Emily Schudel, Instructional Designer

Category: PIDP 3100

PIDP 3100, Blog Post 3: Discussion with my Learning Partner

September 9, 2017 / / 0 Comments

For this week’s blog post, I am going to tell you a little about the chat I had with my learning partner last week via the magic that is Skype.

My learning partner works in retail management, and I am an instructional designer in eLearning.  Night and day? Turns out not!  Teaching people to learn new technologies and disrupting their comfortable workflow is challenging no matter what area you work in.

The Omnichannel trend new to me.  According to my learning partner, omnichannel involves  using technology (for example websites) to improve the overall experience for a client. After a little reading, I understand that “when a store has implemented an omnichannel approach, the customer service representative in the store will be able to immediately reference the customer’s previous purchases and preferences just as easily as the customer service representative on the phone can or the customer service webchat representative can.” (TechTarget)

According to my partner, integrating technology into a company’s workshop is often challenging as people will have to be trained to use the technology.  Her example was a yoga company which traditionally focused on the “one on one” and on community.  Moving to an omnichannel approach means that now this focus will have to be balanced with technology and a new workflow.

We, in our eLearning unit at our college, have similar challenges when working with faculty who are not ready to move from standing up in front of a classroom lecturing, into learning technology to support their teaching.  It does, however, become easier for them to accept disrupting their workflow (and adapting a new workflow) when they begin to see the benefits for their learners (and in all honesty, for them).

Creating company culture in retail environments was the second trend in my partner’s area that we discussed.  This involves companies adopting core values and a purpose beyond the bottom-line sales.  This can be very disruptive for companies who do not already operate under this model, as it can be viewed as getting in the way of making money.  According to Forbes, however, “[p]eople now believe that culture has a direct impact on financial performance.” (Bersin) and “[c]ompanies that focus on culture are becoming icons for job seekers”, and also have higher employee retention rates. (Bersin)  It makes sense: if your company’s values match your own, and if that company actually lives and breathes those values, you are much more likely to enjoy your job and put your all into it.

Once again, I saw similarities with my discipline, specifically as it results to changing the culture of the classroom, from one where the instructor is the “sage on the stage” to more learner-directed.  This, I find, is a difficult shift for some faculty, although we do have more and more new faculty who just teach this way from the beginning.  I think we, as post-secondary institutions, have to look at learner retention trends from the perspective of, are we creating and supporting educational culture at our institution, what does that look like, and does it have an impact on the retention and satisfaction of our learners and faculty.

Finally, we discussed some trends in Adult Education.

My partner talked about how there is a constant introduction of new technologies into adult education these days, and we also discussed on-demand learning as a new model for education, often in the form of informal learning resources such as Ted Talks videos, blogs, vimeo, etc.  Certainly, these trends are right up my alley!  There are days I can’t keep up with the new technologies people are integrating into their teaching (which is ironic, given that I also work with faculty who struggle with the concept of simply setting up a gradebook in our LMS).  One faculty member I work with started integrating VR into his political science classes, and this year is getting students to create and critique their own VR experiences.  All ends of the spectrum, and no end in sight.  Guess I will be employed for awhile!

References

Bersin, J.  (2015, March 13).  Culture: Why It’s The Hottest Topic In Business Today.  Forbes.  Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2015/03/13/culture-why-its-the-hottest-topic-in-business-today/#6f6e6e6c627f

TechTarget.  (2014, February).  Omnichannel.  Retrieved from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/omnichannel

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PIDP 3100, Blog Post 2: Trends in Adult Education

August 24, 2017 / / 0 Comments

In last week’s blog post, I explored trends in my field, eLearning.  Now, trends in eLearning overlap with trends in adult education, so I found myself wondering what  trends in adult education I could explore outside of my field for this blog post.  Then it hit me!  I am going to talk about a trend in adult education related to active learning strategies, something called Liberating Structures.

Now, Liberating Structures are not just a trend in education. According to McCandles and Lipmanowicz (http://www.liberatingstructures.com/), liberating structures can be used to, well, liberate organizational structures, meetings, presentations, brainstorming sessions, and other non-educational practices.  But, they are also active learning strategies that can be used very effectively in educational settings, both face-to-face and online.

The article I will explore to for this post is A liberated professor speaks by Arvind Singhal, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso.  Mr. Singhal has been using Liberating Structures in his teaching for the past several years, and states that “the nature of the student feedback I hear has noticeably changed…[to being] deeper, more soulful.” (Singhal, p.2), and that Liberating Structures have, by removing him from being the sole [PROVIDER] of knowledge to enabling him “see the vast experiential and intellectual resource participants bring into a classroom individually and collectively.” (Singhal, p.7)

What I enjoyed the most in this article was the joy Mr. Singhal expressed when talking about the profound change in his classrooms and students after he started using Liberating Structures.  Even “[s]imple structures like sitting in a circle, introducing a talking stick, and providing people an equal opportunity to be seen and heard changes the quality of the connections and interactions in a classroom.” (Singhal, p.6)  The circle is at the heart of Liberating Structures (representing the breaking down of the hierarchy of the classroom), as is the use of the talking stick, which creates a situation in which everyone is heard equally, without interruption.  Singhal finds that by becoming a part of the circle and “just “letting go” of the thought of “professing” profoundly changes the way I design my classroom.” (Singhal, p.7)

McCandles, Lipmanowicz, and Singhal in their 2015 work, describe one faculty member’s use of a Liberating Structure called Impromptu Networking (pp. 9-10), stating

[t]his small example illustrates how and why it is possible to be more effective and productive as a group and, at the same time, make it also enjoyable for all participants. It is enjoyable because everybody is actively engaged from start to finish. It feels good because everybody is given equal space to speak and be heard. It is fun because it is dynamic and energizing. It is rewarding because it gives everybody the opportunity to contribute to the whole learning process. It generates lots of interactions between people who otherwise would remain distant in spite of sitting in the same room. These multiple interactions build connections and, gradually, trust between people thus fostering a sense community, something to look forward to spending time with. Allowing the entire variety of contributions to emerge from the group enriches the conversations while leveling the playing field. The teacher becomes more of a facilitator, a partner in discovering solutions, a co-conspirator in how to have a good time while working together.

I, myself, have started to integrate liberating structures into meetings and other non-educational situations, as well as into the workshops I facilitate.  For example, I will sometimes begin a meeting or a workshop with the Liberating Structure called 1-2-3-all (which is related to think-pair-share) as an ice-breaker activity, or as a means of getting people thinking and talking about a problem.  I’ve used Troika Consulting as a way to help people trouble-shoot issues or problems they have been trying to solve.  What I really like about Troika Consulting is that it creates a situation in which the person with the problem has to listen to the potential solutions without interacting.  Finally, I have used 15% Solutions at the end of a workshop to encourage people to think about what they are able to do now (no matter how small it may be – 15%!), after attending the workshop.

One of my goals over the next year is to continue to integrate these and other Liberating Structures into my workshops.  It is sometimes a challenge for me, as many of my workshops involve participants in a lab working on computers, but we are fortunate in BC to have people well-versed in using Liberating Structures to support their use.  BCcampus facilitates workshops and events across the province, and I am looking forward to attending one such event here at Camosun College next year.  In addition, there are user groups for Liberating Structures, including one here in Victoria, which I need to get more involved with.

References

McCandles, K. & Lipmanowicz, H. (n.d.) Liberating Structures.  Retrieved from http://www.liberatingstructures.com/

Lipmanowicz, H., Singhal, A, & McCandles, K.  (2015). Liberating Structures: Engaging Everyone to Build a Good Life Together.  Retrieved from http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/1272828/26211093/1431102982207/Lipmanowicz_Singhal_McCandless_Wang_LS_Chapter+Nov+25+2014-Final.pdf?token=YvDw3jHeRhfEwoX8VZI9pZ2ZeBM%3D

Singhal, A. (2013, April 8). A liberated professor speaks.  Retrieved from http://utminers.utep.edu/asinghal/Liberated%20Professor%20Speaks%20–%20Arvind%20Singhal%20–%20April%208-2013.pdf

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PIDP 3100, Blog Post 1: Trends in my Field

August 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Welcome to my first official blog post for the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program (PIDP).  For the next 7-8 weeks, I will be blogging for the course Foundationx of Adult Education!

Today’s questions are: What are some of the trends in your field of expertise? What is changing? What is new? What implications will these trends have for the way you will instruct over the coming years? What will you need to do to prepare for such trends?

Well, my field is eLearning, and in eLearning there is no end of new trends, cropping up pretty much on a daily basis.  Some of the more recent eLearning-related trends (Connor; Penfold) include:

  • Gamification
  • Flipped classroom
  • Mobile learning
  • Mobile apps for learning
  • Virtual reality
  • Content curation

The one I would like to talk about in this post is one of the “hot trends” of 2017 (so they say): microlearning.  And to do so, I am going to comment briefly on the following article by Stephanie Trowbridge, Clair Waterbury and Lindsey Sudbury, eLearning in bursts: Microlearning with social media.

According to Trowbridge, et al, “[m]icrolearning refers to any pedagogy that encourages learning in short segments“.  In addition, it has “three aims: to reduce the quantity of information by organizing it into bite-size pieces, to restructure the overall process of learning and the environment in which students learn, and to motivate students to personalize their learning routines.”  And while the authors do discuss the pros and cons of microlearning in general, what I found most interesting in this article was the discussion around how social media integration can enhance the use of microlearning objects for teaching and learning.

When I first read about microlearning (which has actually been around for awhile, if you look at entities like the Khan Academy and Lynda.com), I wondered how this trend reflects the current state of short attention spans, the inability to read more than 140 characters at a time, the integration of life-long learning into crammed days, etc.  Trowbridge, et. al. don’t discuss these issues at length in their article, beyond to say:

Based on the cognitive load theory, the working memory can become overloaded with information and halt or slow down the process of moving information into long-term memory. By chunking information and providing frequent microlearning opportunities, learning has the potential to decrease the cognitive load and increase long-term memory of the concept or topic.

They do, however, emphasize the importance of embedding microlearning objects into a clear pedagogical context and connecting them to learning outcomes to make them effective.  According to the authors, a social media environment can both provide context and the connection to learning outcomes, and provide opportunities for learners to engage with other learners (and perhaps experts in the field) around the microlearning objects contained in the environment.  I did find this a bit ironic, considering that social media is also often cited (at least by me) as a symptom/cause of shorter attention spans, but I appreciated that social media environments do encourage engagement – so why not use them to engage around learning?

Finally, this article provides good basic information on what to consider when creating microlearning objects (along with a cool infographic you can download), as well as examples of microlearning in various social learning environments at Northeastern University.  Theory and the practical all in one read – my kind of article!

We already embrace microlearning in my workplace, working with faculty to create learning environments containing content in a variety of mediums (text, images, audio, video) that are chunked into easily digestible pieces. While I am not sold on the use of social media environments to support microlearning at our institution (although we do support a password protected learning management system) due to privacy concerns, we keep minds open when discussing various options and scenarios with faculty.  I will be keeping this article, and the examples it discusses, nearby when this next comes up for us!

References

Connor, E. (2016, July 8) 8 sensational learning trends that are revolutionizing the learning game.  Retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/8-sensational-elearning-trends

Penfold, S. (2016, December 13) Top 10 eLearning trends to watch in 2017. Retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/top-10-elearning-trends-to-watch-in-2017

Trowbridge, S., Waterbury, C., & Sudbury, L. (2017, April 10)  eLearning in bursts: Microlearning with social media. Retrived from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/4/learning-in-bursts-microlearning-with-social-media

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