doing some of the readings and learning on their own, and class time is reserved for practical exercises and activities where they can ask the instructor questions.
Chery, I trust your professional program has sorted out online learning. Such a huge undertaking I bet, for those that resist change. When it comes to the content provided through the online path, memorizing the information only takes you so far (to the exam). Knowledge management, sustains the information, so excellent find and post!
The pandemic really shifted perspective. I empathize with your experience with coworkers as this is not a time for resistance to change, because change is happening. I looking at what you shared from Bates, it shows how “on it” he is/was and for the most part post secondary education institutions have not been keeping up