Page 105 - Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century

In those initial weeks of remote teaching and learning, my saving grace was that I could at any time day or night send a query to a dedicated team of instructional designers (IDs) and be sure to receive a helpful and kind response within a few short hours. The feedback and advisements not only helped alleviate my damning worry but also helped me find reasonable ways to navigate the processes that I was very much just beginning to grasp. The time spent responding to my numerous emails, voice calls, taking me through the various Blackboard settings and troubleshooting when things went awry did not go unnoticed. It was as developmental as it was comforting to feel one had allies who were as dedicated to student success as they were to lecturer support.
My greatest level of concern revolved around online student engagement. Sitting in front of a computer screen, not knowing if there was an actual audience to engage with, the silence was terrifying. The remote learning classroom felt cold and lonely. I was consumed by my feelings of disquiet and uncertainty because I was unable to see the students (who kept videos off to save bandwidth), unable to read their expressions and body language, unable to gauge their levels of interest or disinterest in the subject matter being shared. I was constantly wondering if there were actual warm bodies on the other side of the screen, as the number of participants indicated in the stream was strangely non-consoling.
Are you there? Can you still hear me? I am going to pause for questions or comments ... Anyone? ... Anyone? SILENCE
Knowing full well the value of active student engagement, I experienced the sick feeling of talking into an empty room. Active learning promotes meaningful learning experiences that are the opposite of sitting quietly and listening. It necessitates that students participate in lessons with the lesson content, thereby intensifying their responsiveness, motivation and application of content taught. In a face-to-face classroom set-up, this generally includes question-and-answer opportunities, hands-on activities, discussions integrated with the content and experiential learning activities, which was not as obvious in the online setting. With a lot of help from the ID team, I discovered it was possible to engage students effectively in an online mode. From blogs to polls, to journals to discussion boards, I was finally beginning to see and hear the students, and the students began to have a vibrant voice. The Blackboard Learn online platform, which I was learning about, seemed to be user friendly enough to ensure all students were participating fully and meaningfully. I could read the students’ thoughts as they shared these in their journals, identify their burning issues for content and practice elaborations to create opportunities for deeper thinking about
the content matter and the critical reflexive applications of the content to the practice of educational psychology. I would afford students the opportunity to view YouTube mock practice examples to help bridge the application gaps. The additional opportunity for students to view each other’s posts and each other’s further questions or comments on the short videos created a space for reflection on their own learning as well as fulfilled the role of peer and lecturer support in the process of learning.
In some instances, not being confident that students fully understood key concepts often left me feeling concerned about the uptake of the concepts and if they could be used in practice effectively. Having a class of 25 students that would under normal circumstances have a monthly, six-hour contact session per module meant that there was a need to diversify how the class was presented. The opportunity to use online learning tools such as Blackboard Collaborate Ultra sessions, together with the poll function as well as the discussion board, kept students meaningfully engaged with the lecturer and each other. These, however, were not without their teething problems for both me and the students.
Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching and Learning 2021
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