We had two weeks to figure out how we were going to respond to COVID 19. Instead of working together and coming up with a common tool to use, we scattered; each professor using whichever tool was representative of low hanging fruit. What followed can only be described as an absolute certain type of show, to which profanity can be attached. And, quite possibly the worst teaching experience I have had in fifteen years of teaching at the post-secondary level and just over thirty years mentoring.

            We needed an online tool to conduct classes online. I used a flipped learning model which saw me posting lectures online and hosting a follow up lab which would reinforce skills from the lectures. However, I was teaching a new course which was completely face to face. I posted supplemental material, but the class was F2F. With COVID, I had to move the class completely online.

            My goal was to find a tool the students would be able to easily adapt to. As my colleagues scattered to various tools, I chose Discord. Most of the students were already on Discord. I spoke to my children, and they introduced me to Discord. They use Discord as a back channel for gaming. Many of my students were already on Discord. Students who had not used Discord before, were able to catch on quickly. In Discord you create servers, small communities specific to whatever you wish. Discord is used for messaging, sharing, video calls, and distribution. I hoped, because the students were familiar with Discord or caught on easily, it would be a beneficial platform for us to use.

            With no project plan in place, in my organisation, I jumped in. The project plan was my children showing me how to use Discord with enough proficiency to host my classes. All I needed was a basic grasp of the platform. I managed that part well enough. I did encounter issues with sharing my screen and students needing to share their screen. At times I would forget to share the correct screen. Because of that, I would continuously ask if students could see what I was sharing. When students tried to share their screen sometimes the video playback lagged, or the student did not know how to share audio. We worked through the classes; however, it was not pain free.

            As I was trying Discord, my colleagues were using other tools. None of which went smoothly. This led to student frustration around not having one platform used by all professors. Students complained about playback, not being to access a platform, wanting content recorded, professors not knowing what they were doing.

            Barriers to success would include no project management in the first place. Not working as a team to find a solution. No leadership. A lack of vision, lack of understanding, lack of reflection. A professor centric response to moving content online versus a student centred approach.

            I feel if my organisation was used to an agile approach or embraced an agile digital learning model, we may have had success. I wonder if think like a system act like an entrepreneur would have succeeded where grabbing low hanging fruit failed. In their paper, Conway, Masters, & Thorold  (2017), talk about a two-diamond approach. “The first diamond is about discovery of the problem and understanding systemic conditions: the value chain, the institutional or societal context in which it sits, and the power dynamics at play” (p 9). Would this have allowed the stakeholders to collectively reflect on what was needed and understanding the context of our situation, led to a successful student centred solution? I believe we failed by not looking at the whole situation, instead, just our individual pieces.

Viewing the problem as made up of a set of interacting components that continuously produce feedback. It also means accepting this situation as dynamic, with the relationships between elements in the system as important in understanding how the system will behave as the component parts. (Conway, Masters & Thorold 2017 p 15).

 

            We had two weeks to gather data, brainstorm and work together to find a solution. We could have also reached out to our learning technologists. Learning technologies are changing the ways  that  students  and  professors  connect,  communicate, collaborate,  and  create  in  teaching  and  learning  in  physical  and  online  environments” (University of Calgary, Learning Technologies Task Force 2014).  Finally, I believe we failed to respect our students and our learning spaces by not engaging in proper project planning.   A high-quality learning  space is  research-informed,  responsive  to  learners’  needs,  and  flexible  enough  to  allow  a range  of learning activities  and  ongoing  improvements  to  technology  and  teaching  and  learning  strategies. (University of Calgary, Learning Technologies Task Force 2014).

References

Conway, R., Masters, J., & Thorold, J., (2017). From design thinking to systems change: How to invest in innovation for social impact. Royal Society of Arts, Action and Research Centre.

University of Calgary, Learning Technologies Task Force. (2014). Strategic framework for Learning Technologies.