Flexible Learning in the ISW (Dec 2014 FDW)
by mcalisterj
Welcome! Thank you for taking 20 minutes out of your very busy FDW week to complete this lesson on Flexible Learning in the ISW.
As an ISW participant you likely arrived at Day 1 with a lesson ready to teach, then spent the first 2-3 hour of Day 1 learning about objectives, active learning, and assessment and perhaps then wishing you could now redesign your lesson…..
What if your participants arrived at Day 1 already having completed lessons about objectives, active learning, and assessment? With Flexible Learning they can! Additionally, incorporating flexible learning into your ISW allows you to model flexible learning as an Instructional Skill.
Objectives:
1. Review an example of Flexible Learning incorporated into the ISW and identify three opportunities provided by incorporating Flexible Learning into your ISW.
2. Share any apprehensions you have with incorporating Flexible Learning into the ISW.
(Estimated time to complete: 20 minutes)
Perhaps you have never heard of Flexible Learning, well you are participating in it now! 🙂 Flexible Learning can mean many things to many different people, you can learn more about Flexible Learning projects around UBC. For our purposes here we are going to consider lessons that your ISW participants can complete outside the face to face portion of the workshop. We can consider additional opportunities on Friday morning of your FDW.
What can Flexible Learning in the ISW look like? Please take 5-10 minutes and view the lessons developed as part of a recent ISW here at UBC CTLT. Go to ‘Participant Online Activities’ and then click on the arrow next to Day 1. You will see lessons on learning objectives, active learning, and assessments, as well as a place for participants to introduce themselves, and information on planning your first lesson for Day 1. Navigate around the site and find other lessons and resources to explore.
Now, take a moment to reflect and consider:
1) Identify 3 opportunities available by incorporating Flexible Learning into an ISW that you would facilitate
2) Share any apprehensions you have as a facilitator about incorporating Flexible Learning into an ISW
Please click ‘Leave a comment’ below and type your responses into the comment box, if you choose to remain anonymous you can have fun choosing a pen name, you could be lavendar cat or blue apple 🙂 . Please also reply to at least one other comment made by another participant.
This lesson is estimated to take 20 minutes to complete. Please complete this lesson by Thursday Dec 4, 8:00pm.
Your responses will help inform the lesson on Flexible Learning on Friday morning of your FDW. Thank you!
Opportunities:
1) Participants can learn from each other since the lessons often have written assignments (from leaving comments to writing 1 page papers). This allows for people to read others’ thought and have time to digest them (and go back to if needed) instead of just hearing the comment spoken in the moment and forgotten.
2) You can tailor the content/mini lesson to the assumed needs of the group (maybe do a pre-survey).
3) Additional resources are provided for people who find the topic interesting/confusing and they can go deeper if they want to. Face to face time has everyone at least grounded on the same level of basic understanding – with some who have gone further & they can serve as ‘experts’.
4) I like that it doesn’t have to be linear. Although there are daily expectations, people can explore the future topics.
5) Capacity for multimedia use. Video links can be quite effective in explaining concepts.
Apprehensions
1) People not doing the online work
2) Technical difficulties on the part of the facilitator in setting it up and for the participant in accessing.
3) Dullness can creep in. The facilitator would need to find ways to bring liveliness to the format.
I agree, having additional information provided online is a great resource for participants as we may want to refer to the material later on/dig deeper based on what we learned.
A remark on people not doing the online work.
An ISW is a lot of work. It’s intensive and a crazy 3-4 days where nothing else gets done.
Asking participants to invest time and read material before establishing face-to-face culture seems hard to motivate and much of the motivation may be extrinsic. How do you ask participants to pour their heart into a list of information? It may generate more than the usual push back against BOPPPS.
This is also a concern of mine. Online work can often be seen as only auxiliary (and is often used that way) – as a result of this and the intensive nature of the ISW, participants may be tempted to skim the material rather than fully engaging with it.
I didn’t think about this, but this concern could be true (i.e., some learners may not be as engaged and invested in the content provided online as the facilitators wish). If they had actually read the content well and given enough thought to it, it would be way more time efficient, but this could be too good to be true in reality. I wonder if there is any research about this concern.
1) 3 opportunities available by incorporating Flexible Learning into an ISW are:
1. The opportunity to provide links to pertinent external web resources as notes to accompany facilitator generated content. Yes, you can do this in print materials with an ISW, on a computer you can click links right then and there.
2. The opportunity to integrate either web based or offline digital resources right into lessons. In the examples provided, YouTube videos may serve as the content itself rather than being a supplement to it.
3. The opportunity to obtain in real time the thoughts, questions, and opinions of participants to course content as long as they have access to the web (sort of like this comment box forum. How’s that for meta?)
2) One apprehension I have about incorporating Flexible Learning into an ISW is that it has the potential to shift focus away from interpersonal interaction between facilitators and participants. A major part of facilitating the ISW is modelling the behaviours and strategies that participants should explore in their own instruction.
Cheers!
Yes! I agree that having external web resources immediately available might be an opportunity. It gives participants the freedom to tailor the experience to the level they are seeking (i.e., if they want more information or concrete examples, it is there at their fingertips)
I would like the opportunity to get to know the other participants, as once the workshop starts there isn’t much free time to meet each other, to network.
Some learners would benefit from the on-line format to prepare for the ISW. E-learning should be the next logical step for ISW.
Apprehensions, the current ISW model has worked for a long time, I would suggest a survey done by previous ISW to see their opinion and suggestions. If something isn’t broken, and just because you can does it make it right to do it?
The essence of ISW has to be true. The Flexible Learning as a supplement is one thing, but where will it all lead .
I agree with the idea that online is coming (here) and see possibilities for extending the social and learning interaction between participants within and beyond the session if it is started as part of it.
It seems to me that going online completely must change the nature of the course and a lot of subtlety could be lost in terms of experiential interpersonal aspects.
The ISW I attended incorporated flexiblle learning which I found to be useful and effective.
Opportunities: a) icebreaker: allows learners and facilitators to get a sense of who the other participants in the workshop will be; b) time efficiency: everyone was ready to work right from the start; and c) engagement: thoughtful and meaningful conversations emerged since everyone did the prior reading/work.
Apprehension: a) user friendly: making sure the site was easy to navigate and trouble shooting any technical difficulties that may happen
opportunities for flexible learning include
1 the possibility of making content available in text or video form or to provide an experience – to be the basis or the foundation for further work and exploration in face to face time. Would be fun with themed sessions.
Use of wikis or blogs to provide and build resources that can help over time as well as with prep and participation.
The development of the shared space to extend the possible connections between participants – possible shared interests along disciplines, topics, or approaches. (especially as a way to enrich the connections between participants who only see each other in large group sessions.
reservations
motivation of participants without the structure
workload for monitoring and possibly responding
it might replace face to face time and if so, the costs of losing the richness of that time would have to be considered.
I echo the opportunities for using flexible learning to disseminate information in an engaging way.
Reservations include tech difficulties. For example, I spent an hour yesterday trying to post and was left feeling frustrated and unsuccessful. Hoping the coaching I got today will allow this to post.
Not everyone is motivated or comfortable using online applications and may need a lot of support and enouragement to even try it.
The heart of ISW is the face to face interactions and feedback, which needs to be done face to face in my opinion.
I agree with the apprehensions Debbie. Although I do see the cons of the a flexible learning ISW, I also see the ways in which it can debilitate face-value learning and the (un)reliability on technology, as well as for some people raising the question of accessibility to technology and the notion of online space.
Sorry, typo… I meant pros, not cons.
-Participants will have common vocabulary and be able to talk productively to each other.
-Making resources available online can reduce the need for recording information during the live session.
-Typically the BOPPPS model will be presented using the BOPPPS model. In addition to the facilitator modeling expert behaviour this allows for participatory learning that may not be achievable online.
Ways to incorporate flexible learning:
1. Have an online post-assessment for learners to complete at the end of the day to see what they learned about content from a particular lesson
2. Allow participants to access their private instructor videos online instead of on a USB
3. Have participants participate in an online teaching simulation to help them apply their learning between ISW days (this would be effective if the ISW days were not consecutive)
4. Have learners make their own instructional video and have their own participants watch it before their lesson (i.e.: teach ISW participants to incorporate flexible learning into their own teaching)
Concerns about flexible learning in ISW:
1. Must provide info and context to help ISW participants understand the role of flexible learning and what their role is as learners in this context.
2. It would be ideal to notify learners of the online component and time requirements outside the ISW days when they sign up so they can prepare their schedule accordingly. It is helpful if the extra work is not a surprise.
Oh, I like the idea of incorporating it as a post assessment. That would also let the material sink in a bit more before testing the learning, and allow the instructor better prepare for the following lesson.
Three opportunities:
1. To have the opportunity in sending out any pre-work for the ISW. Saving some face time throughout the intensive 3 days of the ISW, may actually enable participants to be more attentive, present, and engaged throughout if online pre-work is done ahead of time.
2. The ability to create an online community of practice for ISW cohort. Since the ISW creates a space for meaningful and close relationships to develop, creating a flexible learning component has the opportunity to create space for ISW cohort members to develop communities of practice that has the potential in furthering their skills, strengths, and in general a community.
3. The space to upload additional resources (i.e. forums for any concerns or questions participants may have, etc).
4. I also think creating an online component in general can be convenient with most people.
Apprehensions:
1. The risk in losing participants because of the online component. Some people do not prefer technology over face-time.
2. Raising the concern and question if participants will actually measure flexible learning as valuable to their own needs.
Benefits:
1) Flexibility – I think the integration of Flexible Learning (FL) allows learners to learn in the way that is most effective to them (e.g., Some people may prefer to spend a chunk of time on going through all the content at once, and some others may prefer to divide the learning into different times, depending on their attention span and schedule.)
2) Reflection: Face-to-face interactions with peers for reflections is precious, but I think that FL allows learners ample time to reflect on the content at their own pace and in the way they want it, while still allowing them to read other learners’ comments and reflect on these as well.
3) Efficiency – I think FL may be more time efficient, like cutting down commuting time.
Concern:
I think the content online needs to be carefully designed for learners with different learning styles and needs because unlike a face-to-face session, learners cannot ask probing questions and get immediate feedback or clarification about the content in question. I’m not sure if the ISW team is actually using the videos that are posted for Day 1, but I didn’t find watching a facilitator just describing the content to the camera really effective – No offense to the individual facilitators on the video :). I felt that some more graphic videos could be more effective to deliver the content.
Sorry, just got home late, almost 8:00, ok, a few opportunities:
1) prime for learning – I’ve read that learning is often best absorbed the second time someone sees something. Priming learners will help them better grasp material when they see it next
2) participants can steer their learning – based on what activities are most popular, facilitators can help steer the further lessons based on interest and goals
3) accommodates more introverted learning styles – participants who learn better through thinking and reflecting alone will appreciate being able to work at their own pace
Reservations:
It seems like these examples are largely online. While useful, I think there is always a risk that people won’t do it. Even today, when some of the FDW participants were having troubles posting, they said they gave up after trying for a long time. I think students often won’t have that kind of patience, and give up at the first sign of a hurdle.
Opportunities: 1) Supplementary mini-lesson content can be offered ahead of time to orient thinking of learners and help keep workshop timeline; 2) Encourage off-line discussion/reflection between participants; 3) Provide space for continued sharing of ideas and resources post-workshop.
Apprehensions: 1) Follow-up on online exchanges might cut into workshop schedule; and 2) Not everyone will have the same understanding of online tools – orientations will help get everyone on the same page.