Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Good afternoon, everyone.
Lilly Paulson: Good afternoon, how are you
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): How are you doing,
Lilly Paulson: Good. Wonderful.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): It's nice to see so many of you this afternoon.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Oh, it's kind of a gloomy day out.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): But we appreciate you joining us
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): All right, well, I will. I'm, I'm going to introduce myself in a little bit. So I'm going to hand it over to Miss Katie Kelly our assistant director of the program for instructional excellence and she will start us off.
Caitlin Kelly: All right. Hi there everybody. Can you see a PowerPoint slide before I jump right into it. Cool. I see nodding yes. Well, thank you so much for being here today at our first virtual workshop of the spring 2021 semester.
Caitlin Kelly: Today we're going to be talking about leading online discussion general tips and tricks and strategies you can use in the classroom.
Caitlin Kelly: And I do like to give a little disclaimer that even though we're talking about online discussions and that's what is most relevant at the moment.
Caitlin Kelly: A lot of these tips you can transfer over to the face to face classroom as well.
Caitlin Kelly: So before we dive right into the session. I just want to give a few general zoom session guidelines. First, when you're not speaking please mute your microphone.
Caitlin Kelly: Be aware that if you have your camera or your mic turned on other participants may be able to see or hear you, as well as what's in your background.
Caitlin Kelly: If you have any trouble seeing our screen share, you can try selecting the gallery view on zoom and that should shift things around a little bit.
Caitlin Kelly: If you do have a question or I'd like to make a comment. You can use the chat function in zoom or you can raise your hand. Let us know that you'd like to say something.
Caitlin Kelly: And lastly, please just sounds your phone and email as other participants may be able to hear notifications.
Caitlin Kelly: So without further ado, my name is Katie Kelly and I am the Assistant Director for the program for instructional excellence and the fellows society here at FSU
Caitlin Kelly: If you've never been to any of our workshop sessions. First of all, it's great to have you. Thank you for coming.
Caitlin Kelly: But I am a two time FSU alumnus, I have my bachelor's in psychology and my masters in instructional systems and learning technologies. So a lot of what I'm talking about today comes from my work in the instructional design field as well as my work has an online to a
Caitlin Kelly: So, and I'll hand it over to our director
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Thank you. Katie I am Dr. Lisa center and I'm the director as Katie said of the program for instructional excellence.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): I'm also an Assistant Dean in the graduate school and I direct the fellows society, which is an honor society for grad students who hold prestigious fellowships and awards.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And I'm also currently the faculty advisor for the diversity and inclusion in research and teaching organization here at FSU I did receive my PhD in philosophy from FSU
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Back in 2007 and so I still continue to teach philosophy classes. And I also work for seven years in undergrad studies.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): In the Academic Center for Excellence as a faculty member, so I you know I go back to I reach back to the things I learned in the learning center there in my role as the director for pi two
Caitlin Kelly: Alright, so getting into the agenda for today.
Caitlin Kelly: We will explore
Caitlin Kelly: Tips and styles for creating and facilitating a synchronous online discussions in the classroom explored techniques for facilitating effective synchronous discussion sessions and we will discuss discussion techniques that you might utilize in your online classroom.
Caitlin Kelly: So when we talk about discussion, especially now that we are delving into the world of distance learning
Caitlin Kelly: There are two major types that you'll often see in the classroom. The first is a synchronous which
Caitlin Kelly: In this presentation, I'll divide into do different styles. I have single prop style and multiple prompt style and we'll get into a little bit more about what those means shortly. But that's the idea of course that people are participating
Caitlin Kelly: In a usually in a distance learning setting at different times of the day throughout the week you usually have a discussion period of a few days or a solid week where people have the chance to post on some sort of online forum.
Caitlin Kelly: And then we have synchronous discussions and the primary tool we're using to do that at FSU is zoom and that of course is where people are discussing.
Caitlin Kelly: In real time, not necessarily in the same place, because while FSU does have things like flex classes and a few in person labs going on at the moment. Most of our classes we see are still being held online through zoom
Caitlin Kelly: So before we get too much into the styles of asynchronous and synchronous discussion. I do want to point out this Bloom's Taxonomy photo.
Caitlin Kelly: If you've been to any of the other workshops that I have facilitated you'll know I use this picture, almost every single time because it is such a helpful tool for so many aspects of designing instruction and
Caitlin Kelly: Facilitating and effective classroom. Now if you've never seen Bloom's Taxonomy. In short, it is a hierarchy of learning tasks that range from
Caitlin Kelly: lower level cognition tasks at the bottom of the pyramid and gradually increase in complexity as we move up the pyramid. So whatever learning objectives you have
Caitlin Kelly: The complexity of those learning objectives, you can sort of see the spectrum. If you look at it in terms of this taxonomy.
Caitlin Kelly: Now when we're designing discussions. The reason I bring Bloom's Taxonomy into our topic today is because we want to stay away from that bottom tier, which states. Remember, and that's because
Caitlin Kelly: At the remember tier students are doing things like memorizing rules and basic concepts and they're defining terminology
Caitlin Kelly: It's something that is a very low level of cognition that sets a foundation for whatever they're talking about
Caitlin Kelly: But it's not really conducive to discussion because they're doing a lot of rote memorization tasks. This is something that'd be more appropriate for a quiz or a
Caitlin Kelly: Test or some kind of short right up assignment, but not really a discussion, whereas when we move up the tiers of Bloom's Taxonomy and gradually get a little bit more complex in the types of cognition, we're going for.
Caitlin Kelly: You can see in the middle we have apply and analyze and that's where students are solving and demonstrating things they're organizing differentiating information they're doing tasks that are not extremely complex but complex enough to facilitate a good critical thinking discussion.
Caitlin Kelly: So essentially, in a nutshell, the point of all this is keep in mind the objectives you have for your discussion and kind of think back to this Bloom's Taxonomy as a tool to help you figure out if your goals are conducive to a good discussion.
Caitlin Kelly: All right. So diving into the two different styles of asynchronous discussion will first discuss the single product style.
Caitlin Kelly: And this is the style of discussion that I tend to see most often in online classrooms. It is the discussion style in which the instructor creates one single discussion prompts to which students all generate a response.
Caitlin Kelly: Usually the discussion prompt has multiple parts to it. So it is a question that is fairly lengthy and complex and requires of substantial amount of work for students to participate, but the defining feature is that everyone is answering the exact same question.
Caitlin Kelly: A lot of instructors like to use this function on canvas in the settings that
Caitlin Kelly: States users must post before seeing replies, and this means that when a student clicks on the discussion prompt, they will not see anything that any other student has written
Caitlin Kelly: Until they first post their own response. And this is really helpful.
Caitlin Kelly: Because if you're worried that students might just read what other students have posted and try to cobble together a response from that rather than reading the material and doing their own work. This can help to prevent that.
Caitlin Kelly: So one thing that is very important that I'm going to say multiple times as we talk about these different discussion techniques is making sure
Caitlin Kelly: That you have clear requirements and deadlines for participation. This is really, really crucial in asynchronous discussion because
Caitlin Kelly: students tend to have a lot of questions about, you know, how often am I expected to post. What is the deadline for making my first post. Am I supposed to respond to other people. So whatever you as the instructor decide
Caitlin Kelly: Constitutes a satisfactory response, on behalf of the students engaging in the discussion. Make sure you just write very, very clear instructions for that and I'll have a couple of examples of clear instructions that you can use.
Caitlin Kelly: So here's an example of a single prompt style of discussion, I have this is actually from a
Caitlin Kelly: Sample course I created it doesn't have any students enrolled in it. So there's no for concerns, but here for my sample single prompt, I have
Caitlin Kelly: The discussion is divided into two portions and initial response to the prompt and a minimum of two peer responses.
Caitlin Kelly: You must participate on at least two separate days. This week the initial prompt is due by Wednesday of this week. The to peer responses are due by Sunday of next week.
Caitlin Kelly: And these instructions highlight some major questions that students will probably have especially if they have never engaged in an asynchronous discussion before
Caitlin Kelly: It tells them how many responses are supposed to make it tells them the time period throughout the week. And if they're expected to participate on multiple days.
Caitlin Kelly: And it tells them when the initial prompt is due, and when the pure responses or do
Caitlin Kelly: I know this may seem like a little bit of overkill with all of the instructions. I've written out but trust me, it will save you a lot of trouble if you over explain what students are meant to do, as opposed to under explaining
Caitlin Kelly: Alright so next we have the second style of asynchronous discussion which I like to call multiple prompt style.
Caitlin Kelly: And personally, this is my favorite style of discussion that I've seen instructors use in the online classroom. This is where the instructor creates several different discussion prompt options.
Caitlin Kelly: And allows the students to choose which topics that we are particularly interesting to them and they can pursue those threads of discussion in the forum.
Caitlin Kelly: And really focus on the things that stood out to them as a unique learner in the classroom.
Caitlin Kelly: Now, the way you do this, there, there are a couple different styles. You can use depending on your preference for how you set up your Canvas course.
Caitlin Kelly: But the way I typically do it is to use that space that instructors usually write the prompt itself to write the instructions.
Caitlin Kelly: Then I reply to that as if I'm responding as a student and I put those responses in my replies. Now I have screenshots here, but because
Caitlin Kelly: We have a little bit more time in this iteration of the workshop. I'd like to actually show you my sample canvas site that I have. So let me pull that up really quick.
Caitlin Kelly: Okay, so here's my sample canvas side I'm in the discussion section.
Caitlin Kelly: And all I did to set up this multiple prompt style of discussion is I wrote out all of my instructions here. So I have
Caitlin Kelly: That students have to create at least one initial post I have when it's do the discussion period throughout the week and I have that they have to respond to at least one of their peers.
Caitlin Kelly: I've also written out clear instructions regarding what constitutes a good response to a peer because one thing that you can run into in the discussion forum is
Caitlin Kelly: Students think that a peer responses them saying, I agree, or you did a great job with this post. That's really not an effective peer response. So instead I like to put an explanation that a
Caitlin Kelly: satisfactory response to a peers posts is something that expands upon the discussion that they're having or, you know, ask questions or makes critiques or gives alternate perspectives. It's something that grows the thread as opposed to just stopping the discussion right there.
Caitlin Kelly: But the way I set this up as I just wrote up my instructions in this little box here in the discussion section of Canvas I published it. And then I hit reply and then here I've posted each of my individual prompts so
Caitlin Kelly: I have some of them based on the materials I wrote. Here's one down here. I say compare and contrast masters programs doctorate programs and other forms of higher education which type of program appeals most to your interest and career goals and why
Caitlin Kelly: And the reason why I like this particular style of discussion so much is that it really encourages students to engage an exploratory learning and to apply.
Caitlin Kelly: Whatever material discussing you're assessing to their own lives, which can really help them to get a little bit more motivated and to see the relevance of what you're talking about. So let me switch back to my PowerPoint really quick.
Okay.
Caitlin Kelly: So there are a few general Do's and Don'ts for asynchronous discussion.
Caitlin Kelly: I say these are general because I know for a lot of your classes you're all coming from very different fields and different backgrounds, so
Caitlin Kelly: What works for discussion in one field, maybe a little bit different than what works in another field. So these are things that are very general in nature and should be applicable regardless of what you are discussing.
Caitlin Kelly: So, first in the do calm, as I mentioned, we want to make sure that all of the instructions for satisfactory participation are clear.
Caitlin Kelly: Really make sure you touch upon those points of, you know, what is a good discussion posts looks like. How many times do they have to post throughout the week. When is the initial post do things like that to avoid you know getting a lot of emails with these types of questions.
Caitlin Kelly: If you're a TA, who is serving primarily as a greater in your class and you don't actually get to create the discussions.
Caitlin Kelly: Make sure that you assess their participation based on whatever instructions or criteria has been provided for a satisfactory discussion post
Caitlin Kelly: And this will help to make sure that as you're grading. Everything is consistent and objective based on the rubrics and criteria that have been established for discussion.
Caitlin Kelly: If you do have a lot of novices to the online learning environment which you can gauge pretty quickly, just by
Caitlin Kelly: Asking your students at the beginning of the semester. If they have any experience with online learning.
Caitlin Kelly: It can often be helpful to have a model of a good discussion posts, so you can post a sample question and then you post. What a good response to that question, looks like.
Caitlin Kelly: And that can be really helpful for some of the students who need a little bit more scaffolding and guidance as they get into their online classes.
Caitlin Kelly: It is good to show some involvement in the discussion forum, depending on how much guidance your students need
Caitlin Kelly: This sort of gets at the idea of analyzing your unique audience because every class you have is going to have unique individuals with unique needs in it.
Caitlin Kelly: So you may have one class where the students are really confident and they know how to interact in the discussion forum and they don't really need
Caitlin Kelly: Much instructor input, but you may have others where students are a little bit more timid and aren't sure what to do and this is where you can kind of gauge how involved. You need to be in the forum.
Caitlin Kelly: Now, there is some research to show that instructors who are a little bit too involved in the forum and by too involved. I mean, every time a student posts something the instructor response to that post
Caitlin Kelly: That can sort of lead to students tending to not participate as much in the discussion or sometimes they focused on the instructor and responding to the instructor, as opposed to each other.
Caitlin Kelly: So that we want to try to avoid that. But it is really important that you do make your presence known in the discussion board. Maybe you
Caitlin Kelly: Make a comment on a couple of students posts or maybe you ask a question and encourage someone to elaborate on a particular post
Caitlin Kelly: And this helps to reduce some of the isolation that students can be feeling in the in the online classroom in our minds them that you as the instructor are still present in the online forum.
Caitlin Kelly: Whatever discussion technology you're using usually canvas. In this case, and make sure you link to tech support in case students are having issues. They'll know where to go for help.
Caitlin Kelly: And it's also good to link to netiquette and online civility guidelines, which typically you'll put those in your course syllabus, but it can't hurt to just give them a little reminder to practice netiquette and civility while they are talking to each other online.
Caitlin Kelly: And they don't category, as I mentioned, we just want to avoid dominating the discussion and being too active because
Caitlin Kelly: Really discussion is all about getting students to talk with each other and get into those critical thinking talks where they're really applying and dissecting the information
Caitlin Kelly: Avoid discussing sensitive information such as grades with the discussion board. Make sure you adhere to all of the university policies on that information. You can find information about that at the University of registrar's office.
Caitlin Kelly: And lastly, I like to tell people from an instructional design perspective, not to over complicate the discussion tool that you use in your classroom.
Caitlin Kelly: You want to use a tool that fulfills your students needs and fulfills whatever goals you are going for with your instructor
Caitlin Kelly: Excuse me with your lesson in your discussion that day, this sort of gets at the idea of a model that I studied in my instructional design courses, called the technology acceptance model and
Caitlin Kelly: It states very briefly that successful implementation and adoption of a piece of technology has a tendency to depend
Caitlin Kelly: On the users of that technology feeling that it is something they can easily learn how to use and it's something that achieves whatever the goals are of
Caitlin Kelly: Implementing that technology. So this is why I say try not to overcomplicate whatever discussion tool you use because you don't want the tool itself to interfere with their learning of the content.
Caitlin Kelly: Alright, so we're going to switch gears a little bit and get into synchronous discussion, as I mentioned before, you'll most likely be using
Caitlin Kelly: Zoom integrated into your Canvas course to host your synchronous discussions and this is because
Caitlin Kelly: FSU zoom has is compliant with HIPAA and HIPAA and it has a lot of high security. If you use those security settings.
Caitlin Kelly: Synchronous discussion is good for a lot of things I find it's especially good for review set sessions or summarizing the main points of particular unit.
Caitlin Kelly: Maybe you have some major takeaways that you've been having your students.
Caitlin Kelly: Learn about asynchronously. And you want to bring them all together in a synchronous space to talk about those main takeaways. This is a really good tool and method for doing that.
Caitlin Kelly: And it's also good for any activities that are better performed alive. I
Caitlin Kelly: Worked for one instructor as an instructional design intern. A couple years ago who actually like to use the zoom sessions to get students to
Caitlin Kelly: consult their materials in real time and give answers to discussions right then and there. It was something that showed
Caitlin Kelly: This instructor that they knew where to go in real time to find the information they needed. So some activity like that where you really need to be able to see what they're doing and how they're coming to the conclusion is really good for a zoom session.
Caitlin Kelly: Do be careful with assigning required synchronous sessions, because you may have students who
Caitlin Kelly: Are in different states or even different continents, who may be in a wildly different time zone than you are. So we need to just make sure that we're being considerate of those students and their needs in terms of when the session is scheduled
Caitlin Kelly: So this one is a little bit more simplistic than the asynchronous style. So we already can get into the do's and don'ts for this in the do column.
Caitlin Kelly: I would suggest having an agenda for each synchronous session. It's not something that you necessarily have to share with students.
Caitlin Kelly: But it is a good tool for you as the instructor and the facilitator of the synchronous discussion so that you know
Caitlin Kelly: What are your main points. What are the major things that you need to highlight in this synchronous zoom time that way as you're going through the session if things get a little bit off track. You know when you need to speed up or slow down and things like that.
Caitlin Kelly: It's helpful to have any files or documents that you need already pulled up and ready to go that way while you have the the synchronous session going, you're not losing time trying to find your PowerPoints, find your handouts and things like that.
Caitlin Kelly: For these classes that are online, especially with new learners and with very large groups so learners.
Caitlin Kelly: It's very important to set rules and guidelines for your synchronous sessions, especially if you have webcams and or Mike's enabled.
Caitlin Kelly: I know it feels like we've been doing this for a really long time now, but it is still very easy to forget. A lot of the
Caitlin Kelly: Tips and Tricks of Zoom's I still have moments where I don't realize unmuted. And I'm I start talking sino students who are taking
Caitlin Kelly: Six classes can certainly have those moments where they forget about their webcam, or they forget about their mic, so it's really good to go ahead and just have those guidelines at the beginning of your session. As a reminder,
Caitlin Kelly: If you are screen sharing with your students, it's important to have your computer notifications, such as your email or anything like that muted and to remind your students to do the same, because those notification sounds that your email.
Caitlin Kelly: Makes will come through the computer audio and it can be a little bit distracting, especially if students are trying to talk to each other in the zoom session.
Caitlin Kelly: It's usually a good idea to test your technology prior to the meeting time
Caitlin Kelly: Zoom has a personal meeting room function. If you've never used that before where you can just
Caitlin Kelly: Actually pull up a private room that just has you in it. You can invite other people into it if you want to, but you don't have to. And that's a good
Caitlin Kelly: Technique for making sure all of your settings are working. So for example, let's say you want to have live captions active during your synchronous zoom session.
Caitlin Kelly: You can just pull up your personal meeting room and you can see whether or not that is working and whether or not you have all of the correct settings active. So it's really useful for testing, things like that.
Caitlin Kelly: And finally, just like with the asynchronous tools, you want to link to tech support for whatever synchronous tool you are using to have your synchronous discussion.
Caitlin Kelly: And they don't call them similar with the asynchronous discussion, make sure that you don't have any sensitive student information or your private information.
Caitlin Kelly: Pulled up on your computer, while you are having synchronous sessions. It's very easy if you want to screen share to accidentally click on the wrong tab and you don't want to fall into
Caitlin Kelly: A situation where you have students grades pulled up and you accidentally screen share them to the whole class or, you know, maybe you were doing banking right before you had to
Caitlin Kelly: Host your session. You don't want students to be able to see all that information. So when in doubt, it's just better to not have that stuff pulled up when you're about to get into a synchronous session.
Caitlin Kelly: One thing I like to suggest because you know we've had a few instances with zoom. I know you've probably read about these online.
Caitlin Kelly: With different zoom disasters and things that are distracting during meetings and what not. I would suggest not to ignore those. Even though it can be
Caitlin Kelly: really awkward and uncomfortable to point that out. If that happens during your synchronous sessions.
Caitlin Kelly: You can practice from an instructor standpoint muting people and turning off people's webcams and that will help you if any sort of situation like that pops up where somebody forgot to turn off their webcam or their microphone.
Caitlin Kelly: That actually happens in my virtual graduation someone left their microphone on. And I believe they were on hold.
Caitlin Kelly: With you could just hear the whole music blasting through the computer. And when that happens, you know, it can really detract from the synchronous sessions. So you can just go in as the instructor and mute them and it will be all good.
Caitlin Kelly: And lastly, I know this is really hard because we are all super busy and having to juggle so many tasks at once, but try not to do other tasks, while you are presenting
Caitlin Kelly: I know, it kind of feels like when we're in this virtual setting where we can't really fully see each other in the same room.
Caitlin Kelly: That it's not noticeable, but if I were to look at my phone. For example, I'm doing this and you can probably you can tell that I am doing something else while I am trying to present
Caitlin Kelly: That's something that can just, you know, be distracting to your viewers and kind of give the a little bit of an impression of lacking engagement. So we just want to avoid doing that and stay focused on the synchronous discussion agenda.
Caitlin Kelly: So a quick note on grading. This is something that, as I mentioned before, different types of discussion and grading is going to be appropriate for different fields and different topics.
Caitlin Kelly: There's so many different ways you can quantify it depending on works. What works well for you.
Caitlin Kelly: Whatever you decide to do again, just making sure your instructions are very clear is very, very important.
Caitlin Kelly: And modeling what those instructions look like in a sample response can be really helpful if your students are still confused. I have a few examples of
Caitlin Kelly: Some of the little grading tips you can use you could tell students that they need to answer all parts of the question.
Caitlin Kelly: You could tell them they need to post at least two responses and two comments and others posts.
Caitlin Kelly: You could give them a word cap. You could tell them the number of times per week that they need to post. And if you're trying to clarify.
Caitlin Kelly: What a good post looks like a phrase that I tend to go back to whenever I'm creating discussion questions is substantial posts should expand upon
Caitlin Kelly: Other posts and or ask questions. Avoid Good job, or I agree. And that just again let students know what a good post that's going to get them full credit look like
Caitlin Kelly: So now we're going to talk a little bit about some online discussion technology. Before we get into our first activity for the day.
Caitlin Kelly: And I have a couple of options on here. Some of these you have free access to in general or you have free access to them as an instructor or student at FSU
Caitlin Kelly: The first to of course our canvas and zoom. I will say that Canvas. I love the discussion board function that is integrated into the learning management system.
Caitlin Kelly: It doesn't work great for trying to have a synchronous discussion because
Caitlin Kelly: Students have to constantly refresh the page in order to see new responses.
Caitlin Kelly: And you know that can just get a little bit tedious and they can get confused as to where they are in the thread. So I would personally suggest mainly using Canvas as your asynchronous discussion tool.
Caitlin Kelly: Zoom, as we discussed really good for different types of synchronous discussion. Just be careful with when you schedule it and how you make it required depending on what
Caitlin Kelly: Time zones your students are in Google Docs and Google Slides are really cool tools. If you've never used them before they're essentially like online versions of
Caitlin Kelly: A word document or a PowerPoint presentation, but the reason they work really well for these collaborative type activities is because if you give your students sharing privileges to
Caitlin Kelly: Or excuse me editing privileges by sharing the link with them, they are able to make changes to the document or to the PowerPoint presentation in real time.
Caitlin Kelly: So for example, if you all were to log into one of my Google Docs, you could actually see what I'm typing as I'm typing it. So this is really cool. It gets around that problem of having to constantly refresh the page to see what other people have done.
Caitlin Kelly: It's good, not only for if you want to use this to have people talk to each other. But if you want to have people work on some kind of group project, then they'll be able to see what everyone else is doing and not
Caitlin Kelly: Type over other people. So that's really handy.
Caitlin Kelly: You can also use different plot blogging platforms for projects and discussions in your class.
Caitlin Kelly: I've had classes before where the blog was actually a project within the class and each student had to maintain a weekly book while responding to
Caitlin Kelly: Others comments on their blog. So it was kind of a neat combination of a discussion platform and a
Caitlin Kelly: Project that was ongoing throughout semester. So that's a cool option if you want to get creative with it. Then we have flip grid which, if you've never used that it's a really neat video recording tool that you can integrate into your canvas site.
Caitlin Kelly: Essentially, it allows people to record brief videos at the moment. It has a maximum of 10 minute long videos.
Caitlin Kelly: Where you log in, you can either record a webcam video where you're just talking
Caitlin Kelly: Into a webcam, or you can upload a PowerPoint presentation and do a voiceover that
Caitlin Kelly: You post it on the, on the flip grid page and it arranges all of the different videos in a grid shape.
Caitlin Kelly: So people can go through and they can click on whichever topics interest them and watch those videos and then they can post video or text responses to those questions so
Caitlin Kelly: It's kind of a cool asynchronous method for replicating the face to face style of discussion because
Caitlin Kelly: You know, even those students aren't in the same room with each other and they may be participating at different times throughout the week.
Caitlin Kelly: Their peers can go on to their video and record a webcam video response to whatever they posted. So it's kind of cool. If they are missing that face to face interaction with their peers.
Caitlin Kelly: And the last one that I want to touch upon because this is what we're going to be using for our first activity today is paddling
Caitlin Kelly: The best way I can describe paddling is there's also pulls, excuse me, and we're going to
Caitlin Kelly: Use that in a later activity today. And that's something that's really, really neat that you can do directly within zoom, but with tablet picture one of those cork board message boards that people like to put notes, some photos and important documentation and things on
Caitlin Kelly: In their house or in their office palette is essentially a digital version of that where people can go in and they make little
Caitlin Kelly: Post it Notes. And they just stick it on the tablet space the post notes could be just texts that they've written down, they can share images they can share links, they can do so many different things.
Caitlin Kelly: Here, I just have an idea of the different posts, you might see you might see one person asking questions. Someone else sharing an idea.
Caitlin Kelly: Another person giving a critique on something. And yet, someone else sharing a resource. So it's very versatile in terms of what students are allowed to share in this one space.
Caitlin Kelly: There are also a few options where if you enable these students can link concepts to one another. So let's say you have one students posts.
Caitlin Kelly: And another students post and they want to show how their posts, how the concepts and those posts are linked together.
Caitlin Kelly: There's one option where you can actually drag threads in between the different posts students make. So it's interesting. If you want your students to be able to draw those connections.
Caitlin Kelly: But without further ado, I would like to actually dive into using this tool so instructions for this activity.
Caitlin Kelly: When you log into the palette and all you have to do is click this link, which we will put in the chat shortly. It'll take you to the panelists space, you'll see a post that's already in the space and it says
Caitlin Kelly: Has all the discussion prompts that you can choose from. There are several options, and I would like for you to choose a minimum of two of these prompts to respond to
Caitlin Kelly: You don't have to respond to all of them. The goal of this is to actually practice that multiple prompt cell discussion and just choose what you find most interesting as a learner to respond to
Caitlin Kelly: Then you'll respond to at least two other participants posts in a meaningful manner if no other questions appeal to you're also
Caitlin Kelly: Welcome to just ask your own question for people to engage with in the discussion. So I'm going to stop the screen share really quick thank you fall for posting that
Caitlin Kelly: The link should be posted in the zoom chat now and I'll quickly show you what you should be seeing when you log in.
Okay.
Caitlin Kelly: So you should see this discussion on discussion pamphlet page when you click on the link just click on this Google Doc link to have access to the different prompts and go ahead and start posting and responding
Caitlin Kelly: I'm going to give about 15 minutes for this activity.
Caitlin Kelly: And then we will come back as a group and reconvene
Caitlin Kelly: I'm going to go ahead and turn my webcam off and my microphone just so I'm not sitting here, staring at you while you're trying to do this, but I'm not going anywhere. I will be present. If you have any questions or concerns.
Caitlin Kelly: bring everybody back into the session. You all did a wonderful job posting in the public forum. I saw some really great conversation and I wanted to highlight a couple of the themes that I saw.
Caitlin Kelly: One was people who talked mainly about synchronous discussion talked about how it's nice that it
Caitlin Kelly: More closely mirrors the typical face to face discussions we would be having in our face to face classrooms. It feels a little bit more natural and it gives students the chance to
Caitlin Kelly: Expand upon points when they can see the person they're talking to and can do it in real time as opposed to, you know,
Caitlin Kelly: Posting one post that can't really be easily edited after the fact. And this is a really good point.
Caitlin Kelly: And I do think that when possible. It's good to have at least a couple of synchronous sessions with your students so that they can
Caitlin Kelly: Get over some of that isolation that I think a lot of us are feeling in the online environment and see you see their instructor and see some of their peers in the synchronous space.
Caitlin Kelly: For asynchronous discussion. A lot of people touched upon the fact that it gives students a chance to really carefully think about what they want to say and what interests them.
Caitlin Kelly: And it's really helpful for students who are a little bit more timid and might be
Caitlin Kelly: Nervous to speak up in front of class and I definitely relate to this one. I was that student in class who would rehearse what I wanted to say 20 times before I finally got up the courage to say something so that required that allows for students who do have that
Caitlin Kelly: Little timid nature to sort of thrive in that asynchronous discussion space because they have the time to carefully plan out what they want to say.
Caitlin Kelly: I also saw a couple of comments about using the multiple prop style and how it's interesting that it lets students actually choose what is interesting to them about the topics.
Caitlin Kelly: Which again, that's why I love that self so much because it encourages them to explore whatever stands out to them about the content as an independent learner.
Caitlin Kelly: And lastly, I saw a couple of posts that brought up a really important concern which is when you have an asynchronous discussion.
Caitlin Kelly: It can get really difficult if all of the students in the class post at the very last minute at the end of the week and then everybody has to rush and try to give peer responses to those posts.
Caitlin Kelly: That is definitely a concern that happens quite frequently. And the way that you can avoid that is by setting a couple of different deadlines.
Caitlin Kelly: You can set a deadline earlier in the week where students have to post that initial post and then you could set
Caitlin Kelly: A deadline. At the end of the week for them to post their pure responses and that will
Caitlin Kelly: Essentially force the students to make an initial post so that a discussion can happen throughout the week as opposed to putting it off until the deadline. So thank you so much for engaging with that activity and I am now going to share
Caitlin Kelly: The PowerPoint again and I will turn it over to Dr. Lissa.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Thank you, Katie. Alright, so is everybody ready to get into some polling polling is fun. I love pulling okay so
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Let's talk about some real time interactive technologies and as I already mentioned polling is one of those technologies.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Now if you've been a student for a while, or a teacher for a while. I'm sure you're aware of the I clicker, and the reef technology.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You know, the, the old fashion. Now, I guess they're old fashioned the actual physical clickers that we all used to use, which I'm sure some people still use of course now we have the Online apps.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): That a lot of of people use teachers and students. So I clicker and reef. I believe reef is the I clicker version, or I mean is the app version I think of I flicker.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Turning technology is another one. Poll Everywhere poll junkie cahoot and I know there's others as well. Our have some free apps, which is awesome.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And then zoom now has the polls integrated into zoom that we can use. And we're actually going to use them. And I'm going to demonstrate how I use them when I teach my philosophy classes, my intro to philosophy classes so
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Before I go on, I wanted to stop in and give you a chance to ask any questions of Katie or or i but i just started before we move on. Did you have any questions, anybody have a question. I didn't see anybody in chat.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): But, you know, with the discussion boards with what Katie just showed you with
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Tablet
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): No.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay. If you do, you can put it in chat or raise your hand or just start talking on mute yourself. Okay. Well, I'll just move ahead then. Um, so I want to show you again how I use zoom polls in my class, but I've also used the old fashioned you know variety of clickers to in order to do
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): What I'm going to show you in order to have a classroom discussion. Next slide please. Katie
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, so I will show you can go ahead and put it all up, Katie. If you want at once. It's fine. Even though I had put it
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Bit by bit. So I'm going to show you a teaching methodology. I use in conjunction with polling equipment, whether it be the old fashioned equipment or the the apps or the zoom polling.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And this I sold so as all good teachers do in my opinion we steal from each other. So this is from a Harvard professor, Dr. Eric mazumdar ma see you are. Some of you may have heard of him.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Because he's very famous for using this type of teaching method methodology with polling. He's a physics professor at Harvard, and he
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Came up with this specific methodology. So of course I want to give him credit
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And it's a combination of ways to engage your students in the classroom it with different modes of learning and teaching so
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Let's go through the steps that are used, and it might look like a lot of steps, but believe me, it's not intricate and it's
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): It's it's a way to really get your students engaged. And that's what I love about it and me right me as a professor
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Of course, we want to be engaged as teachers to we want to have fun when we're in the classroom and we want our students do too as well classroom isn't about just having fun, but in my opinion, I think, you know, it's important to make learning fun
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): So, if we can, as much as we can. So here's the methodology. Number one, the first step is come up with a question.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): So come up with a question that you can use in your classroom to get students to think about the concepts or the ideas that you're explaining to them that you're teaching to them.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And have it go, going back to Bloom's Taxonomy trying to aim for those higher levels of learning with that question. Think about when you were learning that subject matter what got you tripped up
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): What what may be made you a little confused about that concept. You're trying to teach them. What's a common misconception. People have or
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): If you can't think of anything that really tripped you up. What is it that you really want to. What's one of the points you really want to make about that concept.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And make that into the subject of the question. So you're gonna ask your students a question with a polling. Right. So you want to have it at what I'm going to show you as an application question.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, I'm going to apply the theory to a scenario. One of my favorite things to do is using a scenario.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Now, I know no matter, you know, it depends on what your subject matter is with, you know, the sciences, it might not be so easy, but I will tell you my friends over in biology. I don't know.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): I think Melanie might be on your there's some folks in biology that I know use polling very often. Right.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And physics, too, by the way. Obviously Dr Missouri's physics. Okay, so first come up with a question. Secondly, allow your students. Time to individually, think about this question and what their answer is individually, and then you pull them individually. Okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): So third you pull them you have them commit to an answer. This is individually. The next step is have them find a classmate.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): That doesn't agree with their answer. Okay, so you have you find someone hopefully sitting near you. When we can do that again post pandemic, or what I'm going to do is put you in breakout rooms and hopefully somebody in your breakout room will disagree with you. Okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): That's the hope you find somebody that disagrees with you and then you try to convince them why you're right. Okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): So I'm in a in a room with Katie. Katie disagrees with me. I say, Katie. With all due respect, I think I'm right. I think you're wrong here. And, and, more importantly, this is why I think I'm right. So what you're doing is just to find your answer.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And then Katie will do the same for me. She will say, well, Lisa, I think you're wrong, no offense, but I'm going to explain to you why I think I'm right and you're wrong.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, so that's where we get the peer to peer teaching. So peer teaching is really a wonderful way to get students engaged.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And remember, that's, that's really important in discussions because students are are basically around the same level of background learning. Not all the time.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): But, you know, we've been as teachers, we've been studying our discipline for years. Right.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): So sometimes it's hard for us to remember what it's like to be learning about our discipline for the
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You know, the first time or within the first couple years as an undergrad. So peer to peer learning is really, really a good way for them.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): To not only get to know other people but also be able to really figure these things out when they're at the similar stages in the learning cycle.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, then come back I'll, I'll bring you back out of the your breakout rooms and I'll have you a repo you on the same question I asked initially. And what that is is meant to see. Okay. Did that peer to peer discussion changed your mind.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay did Katie. Did she change my mind. Did she convinced me. She's right. And I'm wrong.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, so we'll read poll and see if any if anybody's you know how many people change their answers. And then the last step is explanation. So
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Have some of the students here. We could have some of you explain and defend your answers and explain what you think the answer is, and again, more importantly, why
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Not only what your answer is, but why your answer is what it is. And then the instructor can can actually come out and say what the right answer is, and why. So that's a whole process that allows again so many different types of modes of thinking and learning for your students.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Do you have any questions about this methodology.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You could also really do it without polling. It's just pulling really makes it easier. It's fun to see you know people's answers. It's fun to see, you know, how many change and that type of thing. So we're actually going to do this. Now, next slide, Katie.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, so, yeah, you could just put the whole thing up. So now we're gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna take you. I'm gonna virtually take you into one of my freshman philosophy classrooms. This is an actual
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Slide from my class in interval philosophy intro ethics. Okay. So in these classes I talked. I, I teach my students about utilitarianism and you I'm sure you've probably heard of utilitarianism. It's a moral, ethical, moral theory that according to which, oops, did I just do something
Caitlin Kelly: Sorry about that. I was trying to respond to something
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Oh, I was gonna say did. I did. Okay.
Caitlin Kelly: There we go.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, thank you. Um, it's a moral utilitarianism is simply a moral theory in which the right the morally right action is that which produces the greatest amount of good
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): For the greatest amount of people. And this is actually the moral theory that we tend to use in society, quite often.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): So a lot of times we decide the right thing to do is the thing that will produce the greatest amount of good here. The greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people involved. Now, according to utilitarianism happiness is really
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): The same thing as pleasure or the absence of pain. Okay, but just remember that is the greatest amount of happiness or good for the greatest number of people. And there's six factors. Actually, I think there's seven Katie I think there's one more.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Yep quality. Okay. So just quickly, I know this isn't an actual philosophy class. So I just want to, you know, quickly go through these factors with you.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You come every person equally so because I'm me doesn't mean I can count me any more important than you. Okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): If you're, if you're my daughter. I can't come to any more important than anybody else. So we're all in this calculation, we're all kind of for the same
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Level of importance. So we count every person equally important. We calculate the net overall amount of pleasure happiness that would result from an action. This is a consequentialist theory. And that's the consequences matter to determine what's the morally right act to do. Okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): The intensity of the happiness matters. So the more intense the happiness that results from an action, the better than the lesson 10 city that could, you know, resolve from a different action.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): The duration of the happiness matters. So an active produces a longer duration of happiness would be more and more we write that one than one that produces a less duration of happiness.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Or amount of time, it lasts fruitfulness. What are the long term results of that actions happiness.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): That action which produces a result that has more long term happiness that comes from. It is better than the alternative
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): The likelihood. What are the chances of that x consequences of happiness actually happening.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, you take that into the PO and then the quality of the happiness. Now I'm not going to get too much into that because if you are actually taking my class. That's one of the key factors.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Is the quality of the happiness that we talked about. Okay, so what's the quality of the pleasure. So in other words, one of the biggest you know things we examples we uses the happiness, the quality that I get from listening to Mozart is a different type of quality from
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Eating a gummy bear or something like that. Right. Um, that quality differs. The type of happiness. Okay, so these are the seven factors that we use to determine according to utilitarianism.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Watch act is the morally right act. Any questions on that quickly again knowing this is not actually a philosophy class and with with my class, I'd actually take a lot longer going through this. So this is just, you know, of course, to give you an example.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Next slide. Katie
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Please. Um, okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Alright, so, um, let's test your knowledge about utilitarianism here. So this is what I would do in my class.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Going on to the, you know, the next step of polling. So I want you to think individually first and then I'm going to open the poll
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, so this is an application scenario. I've explained utilitarianism to you.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Now I want you to apply it to this scenario, consider the two cases, while lying by awake. Lance season droning child in the water. Normally, Lance would be too preoccupied with getting a tan to care about rescuing a child.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): In this case, however, he notices an attractive woman apparently unable to swim shouting for someone help the child.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Hoping to impress the women Lance jumps into the water and saves the child. Okay, that's scenario one scenario to while lying by awake John's seizure drowning child.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Although he's a poor swimmer john is terrified by the prospect of the trial drowning. So therefore, with the welfare of the child being his top concern john jumps into the water and saves this child.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, so those are two separate cases or scenarios. Now, in order to test my students knowledge of utilitarianism, I asked them according to utilitarianism. Which one of the following is true.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Lance does the morally right thing john does the morally right thing
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Both do the morally right thing, or neither does. Now remember, this isn't your opinion about who does the morally right thing. This is utilitarian
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): The theory of utilitarianism what according to that theory of morally right actions, who does the morally right thing
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Or do both, or neither. So given that, I'm going to open the poll. Remember this, you're not actually in my class. So this is just a demonstration of how you can use polling and questioning in your class. So I'm going to launch the poll
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Now, boy, since it's not working. Oh, you are you doing okay. You didn't see it. I know I said it wasn't working.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Oh give me another minute.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Every, you know, remember you're not actually in my philosophy class. So you're not being tested and you know it's fine if you don't get it right or whatever. It's just showing you how you can use it. Okay. You can use this technique in your classes.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): We have quite a few more people to
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Assist 14 of you have voted.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Yeah, three more people
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): I'll just give you another 10 seconds and then I'll end it.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Maybe everybody has because it might be coming like JD and mean I don't think it's coming me but
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): All right, I'll just, I'll just end it. And we'll see
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Who said what so you can you see the results.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You can't
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Oh, you can. Okay, so let's see. So it looks like the majority of you said Lance, but you still have people that said both coming up very close second.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay. So, no, I'm gonna just just for like five minutes. I mean, I'm not going to do this for long, because again, this is just showing you how this works.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): I'm going to put you all Katie I think you're gonna have to do it because you're the host. Do you want to put them or do you want to make me the host put them into breakout groups.
Caitlin Kelly: Sure, I will do that. I'm also going to
Caitlin Kelly: Stop my screen share and I'm going to put a link to a Google doc with the this scenario in the chat so that if you need to read it again or look at the options. Again, you can because once you go into breakout rooms, you won't be able to see the screen chair anymore.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay. So remember, we're just show. I'm just showing you this methodology. So next I will have, I will put you in breakout groups and remember trying, you know, just ask around and see, you know,
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Maybe take a quick vote, see if people disagree about your answers. And even if you don't just talk about your answers and why you think the answer is what it is. OK. And then, and then we'll bring you back only be in there like five minutes. I don't want to
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Take a chunk of time.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Katie, like she said in the chat show put the link or I guess you already have.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Or you haven't
Caitlin Kelly: I have
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You can opt out. Somebody has to thicken up out. Yeah, you cannot though.
Caitlin Kelly: You're not gonna make
Caitlin Kelly: You can stay in the room here with us. We'll just
Caitlin Kelly: Sorry, I'm trying to make sure we have enough people
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You can just
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Ignore the invitation to the breakout room if you don't want to do it.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Will give you just a few minutes to talk to each other about your answer just kicked so you can live through the process.
Caitlin Kelly: Just make sure we have enough people. Okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Thank you kV
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Did I explain it. Okay, so far.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Oh, you know the answer you're saying us
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Have you taken a philosophy class or you just, you could go, wait, no, I'm doing a poll next right
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Have I shared the results for you all. Did you see the results. Yes. Okay.
Fang Liang: So I relaunched the polling now.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Um, yeah, just a second about that. Okay.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, I know somebody's gotta leave. All right. Well, welcome back. Um, I hope you had fun talking to each other. Now we're going to relaunch the pole, because this is the second polling and see if you've changed your mind at all. So we're gonna relaunch the poll
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): So go ahead and answer again.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Remember last is the one that was too busy tanning to normally you know worry about a drowned in kid but wants to impress the woman I'm drawn I'm is a bad swimmer, but
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Nonetheless, figures, he needs to help. He doesn't even think twice.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, it looks like most of you, a couple of you are still answering the most of you have ever answered, and I know we're getting close on time so yeah okay so
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): It looks like there is some change.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Because a lot of you are saying both know
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): That which is tied with Lance
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Interesting. Okay, so either. Okay, let's, are you showing it. Yeah, you are you able to see it. Right. Okay, so it looks like there has been some change which which is very common that there's some change in
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): In answers. After you've, you've talked to each other. Okay, so
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Then the last step is to and we don't have really any time for this, but normally I would have my students offer you know some of you offer to speak about what you think, and why you think it and then I would, as the instructor explained
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): The reasoning behind the answer, that is the correct one. Okay. So since we don't have a lot of time I'll switch it over to Katie
Caitlin Kelly: Before so go over to we get to know what the answer is to that question.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Okay, that's funny every time I use this as an example. People want to know the answer. And I always say, but why do you care, right, because what I'm showing you here is a method to use in your classes right to get your students engaged. But how many of you want to know the answer.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Perfect and see. This is exactly why this is such an awesome methodology to use in your classes because look
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You're engaged you care. But this isn't a philosophy class right so quickly. I'll tell you on the basic reading of utilitarianism lamps would be the correct answer, because, of course, even though
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And this is the important point about utilitarianism. It doesn't take into account intentions of the, the actor
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): So his intentions don't matter. It's the consequence. Right. His character doesn't matter because it's the consequences of the action.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And that's one of the big points that I was saying when I come up with a question for my class that I want to drive home.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Is that the character and the intentions of the actor really don't matter. Now I'm not going to get into it because I know there's a lot of time. However, people that defend utilitarianism say because of that factor number seven about quality of happiness.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): That you can actually argue against that answer and say, you know, that actually john in the long run, would produce more happiness because he's a good person and that girl is going to find out. Lance's jerk. And so it would end up with, you know,
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Unhappiness in the long run. So there's ways to argue around that answer.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): If you really delve into utilitarianism, but on the face of it because of the lack of concern about intention and the actors character, um,
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): It's Lance So I just, I'm glad you're invested and and hopefully that shows you that that's a technique is a really cool technique to use in your classrooms.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): And a lot of it is allowing the students to do all the work which is I'm another big fan of as an instructor. Let your students. Let your students do the work. Right. That's how they learn
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): The biggest problem is, well, not a problem. But the biggest amount of work you have to do is coming up with a really good question. So, so if anybody has a question. I'm happy to answer. Otherwise, I'll flip it back over to Katie
Caitlin Kelly: I do want to address a question that came up a little earlier in the chat since I know we're running short on time, because it actually
Caitlin Kelly: Goes along with the theme of the slide we're on now and that is when you're having a discussion. How do you prevent prevent that discussion from turning into a full on debate.
Caitlin Kelly: This sort of ties into whenever you have discussions on sensitive topics and class. I'm not going to get
Caitlin Kelly: Too much into detail on this specific topic of discussion because we're actually going to try to devote an entire workshop with speakers on this topic at some point. But, you know, it gets a little tricky when you get into this type of discussion where
Caitlin Kelly: You know the topics are particularly such sensitive or emotionally charged in nature and it it really becomes a sort of balancing act right because
Caitlin Kelly: You have all these different people with different identities coming from different backgrounds in your classroom and you have to find the balance between giving them the freedom to share those perspectives.
Caitlin Kelly: And at the same time, facilitating and enforcing an environment of respect and civility among these individuals who may have different perspectives.
Caitlin Kelly: And there are a couple of things that you can do to prevent things like debates freaking out in your classroom when when I say debate, I don't mean debates as and that the healthy
Caitlin Kelly: Type of debate where people are sharing evidence and contrasting viewpoints. I mean arguments worth civility is starting to fail.
Caitlin Kelly: So one thing you can always do is include a stability statement in your syllabus that just reminds them of the roles. They're expected to follow as they interact with one another in the classroom.
Caitlin Kelly: If you have particularly sensitive topics in your content, it might be helpful to provide trigger warnings in your syllabus, if needed, and list campus support resources for students.
Caitlin Kelly: But above all, one thing that we often do in the pie book clubs, for example, is at the beginning of the session set ground rules. So you can have general civility tenants that everyone is expected to follow.
Caitlin Kelly: You can have your class, create a contract for how they will interact with one another in the discussion boards or in synchronous discussion.
Caitlin Kelly: And one thing that's pretty cool that you can do with that is you can actually get input from your students about the types of
Caitlin Kelly: Tenants they would like to follow and would like to see in terms of civility and having productive discussions I do see there's something in the chat. So I'm just going to quickly.
Caitlin Kelly: Look at that.
Caitlin Kelly: Oh, yes. Thank you for coming. Megan So
Caitlin Kelly: To to address that question overall that came in earlier about preventing those debates, just making sure you set some ground rules and ensure that students adhere to those can really be helpful for you that way students will know what the behavior expectations are.
Caitlin Kelly: So the last slide here because I know we are out of time is one of my students to simply won't talk you've tried just about everything you can think of and you're still having trouble getting students to
Caitlin Kelly: Engage with the discussion. The first thing that I think is really important to remember is that there are many reasons for silence. I don't want
Caitlin Kelly: You know anyone to leave here and start a discussion and feel like they're not doing it correctly.
Caitlin Kelly: Or anything along those lines. There are so many reasons why your students might not be engaging, they could be very introverted and prefer to watch and listen to others talk
Caitlin Kelly: While they process the information they could have anxiety about being in class and having to speak in front of a lot of people
Caitlin Kelly: You could have students who English is not their first language and they're not as comfortable speaking up in the discussion so many different reasons. I really like this one quotes
Caitlin Kelly: That I've pasted on the slide, which is a guy in class called on to answer a question. And after a short pause. He says, hang on. I'm not. I'm just panicking.
Caitlin Kelly: And that's something that can happen you know when put you can have all these great thoughts about what the discussion is and then you get called on to speak and it just, you can just freeze it happens to a lot of people
Caitlin Kelly: So a couple things you can do to try to combat these situations when students are talking and engaging
Caitlin Kelly: You can try using that multiple prop style to try to get their individual interests involved in the discussion. You can use
Caitlin Kelly: Interactive new tools if maybe they're getting bored with Canvas and zoom and they want to try something new that's something you can do. You might even pull them and figure out if there is a large interest in trying some sort of new discussion technology.
Caitlin Kelly: You can ask them low stakes questions throughout the class period and call on quiet students if you need to buy low stakes questions. I mean, for example.
Caitlin Kelly: Let's say you're discussing a particular concept, you might ask a student. What do you think about this. What is your opinion.
Caitlin Kelly: You know, share your thoughts and that type of question tends to make people feel like
Caitlin Kelly: Well, they're asking me what I think they're not asking what the right answers. You know, and it can take off.
Caitlin Kelly: A good bit of the pressure and it could also, you know, for one thing, make them feel like their opinion in their perspective is valid.
Caitlin Kelly: And for another. It just, again, it makes them feel like they're not trying to you know impress the instructor give a particular right answer.
Caitlin Kelly: Now, on the flip side. Some students may panic, a little bit if they are asked what their opinion is same thing does not work for all people, but
Caitlin Kelly: That's where we get into above all reading your audience and figuring out what works well for them because all classes have different groups of people.
Caitlin Kelly: If all else fails, the thing I would like to suggest is to set really strong guidelines for participation.
Caitlin Kelly: So, you know, in breakout rooms. If you're using those maybe you sell them that all participants when you come back to the room have to contribute one idea.
Caitlin Kelly: And that will essentially forced them to engage with the discussion with the asynchronous discussions, you could set really clear rigid guidelines and give examples.
Caitlin Kelly: If students are having trouble engaging there. And then it's also possible that throughout the semester, they'll get more and more proficient and having these online discussions and eventually they will need such rigid gotten flights.
Caitlin Kelly: So at this point I'm going to open up the floor for questions. I know we are Haley six minutes over time. But if you have anything for me. I am more than happy to answer.
Fang Liang: Or some question in the chat area, Katie. You like to answer.
Fang Liang: About with the pandemic in consideration. Many students are facing mental health and motivation issues.
Fang Liang: How can you cater a class in the activities to be mindful of this transaction transition into a purely online format, since it has been difficult for many students to be on top of class and work or engage
Caitlin Kelly: That's a really good question. And that's something that, you know, I wish I had a one size fits all answer for. But I know
Fang Liang: Again, people are coming from.
Caitlin Kelly: So many different challenges over the past year leading into 2021 but you know one thing I would
Caitlin Kelly: Be sure to establish in the classroom when dealing with this type of issue is
Caitlin Kelly: You know, make sure your students know that they can come to you, whether it's an office hours or, you know, via emailing you whatever the case may be and let you know whatever struggle. They may be facing let them know that
Caitlin Kelly: It's better for them to be communicative with you throughout the semester as opposed to waiting till the end to let you know that they were struggling and having these problems that were interfering with their ability to perform well in the class.
Caitlin Kelly: Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): I didn't mean to interrupt at all where you did you finish your idea.
Caitlin Kelly: Yeah, that was it.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): I was gonna say, I would also sick just I'm providing different methods of of engagement and
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Participation, especially to lower that stress level. So again, going back to the different styles that the students have about how outgoing. They are so providing a variety of ways for them to engage in and participate. So
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): For those who are shy and are going through a lot of mental health, um, concerns, maybe more take home participation options and giving them.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): An ability to choose the whole class of course you have to do that for the whole class unless they are giving you documentation.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): To allow on an alternative format, just for them. But think about that, especially as you put together your syllabus, allowing a variety that they could choose from ways to participate.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Maybe a short response paper or maybe you know in class discussion so that they can demonstrate discussion in different ways and different varieties of ways that's a way to also think about it.
Caitlin Kelly: You know, that's a really good point. And there's another question here should teachers have mental health check ins with this be helpful.
Caitlin Kelly: That is actually a really good idea. One thing that I will tell you, I've had instructors do before because you do have to be careful, especially as a TA. You cannot put yourself in the role of counselor or mental health professional as the instructor
Caitlin Kelly: But one thing that I have had instructors do that I found really helpful in my online classes is at different points during the semester. Sometimes at the
Caitlin Kelly: halfway point. Sometimes you know every other month depending on how
Caitlin Kelly: Frequently, you feel your students could use a check in, they would just send a private email to each student saying, Hey, how are you doing in the class.
Caitlin Kelly: Do you have any concerns do you have anything you need to bring to my attention. What are you liking so far would you dislike just a very, you know, friendly.
Caitlin Kelly: open to discussion email that each student receives with with their name on it. Personally, I never had instructors, you know, send out the same blanket email to everyone so it feels a little bit more personal.
Caitlin Kelly: And that will give them the opportunity to let you know, hey, I'm having this trouble with technology. I'm having this trouble.
Caitlin Kelly: With my schedule. I'm feeling overwhelmed and then you as the instructor. Can you just can decide do you need to refer them to those campus resources.
Caitlin Kelly: Is there a common issue that is occurring with technology or with the coursework throughout the class that maybe you need to address with all students.
Caitlin Kelly: Sending that checking email while avoiding coming across as it being sort of a mental health check in just calling it a general checking email is a way to do that with out falling into the trap of
Caitlin Kelly: Basically become trying to serve as a mental health professional.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Yeah, as Nathaniel put dude Do not do this in the context. I'm sure Nathaniel and feel free to unmute yourself if you want to explain further, I would say yes.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Ever frame it as a mental health check in. And the reason why is exactly what Katie's saying
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Because we're not mental health experts. But even if we are. That's not our position as an instructor, what is our position, though, is to connect them with the correct resources. Absolutely.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Absolutely. So as an as an instructor and actually that's going to be the, the whole our whole tour shop, please attend and let other people know because we're going to have those campus resources available.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Some of them that will will be the ones that you refer them to the course of say if you if you are concerned, they have milk mental health issues or if they come to you with them.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Please do refer them to the Counseling Center, of course, and and depending on the degree. I mean, if it's serious at the moment, and you, you know, you can even ask or you could
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Are you considered considering harming yourself. And if that's the case, you want to take care of that immediately, even if you have to call the campus police to
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You know, have them come. So that is something that we always have to be on the lookout for
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): You know, but we don't want to ever say, and I know Shelly. I don't think you meant it that way, but to say I'm going to do a mental health check in, like Katie said just do a check in and yes do check ins, please.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Check it check it on your students because they, you know, they want to know somebody cares, of course.
Caitlin Kelly: They will appreciate it so much and it will help reduce them feeling isolated when they can't see you. Every other day in the classroom.
Caitlin Kelly: That's a great question, thank you so much for bringing that up. It's so important.
Lisa Liseno, PhD (she, her, hers): Yeah, thank you. Shelley, and we know that you didn't mean it that way. But I'm glad that it came up, because then everybody knows how to frame it
Shelly Drozda: Thank you for answering my question. Sorry if it came off that way. But, um,
Shelly Drozda: Yeah, in regards to, like, oh, is the class load appropriate or
Shelly Drozda: Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of discussion posts, you have to do you know framing it in that sort of sense because I know like I'm currently a grad student
Shelly Drozda: And transitioning completely to online while living at home and that absence of a sort of routine or structure can be
Shelly Drozda: I know it's been difficult on me and it can be really difficult on other students. So as someone who's trying to get an assistantship or be a TA. I would love to know how I could help you know
Shelly Drozda: People be more compassionate about what's going on with the pandemic and how it is really affecting students from a student's perspective.