Setting the community stage

After completing the readings for ISWO's unit 1 on community, I've had the chance to think about how these applied versus my practical experience, limited though it may be at this point.

The five critical features: rules, rounds, roles, rituals, and ringers were of interest to me as I hadn't fully had the opportunity to dissect and analyse the classes from afar.  In fairness, it's easy to be able to see what went right and what went wrong based on learner feedback, but it can be challenging to look at it from a cause-and-effect perspective.  It can also be difficult if the feedback is vague - "it was fine".  I am sensitive to the fact that I will be teaching classes that non-accountants will find boring; I am also aware that as a learner, the best professors I had took boring material and found a way to hold my interest in it.

Where I see the biggest opportunity in the material I teach is to approach it from two angles, both of which have to be championed by me.  The first is to really concentrate on the formative stage of the class.  The mistake I have made is in assuming that in teaching MBA's, they would come in "pre-programmed".  While this may be true to a certain degree, they have been programmed to someone else's learning preferences - teaching finance requires activating a different set of skills than teaching human resources or marketing.  Setting the stage with rules and roles would help address any ambiguity with the learners immediately.

The second angle for me ties in with the idea that what I teach is practical in the real world and there are a ton of examples of how it would be useful.  Understanding why BlackBerry is in trouble ties in with strategy and ends with finance; a movie like the inside job explains the correlation between debt and social policy; anything involving Enron involve accounting and the law.  The article that stuck out for me in the readings involved Facebook - I thought that one post solicited 60 written responses and 284 "likes"; the question isn't whether people wish to have their opinion heard, it's how to set the tone for them to want them to.

All I have to do is engage the right side of the brain to dream up a structure I find interesting and engaging while simultaneously drawing on the left to find the structure and discipline to put (and keep) it in place...

Entering into the blogosphere

It's interesting that for someone who reads other's blogs, I have never had one set up for myself.  I think it must be similar to the Twitter account I have set up - I wait for the one really super inspired post to hit a home run, as opposed to the string of base hits that is life!

This blog is set up for Royal Roads University's Instructional Skills Workshop (ISWO) to allow for reflections on what I'm learning and to discuss whatever happens to come to mind.  One thought that I had was that the most effective online experiences I've had have been fully interactive and not just one-way.  A lot of the material that I discuss can be dry or hard to visualize, particularly if the learner isn't inclined towards numbers.

The scenario was such: I was teaching a 1 hour finance session using Elluminate and there wasn't one bit of interaction for the first half hour.  The class was absolutely boring for them - I could feel myself becoming less and less comfortable.  I began to rush.  My voice got dry and high-pitched.  I began to wonder how I was going to go through 10 more sessions like this.  As we hit the half hour mark, I had gone through all my slides and I asked, "are there any questions?"  One fellow wanted to talk about the US debt crisis, one wanted to talk about the Canadian dollar, and one asked "can we see the slides again, only slowly and with detail?"  At that moment I realized that I hadn't asked one question of the class, checked for comprehension, or solicited any meaningful feedback along the way to see whether they were understanding what was going on.

I went back and went through the slides again (which were heavy on calculations) and didn't treat it like a race.  I made use of the text box on the side for answers to be posted in, used checkmarks and X's to determine whether I should stop and clarify or whether it was fine to move on, and asked the learners who got the answers right to explain (vocally) how they came up with their answers as they might phrase their thought process in a manner more consistent with the other learners.  Essentially I went back to the drawing board after spending a half hour delivering a soliloquy and was rewarded with feedback on how I was doing.

The learning in this case was two way: I learned the first approach I took (to rush with no feedback) was ineffective and that having interaction is what makes teaching satisfying to me; secondly, the learner feedback confirmed that the first session was ineffective for them as well, and that for complex material they want the opportunity to have questions addressed (similar to F2F).  I recognize that online learning is largely self-directed, but I want to ensure I have used strategies and tools to make the process enjoyable for everyone.  Not easy, but enjoyable!