Presentation introducing teaching online in higher education

1. Designing and Delivering
Online* Classes for
Student Engagement and
Learning
Peggy Semingson, Ph.D., peggys@uta.edu
The University of Texas at Arlington
College of Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Twitter: @PeggySemingson
The University of Texas at Austin
January 14, 2019

2. Key Ideas
active learning
flexible learning
instructor presence
personalized learning
principles of teaching and
learning online
Presentation Focus:
Building community with online
students
We will have dialogue along the
way!

3. Plan
• My journey into online
teaching and how I
learned
• Dialogue
• Big ideas and frameworks
• Principles of teaching
online
3

4. Context: Growth in Online learning at UT Arlington

5. Bio: Associate Professor of Curriculum and
Instruction at UTA since 2008
• Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction (Language and Literacy
Studies Focus), University of Texas at Austin, 2008.
• Public school teacher for eight years (bilingual/ESL and
reading specialist focus)
• Teaching or other awards:
• ILA Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in
Reading Award, 2017
• United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA),
2013
• Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, (UT System), 2013
• President’s Award for Distance Education (UTA) (2010)
• Jeanne S. Chall Visiting Researcher Grant (Harvard),
2009-2010

6. Background/Digital Interests
Teaching at UTA since 2008
Teaching all online since 2013
Within online teaching, interests in:
• Personalized learning
• Digital outreach
• Mobile learning and microlearning
• Multimodal ways of learning (e.g., YouTube, podcasts)
• Digital mentoring
• Webinars and synchronous
• Predictive analytics and nudges (Civitas/Inspire for Faculty)
• Professional learning communities

7. Goals:
Public intellectual
Share knowledge
openly
Move field of
online (literacy)
teacher education
forward
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8. Challenges
• Staying current with technology (staying relevant)
• Teaching to scale (high enrollment courses)
• Differing perspectives about online/resistance
• Helping students feel connected to the course and the university.
• Course design can take time
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9. I love using YouTube for teaching and learning!
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3,100+
subscribers
1.7 million +
minutes
viewed

10. This is my virtual “classroom”!
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11. Opening Dialogue: Discuss any of these in a small
group of peers
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• What comes to mind when you think about online learning?
What are sources of information to learn more about online
learning?
• How does it benefit students?
What are disadvantages, constraints, or cautionary notes?
• How widespread is online learning and will it continue to grow?
• What’s trending now in online learning?
• How does online teaching differ from face to face teaching?
• BONUS: What major theoretical frameworks inform online teaching
and learning?

12. Foundations and Starting Out: Center for distance
education at UTA
-Workshop and tutoring from Scott Massey and
Erika Beljaars-Harris
Models of personalized learning!

13. Growing and Getting Nurtured in Learning:
Foundations and networks:
LINK Lab and PLC

14. Networks: OLC; UTA library; self-study; QM;
mastermind group; scholarship, etc.

15. EDUCAUSE
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16. SITE (AACE)
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17. Additional Projects and participation in online teaching: Learning
by doing
*no one way to teach online
*support matters

18. Integrated scholarship: Rationale
This helped me in the tenure process!!!
• Desire to learn evidence-based practice (Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning)
• The idea of “emergence” in theoretical frameworks is needed
• Idea of being a pioneer or “early adopter” (Rogers, 2003)
• Practical and helped me to develop my own practice and influence
the practice of others (becoming an expert by default)
• Expansion of Professional Learning Network (PLN)
• Integration of teaching and research agendas
• Social capital

19. Books
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20. Questions? Comments so Far?
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Next: Overarching Frameworks for Digital
Pedagogies

21. Personalized online learning: “Big ideas”
• Community building, e.g., Community of Inquiry (Garrison &
Arbaugh, 2007)
• Just-in-time learning (Krutka, et al., 2014; Novak, Patterson, Gavrin,
& Christina, 1999)
• Digital Mentoring (Murphy, et. Al, 2005)
• Theory of Transactional Distance (e.g., Moore, 1993)

22. Diffusion of innovation
Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/DiffusionOfInnovation.png
Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press.

23. What is personalized learning?
Community of Inquiry framework
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_inquiry#/media/File:Community_of_inquiry
_model.svg
Garrison, D. R., &
Arbaugh, J. B. (2007).
Researching the
community of inquiry
framework: Review,
issues, and future
directions. Internet &
Higher Education, 10(3),
157-172.

24. Principles of Course Design
• Timeline
• Student engagement with the course is crucial
• Not so much about content only but about transformative learning
• Entire course should be planned up front.
• Cognitive overload theory (don’t bombard students)
• Think modules; it helps if the entire program has the same or similar
modules.
• The course is pretty transparent and others will see it (e.g., instructional
designers, supervisors, etc.)
• Asynchronous versus synchronous
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25. Principles of Assessment
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• Alignment is key: objectives, instruction, assessment
• Students dislike busy work and tasks
• Some assignments are just for participation: e.g., discussion boards or
peer feedback
• Practice assignments for no grade
• Dialogue is key: blogging, journals, discussions
• Consider public assignments such as editing a Wikipedia page
• Rubrics are key!
• Learning pathways (e.g., Matt Crosslin and others)
• Gamification of learning

26. Principles of Communicating with Students
• Send weekly reminders and overview each week
• Be clear and explicit. One typo can cause mayhem.
• Virtual office hours (synchronous/asynchronous)
• Podcast or video to introduce each module
• Backchannel and/or Question/answer board
• Webinars are helpful
• Respond within 24-48 hours to email if not sooner
• Netiquette guidelines
• Provide tech support info for students and screenshots if needed.
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27. 29

28. Creating Content
• Align with teaching objectives, outcomes, etc.
• Multimedia
• Accessibility and Flexibility (Universal Design for Learning principles)
• Reuse
• Remix
• Rebuild
• Open educational resources
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29. Creating Content
• Be cautious about copyright, especially with images! I use Pexels for good
royalty free images
• Adobe Spark for creating visual content
• Keep multimedia content short (~5 minutes max)
• Use a high definition webcam and do light editing to tighten it up.
• Consider getting a green sheet from a fabric store to do green screen
videos.
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30. Video-based Social Media
The Power of YouTube
Type of videos
o Modeling and demonstration
o Microlectures and lecture content
o Dialogue-based videos (using
synchronous learning)
o Video series (connected & coherent on a
topic)
Advantages:
o Instructor presence
o A type of digital mentoring
o Inspiring students to create their own
channels
32 UT System Student Success Summit 2018 September 20, 2018

31. Podcasting
oInstructor-authored
content
oStudent-authored content
oPlaylists
oMicrolearning
oMobile app
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32. Short podcasts (micropodcasts)
• Lectures (1-5 minutes) with links to web-
based content
• Dialogue-style micropodcasts
• Reminder or overview micropodcasts
Mine are also open access
You can locate, remix, or build your own
content!

33. Microlectures
• SoundCloud
• Instructor-authored
content
• Playlists
• Mobile app
• Three hours of free
content
• Easy to upload

34. Dialogue/interview style micropodcasts
• Non-scripted
• Can be focused with course
content
• Can be mentor-focused
• Video can be used or audio-
only
• Consider doing a series
• Podcast mic and Zoom or
phone (voice memo feature)

35. Connections to your course (varying purposes)
Media Type Purposes
Podcasts and Micropodcasts Introduction to course or instructor bio/intro
Microlearning on a concept
Overview of an assignment
Commentary on a debated issue (stimulus for class discussion)
Video Introduction to course or instructor bio/intro
Microlearning on a concept
Overview of an assignment
Commentary on a debated issue (stimulus for class discussion)
Dialogue video with colleague (with zoom)
Screencast Overview of an assignment
Elaboration on a website/websites/resource
Lecture with short PowerPoint

36. Social Learning
• Discussion Boards
• Social Media
• Online book clubs
• Blogging
• Service Learning
• What else?
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37. Example Assignment:
Students Building a
Professional Learning
Network
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PART 1: “LIKE” AND FOLLOW THE FOLLOWING
LITERACY ORGANIZATIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Also, choose at least three children's authors to follow
on Facebook and/or Twitter. Which children's authors
you choose are up to you! Optional: Locate your
favorite children's authors who have a blog.
Recommendations for author blogs: Seymour Simon
and Mo Willems. Do a bit of Googling to find children's
authors who blog and/or are on social media.

38. PART 2: Follow, Connect, and Learn from Experts
FOLLOW THESE POSTS REGULARLY THROUGHOUT THE
SEMESTER. YOU CAN GO BEYOND THE ABOVE REQUIRED
ASPECTS AND FOLLOW OTHER CHILDREN'S AUTHORS OR
LITERACY-FOCUSED SOCIAL MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram
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39. PART 3: AT THE END OF THE
SEMESTER, SUBMIT YOUR
WRITTEN REFLECTION
DESCRIBING WHO/WHAT
ORGANIZATIONS YOU
FOLLOWED ON SOCIAL
MEDIA. USE
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Synthesizing, Reflecting, Seeing
Value in Mobile-Driven PLN
Student Written Reflection:
1. What children’s authors did you follow? What did
you learn from each of their social media postings
over the semester?
2. What did you learn, overall, from following the
literacy and education organizations through
social media? If you participated in a Twitter chat,
describe how that went.
3. How can you continue to use social media to
learn about literacy to expand your professional
learning network (PLN)?
4. Include at least one screen shot of your
participation in leaving comments on one of the
social media pages.
5. What other comments do you have about this
assignment?

40. Connecting social media
to the LMS (discussion
boards, specifically)
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oSidneyeve Matrix "Using the LMS as a
Social Network in a Supersized
Course"
http://www.educause.edu/blogs/nhay
s/using-lms-social-network-
supersized-course.

41. Modeling
with
Pinterest
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Curated professional content
boards

42. Future
Directions
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Heavier use of Instagram for
modeling and having students
connect to “real teachers”

43. other future projects for teaching
• YouTube (show analytics
screenshot)-future goals
• Analytics and other
metrics
• Tutorials
• Research on online
literacy-focused teacher
educators
• Column and future
research on Booktubers
(youth who talk about
books on YouTube)

44. Future goals with mobile learning (continued):
• Build students’ confidence and
awareness of possibilities of
social media for professional
use (modeling and practice)
• Ideas on right from Dr. Kathryn
Pole (UTA)
• What are your future goals
with mobile learning?

45. Continued use of synchronous learning

46. Predictive Analytics and Nudge Emails
Nudge: Improving Decisions About
Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
Goals: Database of “nudge” email
templates; use of analytics to create
multi-modal tutorials and differentiated
learning

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• Need to teach critical thinking
• Rethink discussions: include student-curated content
• Focus on networked knowledge and social networks (Siemens, 2005)
• Mobile-driven learning
• Need to model this for our students; therefore, we need to productively
participate in social media professionally
• Focus on one thing at a time; don’t over do it or bombard.
Summary/Advice for Social Learning

48. Overarching Research questions I am refining and
developing
• Higher Education Spaces
• What are best practices in online (literacy) teacher education?
• How can online teacher education programs stay relevant, current, and find a
“niche”?(sustainability of online teacher education programs)
• K-12 Spaces
• What is the role of mobile learning in K-12 and how can teacher education programs
model and mentor teacher candidates to employ this type of learning/practice?
• In what ways are non-digital literacy practices becoming obsolete? (obsolescence)
• What types of DIY professional development digital learning opportunities and
networks are informing K-12 teacher practice? [unsanctioned learning opportunities]
• Both (aligning practices)
• What are current technology integration practices in K-12 and how can teacher
education best align our practices?

49. Community of Inquiry Framework
• Teacher presence–Front-end design of blog, setup, interaction(s)
with students, direction instruction.
• Social presence-e.g., lots of sharing of emotions, e.g., fears of not
knowing enough about the topic yet, fears of not knowing what to
do in the future classroom, sharing of vignettes of personal
encounters with assessment.
• Cognitive presence- problem-solving, evaluating ideas.

50. Creating an online community
• Start with the social aspects of online communication
• Design open-ended topics with a problem-solving focus
• Encourage teachers to share resources and “what works”
• Embed multimedia such as videos, podcasts, and links to useful
websites
• Share your own experiences or “go first” on the forum. Use lots of
positive reinforcement for others who share knowledge and
expertise.

51. Photo by Ewa Rozkosz - Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License https://www.flickr.com/photos/55715448@N07 Created with Haiku Deck

52. Photo by Jamiesrabbits - Creative Commons Attribution License https://www.flickr.com/photos/38389073@N04 Created with Haiku Deck

53. THANK YOU!
Peggy Semingson
Twitter
@PeggySemingson
Email:
peggys@uta.edu
Website:
http://virtualgadfly.com