Pre-emptive statement: Digital Facilitation.

My views have not changed. When it comes right down to it, I struggle with how to implement some of the content we have touched on over the past four weeks particularly the impact on my time management. Content from Team 1 – I will continue with using either or. Team 2 and 3, I feel I implementing suggestions would be straightforward and easy enough to start with little steps. Team 4, I do feel uneasy around Open Educational Practices in my context because of how heavily copyrighted the radio, tv & film industries are.

Team 1 – Cameras on or off? Should digital facilitators require cameras during synchronous sessions? 

Team 2 – What is Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) and how can a facilitator create a learning environment that is inclusive and welcoming for all? 

Team 3 – Managing controversy and conflict in online courses.

Team 4 – Are Open Educational Practices, including open pedagogy and open educational resources, changing the role of the online facilitator.

Looking at the four weeks of facilitation content – three (3) initial thoughts (re-visited) on Digital Facilitation.

1. When done well, facilitation works. I found that all groups were able to facilitate their respective content online quite well. Our cohort is made of up competent thoughtful individuals along a spectrum of digital facilitation experiences; from least to most. The three areas of creating a community of inquiry were present, perhaps to varying degrees, however, still present and I feel contributed to an overall positive teaching and learning experiences. These would be teaching presence, cognitive presence, and social presence. This helped me realise that perhaps I can start with small steps in my context?
2. Digital environments must be engaging, authentic, fun, exciting, challenging, informative and of value. For me and my experiences throughout this course and our teaching and learning weeks, this reflective piece remains a key aspect of digital facilitation. The four topics delivered by our teams directly impact this point. All of them can be a positive contribution to digital environments – if done well or are matched to the context of the facilitation experience.
3. My course experience also reinforced that digital facilitation is here to stay and learning how to develop skills related to the four areas we looked at would provide a foundation from which to do further research and dive deeper into how I could put the ideas presented to use in my context.  From my team experience, I did find it interesting how some students responded to various elements during our facilitation week; some liked elements while others did not like the same elements. Which leads me to wonder about ‘you can’t please all the people all the time’ and since digital facilitation is here to stay – how do I manage that piece and how does that impact the teaching/learning experience?

Two (2) Questions About Digital Facilitation. I feel the course provided me with some developing answers to my questions.

1. I have a beginning understanding of how much time various aspects of EDI, managing conflict, using OEP, and other facilitation considerations may take. For example, if I use another back chat source, how much time I would need to visit the platform, help coach students along so the content moves forward, pose questions that lean on their posts and provide a guide toward critical thinking skills. I would move forward very slowly, picking and choosing what would work in my context as I consider the three presences for a COI.
2. During this course, I launched another teaching term. I am trying a few elements from this course. For example, a bit of a take-off from mattersmost, having a discussion board for each project in my commercial and corporate production class; using critical friend model to support learner experiences in my radio production class and sharing news stories from around the world (via link to the video) as an EDI element in my TV news class. My question around the impact on my time management remains because the aforementioned have all added time to my workload and I am partial load. Therein, lies the struggle, how much of my own time am I willing to share with my students?

One (1) Metaphor or Simile About Digital Facilitation.

What about a quote instead?

Going back to my three thoughts, thought number three. I feel this is worth reflection because students evaluate their professors and their teaching and learning experiences. Not only that, having a positive experience is paramount to student engagement and retention which directly impacts student success. Should I care if everyone is happy? Or will I always take losses? And, how does racism (toward me) impact my ability to reach each student or make a difference?

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.