 Welcome to our SWC Spotlight webinar for spring 2019. I am especially excited about this one because today we are taking a look at the course of our first ever award winner for excellence in online teaching. Lisa Baez-Jarris is here to talk about all the wonderful things she is doing with her students and she's going to give us a little peek into her course. The first thing that I wanted to talk about was the award. In its first incarnation, we were really happy to have a lot of nominations submitted. In fact, we had 236 nominations in this award period. And here is the part that just really warms my heart. 95% of those were nominations from our students. They weren't doing this for an assignment. They weren't doing this for extra credit. They weren't even doing it for recognition because they're all anonymous, but they did it because a teacher of theirs moved them, helped them, supported them, made a difference in their lives. And that is just incredible. 95% of our 236 nominations came from students who wanted to show how much they appreciated in an online instructor. We had a total of 79 individual instructors nominated, which is a huge number. And from that very big group, the selection committee, which consisted of faculty, staff, and students, put together a list of 15 finalists. And those finalists were selected using the Excellence in Online Teaching Award rubric. So this is the rubric that we used as part of the process. We looked at the information that the nominators provided to us. We also looked at the course tour video that the instructor shared with us so that we could take a look at their course through a video. And then we also asked the instructors a couple of questions to gather information to better assess some of these things. So we looked at course design, learning environment, the instructional content, so how the instructor was teaching the subject matter online. We also looked at regular effective contact and online assessments. And the last thing that we looked at was accessibility. The committee used this rubric and the finalists emerged. And then they had a very hard job of picking just one person for this award because wow, do we have a lot of fabulous things happening in our online classes. But we had to pick one and we did. And it was Lisa. So I wanted to share with you a couple of things that her nominator said about her teaching and about her course, just to give you a sense of what we're going to see in a minute when she is so kind just to share a little bit of her teaching with us. So one of the things that we see here in this first one is the use of video. The professor uses video interactions to develop her teaching. The student says the learning experience is almost compared to that of being in a classroom. So it felt like it was a live class with other students and an engaged instructor. And that's so important in an online environment. The second one noted the extra information that the instructor shared, resources, online materials that related to the topic, which also of course speaks to engagement. And then this one, I have to say that the committee who is selecting for this award was especially impressed with this. Every chapter has an introductory video. So she is there with her students every week of the course introducing the material and providing video lecture content. The next two comments that I want to share are a little bit meatier and they really speak to not just the content but the presentation, the instructor presence that's in the course. So the first one talks about the amazing job at communicating. I felt I knew her and had never met her. And I feel it is important for online professors to establish a relationship with their students because it allows us as students to comfortably approach our professors online. That was pretty profound. So if we think about all of the students who maybe fill up the back row of a face-to-face class, they're in the online class too. What can make them feel more comfortable coming to the front? And so Lisa has found the secret sauce of being approachable and having your students feel like they know her. So we'll take a look at how she has done that in a couple of minutes. And then the last one, it almost feels like a plant but I swear this was a real comment from a new learner. I was very skeptical when I initially decided to take an online course. So here we have the skeptic who by the end becomes a convert. So at the end, the student says, however, I enjoyed everything about her course and teaching. So went from being a skeptic saying, I don't think online is for me. I'll just try one, two at the end saying, I loved it. So that's a great testimonial. So with those, I wanted to give us a chance to actually talk with Lisa a little bit and then take a look into her course too. So I'm gonna stop my screen share and Lisa, how's it feel? It's a little overwhelming. I'm not used to this kind of attention but at the same time, I'm excited to share what I've done because as many of you know, teaching online is difficult. It's isolating. You don't get that immediate feedback that you get in the classroom. It's hard to know if students are getting it. It's hard to know if students like the class. So this award feels kind of like, I feel validated as a teacher because we're often kind of, up until now, I think we're kind of coming into our time but teaching for 16 years online, I've often felt as like the stepchild of faculty and maybe we don't get as much respect or people often will say little things that perpetuate the idea that we're in our pajamas and teaching and nothing drives me more nuts than when people make those comments. So just having this award that we're gonna continue giving it to exceptional faculty in the future just makes me really happy to finally get us at the same level as everybody else and then also giving us the opportunity to share things that we can learn from each other because it's hard to do that not only in the physical classroom but online. And so I'm overwhelmed by this award. I'm really grateful and I appreciate all of you being here to see what I've done in my course. I really think the more that we share what we're doing, the more we support each other, the more we give each other ideas and what we do, all of us as teachers can feel kind of isolating. If you're face to face, you're still just you in the classroom. How often do we get time to actually see how other people teach something? And online, I feel like we have such a great opportunity because we can do things like this. We can share screens with Zoom. So I feel like we really are at a place where we can start to break down those walls and really learn with each other. And so this award has been a great way too to kind of raise that awareness for sure. So it's nice to, you know, we don't have to recreate the wheel every time. You know, I'm taking things from different people all the time and utilizing the comments and just to have all those resources help me become a better instructor. And so again, I'm just really excited to be able to share things with everyone today. So should I go ahead and jump in? Yes, let's. So I'm just gonna start off. Tracy had asked me to kind of talk about what guides me in my online teaching. And there's this great article from the Chronicle of Higher Education. It's an article I've read a while back ago and I often go back to it to kind of help remind me of what I should be doing in my online classes. And so these are the 10 essential principles and practices of better online teaching. The title of the article is How to be a Better Online Teacher and Advice Guide. And before I begin showing my class, I just want to emphasize that this is just one example of how I do it. And I think what is really great is picking and choosing what may work for your discipline and your teaching style. So as I was going through these 10 points, reviewing them again as I was preparing for today, I was kind of going through the checklist. Am I still doing that? You know, you kind of have to review with yourselves. Am I still doing that? How am I doing it? And so the first one is just show up for class. And I interpret that in regular, effective contact. There's so many tools. Like I use a Show Me app. I teach statistics online for the social and behavioral sciences. And so I use it an app called Show Me. And it really helps me mimic what I would do in the classroom on the whiteboard. And there are a lot of ways that we can engage in regular, effective contact. The online office hours that I do every day on a weekly basis, all of these things have become easier to do with Canvas. Canvas has been a great tool to help me address regular, effective contact. And as I'm going to go through these points as quickly as I can, hopefully you'll see examples of all of these things in my example module. Be yourself. One of the ways that I try to do that is interject my voice and my announcements, doing some video announcements when possible, interjecting some humor. I think all of us as instructors, we tell jokes, goofy ones at times. But that's part of our performance. We are performers. We're educators, but we're also performers. In online instruction, sometimes that disappears because we can't share ourselves. So I try to use video recordings for my announcements as often as I can. My dean, Cynthia McGregor, had shared with me an app called My Talking Pet app, which I'm not sure of any of you have seen if there's time, I'll show you, but it's where you can have an image of your favorite animal or generic animal and record your voice. And so I always do my voice with a little picture of a kitty cat that says how important it is to watch, read all the announcements. And students think it's hilarious. I think it's hilarious. I haven't even seen it. Okay, it's silly, but it's good to do at the beginning of the semester because it kind of dispels this idea that I'm a robot. And also because of the discipline that I'm teaching statistics, a lot of students are coming with a lot of fear and anxiety. So I try to put that out there and be goofy so that I tend to be very proper. And sometimes I have to work through that and find ways to be funny in an online setting that may be more natural in the classroom. Put yourself in their shoes. I always try to, as I'm developing a new module or new material, I always go into the student view and click through things and see where the roadblocks are. I also have my husband who's an instructor too and my kids who are getting older and are able to help me. I'll say six year and tell me what doesn't make sense. So I have them look at the material and we try to put ourselves in their shoes so that I can anticipate those roadblocks and be ready for them or adjust accordingly. Organize the course content intuitively. I just designed for everybody. You just think about the ways that everyone can access your material, then it just becomes easier for everyone. I try to create my course where there are a lot of ways to access the material because I want to minimize what we refer to as cognitive overload. I don't want them to get lost in the technicalities of the course. I want them to be able to learn the material and we're just using technology as a vehicle. Add visual appeal. So I use banners and they're not fancy. I'm not very artistic at all. But I wanted to brand my course in a way that when they go to my course, they know it's my course and then images when necessary and obviously videos, either curated videos or instructor led videos. And research shows that students tend to learn better when something's presented in video format. Explain your instructions and expectations. We think that just providing directions or instructions in text is enough. But as we probably all experience, students turn in things that was way left field and you wonder how did that happen? So I try to anticipate that. I provide videos of the instructions walking them through. I try to be as explicit as possible in my instructions and then explain my expectations by showing student examples and then including rubrics. And then along those lines, when I give feedback, I will redirect them and sometimes the things that I have done aren't enough and so when I grade their work, I'll kind of give them the feedback necessary and then refer them back to those resources or again to the examples of other student work. Scaffolding learning activities. So I use research that shows chunking information is best. So our brains work better when we're given little bits at a time. And in statistics, that's really applicable because just reading chapter one from beginning to end of statistics is overwhelming. So I try to chunk things and then scaffold the learning with different assignments that gives me feedback and give the students feedback about how they're doing, how they're understanding and comprehending the material. Provide examples. I've already mentioned some of that in terms of explaining the expectations, make class inviting and pleasant to be in. That again is hard to do in an online environment but one way that I try to do that is really focus on compassion. I try to create an environment where I want my students to feel comfortable. They can talk to me about all kinds of things, not only what we're learning about but things that are happening to them personally. My announcements every week, I have a welcome to week eight. I just tried to make it exciting because statistics is hard to make. But at least every week I'm welcoming them to learning something new and I just try to interject as much warmth in my text when I do write something in an announcement, again, trying to make them feel comfortable and then lastly commit to continuous improvement. At the very beginning of my statistics course, I have a diagnostic assessment to see where the students are in terms of their skills, their math skills. And then throughout the semester, I have formative and summative assessments that not only inform the students of how they're doing but informs me in terms of, did I explain that well? If I consistently show that students are understanding particular concept and it's across the board, I recognize I need to redo something. I have to address the deficiencies in my teaching and my presentation material and students use it to address the deficiencies they are illustrating in terms of their understanding. So the article is fabulous, so I encourage you to read it. So at this time, I'm gonna go over to my course and just show you the example module. So this is week two. So front page always changes. And one of the reasons that it does is because when I was thinking about design, I didn't wanna stagnant front page all the time. I wanted it to be more dynamic that every week as we change the material that we're learning and as we're scaffolding the material that I wanted the front page to reflect that new material. So I always have the three most recent announcements posted on my homepage. And then I have a usually curated video. This is just something visual that they can latch onto and get introduced to the concepts before we jump into the reading before we jump into my lecture, stats lectures aren't that dynamic. So I need like a hook, something to get them excited. And I find that something that's visually appealing helps get them motivated. And with every video, I always provide a little text as to what they're going to see. And it's really, it can be one sentence to, you know, two or three sentences just introducing what they're gonna see. And then I have these shortcut buttons to always remind them green means go. So go to the green button and begin chapter one. And so we'll go ahead and do that. So it takes us to the modules and we begin with the overview. And I'm sure having gone through depth and we all have this kind of introduction or overview where I had the learning objectives. And again, here's the banner that I created using Canva and the to-do list. This is pretty typical of most classes. And from there, I begin with the course content. I'll give them a reading assignment. Again, here's an illustration of a chunking of information. So here I instruct them to read section 1.1. And this is easier to do in, you know, course like math or statistics because the textbooks are usually written in that format where they have little sections. So I'll instruct them to read a certain section of the text and each section has its corresponding lecture. And these lecture, all my lectures have been closed captioned. Making of the videos, it takes time, but you know, it's like doing the lecture in class. And once they watch the lecture videos and I remind them, you know, take notes while you're watching these lecture videos after they've watched and covered one to two sections. So here they're covering section 1.1 and 1.2. Then I have a short little, what I refer to as a learning check quiz. And it's kind of low stakes. You know, it's not a lot of consequences in terms of, you know, oh, I'm being quizzed. It's a quick little assessment. Did you comprehend what we read? In statistics, you know, everything is cumulative. We build upon the skills, which each section, which each chapter, which each part, all preparing us for meeting the learning objectives for the course. So they have the opportunity to assess themselves and for me to get that feedback as to whether or not they understood the material. And then we go on to more materials. So chapter one in this stats book is really heavy on terminology. So I do a combination of text lecture and then video and then I try to incorporate other interesting quality curated videos to help support what I'm presenting to the students. Again, keeping the structure the same, reading assignment and then the lecture that follows. And here's an example of when I wanna find a balance between scrolling and next-ing. So I try to use tabs to kind of consolidate. So this section is quite long instead of them going from page to page or scrolling. I remind them, you know, to view all the tabs and again, within these tabs, I've included curated videos. So it's a combination of different ways of presenting material. And again, once we've covered a couple sections, we take a quick little assessment to make sure, okay, I understand what was just presented and they're encouraged to go back and review the section if they didn't do very well on these quick little learning check quizzes. And here, as we start to get into more of the notation and statistics, I have some demonstration videos. So you get the gist of the pattern of chunking information and giving students opportunity to assess themselves and give me an opportunity to get feedback from how they're doing on those quizzes. Once they've completed all of that, they move on to completing their homework. So here, as I mentioned, you know, explain your explanations or your instruction. So I have the instructions written in text, but I also created a video showing them what I want them to do and how to do it. I've embedded the homework, the problems that they need to print out and then they are instructed to handwrite their answers because I really believe in the process of writing and your brain retaining information when you engage in that activity. And I have very specific instructions in terms of them highlighting their final answers and then they also need to check their work. So since I have large class maxes, I have 45 students, it's hard for me to grade homework in terms of accuracy. So the way I address that was, I encourage them to complete the homework on their own and not to be afraid if they make mistakes and then even if they skip a problem, they don't know how to do it. Some students will write, I don't know how to do this. Then they are instructed to check their work with these solution videos. So I have the solutions for every problem that's been assigned to them. So again, I used an app called show me to create these and I've organized them by tab so they can find the video or the problem that they want to see worked out and they're all closed captioned. And- So Lisa, you work out the problems, problem by problem, using video. So you're sitting there with them as they're doing their homework, ready to explain something to them. Yes, and I always, I joke a lot about how they can pause me, they can fast forward. It is a lot of time for them to spend watching these, but I tell them, you don't have to watch all of the videos if you got the answer right for number 19 or number 21. They can skip that information, but as we progress in the chapters, they really need that step-by-step illustration of how to complete a problem. And the students will say things like, I feel like you're sitting right next to me. I can come up with a question, but then I play and then usually you address that question. And if I don't, they can always reach out to me and I can, in a lot of cases, create another video and send it to them directly. So they check their work. So before they submit their homework, they have to go through these processes, all these steps of completing the homework and then correcting it. And I actually want to see them like marking their own work incorrect. Some students will do it in a different color. I'm not very specific of how they do it. Students have become really creative. Some students will put a little smiley face next to the ones they got correct. And then a question mark next to the ones that they had problems with. But then once they see the solution, I still expect complete homework. So even if they were having, they were challenged by it, they still have to submit it complete and they can complete it by using the solution videos. So that whole process attributes to the learning of the material. Then the technical part is for them to scan it as a PDF and upload it. And I found a fabulous video, the little tutorial of how to do that. So some students have never used this app called Camp Scanner. It's a fabulous app, really easy to use. They just take their mobile device, take a picture of their homework. It converts it to a PDF and they can easily upload it to Canvas. So I include this little video. And then I also provide examples. And here's one that put smiley faces next to their work. And it gives me joy because they're happy they got it right. So they've watched the lecture videos, they read the text and they're understanding and they're highlighting their final answers. But this shows to me that they're enjoying the class. And this student in particular has said, I thought I was gonna hate this class. I'm afraid of numbers and all of these things that they come to my class is petrified about having to take statistics. And this brings me great joy because I imagine just making those little happy faces makes that student feel good about themselves. And it's a quick way for them to determine if they're understanding the material in it. It helps because I'm one person and I have large class maxes, they don't have to wait for me to grade something. So three weeks from now, I'm not telling them, oh, you're totally off track. I mean, by then it's hard for them to get back on track. So they can quickly assess where their needs are, where the holes in their knowledge is. And it minimizes that negative aspect of larger class sizes and I'm able to give them feedback. And in a different way, I just decided this is the way, better way to do it and it was creative. Some students are kind of confused, like you're gonna give us the solutions and I explained to them, it's not about getting it right or wrong, it's the process of learning. And so the homework is really degraded on completion because they have access to the solutions. But they just, I think really helped reinforce the material. Just to clarify Lisa, so it sounds to me like you're not giving them an answer key, you're giving them the solutions to the problem, you're working through it with them in that video so that they can understand, not just the answer, but the process. Right, they can use the appendix C, the back of the text to check their answers, but appendix C just has the answer. And their handwritten work, part of the brew break shows that they show their handwritten work. So they can't just write the answer. The solution videos walk them through step-by-step of how to arrive at the answer in the back of the book. And then my brew break is really very basic. And again, as I mentioned, it's focusing on is it complete? Are they illustrating that they check their work and that they corrected it? If there's an answer that's incorrect, I wanna see that they marked it wrong, however they wanna do that. And then they show the correct solution. And by then that usually helps, but if they still are having problems or challenge, then they can come back to me for some more help. And one of the ways that they do that is, I have an assignment that I refer to as muddiest point. And I was so thrilled to find this image and it was legal to use. Because this is what students sometimes feel like. Even after they've gone through lectures, even after they've done the homework, they're like, it may just be one thing. I don't understand what standard deviation is, how to compute it, how to use it. And so here they are encouraged to discuss some of those things that they're still challenged by. So I'm just gonna show you an example. I did get permission from some of my students. Here's a student that mentioned levels of measurement are still difficult for her to understand. And so here I respond with some texts and a wonderful curated video that I found on YouTube. Students will help each other in some instances. And here is where I try to be compassionate and interject some more in terms of recognizing and saying a lot of students struggle with this. And in this case, it's true. The scales of measurement are repeatedly, historically, a concept that a lot of students struggle with. And so I want them to know that it's not just them. So I tried to incorporate different languages. I might be speaking Chinese to them and the book is in Portuguese and now this video speaks their language. So I tried to provide as many different ways of explaining complex materials so that the light bulb goes off. And again, I mentioned they help each other in some regards. I've had some students create their own videos or record themselves solving a problem when they really get into it. And in this case, I might refer back to a section. So here, this little hyperlink. I'll remind them, go back and review this section. You might have missed it and give some examples. And so here is this other illustrations of students helping each other. So once they've completed the muddiest point discussion board, hopefully we've addressed all the gaps or the majority of the gaps in their knowledge. They're ready to take a formative assessment. So learning checks are formative. The end of chapter quiz is formative as well in the sense that the items are coming from a pool. So everyone's quiz is gonna be slightly different but if students, they're encouraged to check their answers, like which ones they got wrong. And in most cases, they recognize, oh, I see why I got that wrong. But in some cases, they are like, I don't understand why I got this question wrong. And they'll email me or they'll send a little message within the quiz in Canvas and say, can you help me better understand? And I'm just gonna switch over to my show me. So I'll prepare a little video for them. So this last week's student had two items that they wanted more instruction on. And so I'll create those and then send it to them directly. So they now understand, okay, I got these wrong and now they have the solutions to those videos or those problems. I don't post those publicly because students take their quizzes at varying times and then I make them private within my show me so that hopefully they're not shared from semester to semester. And once they've completed the quiz and addressed all of their issues then I end with our basic review of what we set out to learn and the activities that help us address those learning objectives. And as we've all been taught to, we congratulate them because it is a lot of work and then we'll see them next week and then the next week begins with welcome to week three or welcome to week four. Forgot to share point number 10 was commit yourself to improving and changing and making updates. So I took something from the Commons, Barbara Ilawowski has a couple courses posted and she has a couple of examples of midterm self-assessment and I asked them these questions. They provide really great feedback and this is midway through the semester like what's working for you, what's not, what could I do differently and what are you gonna commit to to making sure that you do better or you continue to do as you're doing and being successful. And then at the end of the term I have a summative assessment of how the whole course overall and this image really epitomizes, I like it, I don't like it and they can take a survey or they can submit their feedback in these other ways and that's really helpful for me to collect that information. At the midterm point I can make these quick adjustments perhaps if I see consistency or common themes but then at the end of the term I can use that for the next semester which is really helpful. Well, we have four minutes left. I wonder what we could squeeze into four minutes. My cat video? Yes. So here it goes. Hello, everyone. Please be sure to read all announcements that contain important information. Thank you. It cracks me up every time. And students when I post it, you know, they're like, I love cats and all the comments and they just think it's hilarious and it helps them see me in a different light. I think all of us have felt like our students when they email us repeatedly at one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning and they're wondering why we're not responding. They have this idea, this notion that we're computers or robots or something. So it kind of helps me. So Lila wants to know how exactly did you make that cat video? What app did you use? It, the app's called My Talking Pet App and you can upload an image of your own pet. Really find it at the beginning of the semester so that they know that you have a sense of humor. Well, Lila, thank you so much for sharing all of these great ideas. I'm just so impressed with how fully realized this class is. I mean, we know how much time this must have taken to put all this together. Well, thank you for the opportunity to share and if anyone has any other questions that occur to them later, please don't hesitate to email me. Lila, would you mind stopping the screen share so we can see you big screen and we can say goodbye? Okay, there we are. Yay! So can we all unmute for just a moment to... Bye! Lila. Thank you. She did see you. Bravo! There we go. Thank you, Lila. That's all the time we have for this webinar, but we hope that you walk away with some ideas that you want to try out with your students. Until next time.