Transcript: Effective Online Learning
Jennifer Summerville: [00:00:00] Good. Teaching is good teaching, good learning is good learning. But you have this little thing in between this, this barrier, and that is the distance aspect of it. For some students, it can be a huge barrier that they just can’t overcome. For some instructors, it can be a huge barrier that they have a hard time overcoming.
So I think that that’s one of the things that is most important, is that we design in a very purposeful manner.
Introduction: Welcome to Endless Coffee Cup. A regular discussion of marketing, news, culture, and media for our complex digital lifestyle. Join Matt Bailey as he engages in conversation to find insights beyond the latest headlines and deeper understanding. For those involved in marketing, grab a cup of coffee. Have a seat.
And thanks for joining.[00:01:00]
Matt Bailey: Well, hello dear listener. Welcome back to the Endless Coffee Cup with your host Matt Bailey. And today I’ve got a great guest with me. Uh, it’s Dr. Jennifer Somerville. And I met Dr. Jay. Uh, she is my instructor in a master’s course that I’ve been taking at the American College of Education. And with everything that’s going on and, and.
Now all these college classes are moving online. I thought it’d be a great time to bring Dr. J on. She is an instructional designer, uh, but Dr. J I’ll let you, uh, introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about, you know, what you’ve done in the instructional design and online training space.
Jennifer Summerville: So, believe it or not, I have been involved with distance learning for 27 years.
Great. I taught my first online class in 1998, and that was. Uh, foundations of distance education. So, um, wow. I have, yeah, I’ve been. [00:02:00] A while, and I, I’ve, I’ve taught brick and mortar classes, but lately, um, most of what I’m doing, if not all of it, is fully online, fully virtual. My full-time job, um, is with, uh, north Central University.
And I mentor doctoral students for the most part there. And then, um, my part-time job is with American College of Education, and I do tend to teach quite a few instructional design, especially instructional design classes that have to do with online and distance learning. Um, so, you know, that’s clearly what I love.
That’s, uh, my passion and it’s a very timely topic currently.
Matt Bailey: It is. It is. And and just for those that that may not understand, what is the importance of instructional design as it applies to online learning?
Jennifer Summerville: Well, so I’d love to be able to tell you that they’re the exact same thing. [00:03:00] And to be honest, I have vacillated back and forth.
Are they the same? Are they different? And I am in the, they are. A little bit of both. Um, you know, good teaching is good teaching, good learning is good learning. You have this little thing in between this, this barrier, and that is the distance aspect of it. Um, for some students it can be a huge barrier that they just can’t overcome.
For some instructors, it can be a huge barrier that they have a hard time overcoming. So I think that that’s one of the things that is most important, is that we design in a very purposeful manner. The other thing that you can’t do. Is you can’t really tweak things while it’s in the air. What we’re currently experiencing is not what I like to call true online and distance learning.
What we’re experiencing right now is basically. [00:04:00] Emergency remote correspondence course. You know, we’re, we’re just trying to figure out how to get a handle on this worldwide, um, and figure out how to do this, this type of learning, and do right by both instructors and students. And I say that because it takes me a really long time to design a course.
You know, we’re talking about months, not days. Yes. Huh. Yes. So it is really important to the role of instructional design and being purposeful and being systematic about how you design the classes and that you take the distance into account is, you know, the main reason why you have, um, you know, purposeful teaching about instructional design methodologies.
That specifically apply to online learning?
Matt Bailey: I think it’s an important distinction that you just made, and that was what we’re experiencing right now is really more of a [00:05:00] bandaid. Mm-hmm. And a temporary, uh, a friend of my daughter’s was telling me that in her, uh, online course for college, the instructor didn’t know how to screen share.
So he spent 20 minutes trying to explain what was on his screen to everybody else on the course. And you know, and I’m sure there’s so many stories like that. Um, but you had mentioned it, it’s a correspondence course. It’s essentially just listening to lectures.
Jennifer Summerville: Yes.
Matt Bailey: Uh, rather than taking into account the medium, uh, the limitations, it’s.
I think I, I guess what I would tell people, it’s don’t judge what’s happening right now as online learning, because it’s not.
Jennifer Summerville: No, it’s not. And I think that for students like you who are involved in graduate level programs, you know, we really don’t know. Um, the president of North Central University, we had a, um, I can’t say it was a happy hour.
It was more like a. Just a [00:06:00] fun hour to talk to the other faculty since we’re all virtual. Um, but you know, there are two scenarios for us and basically the world needs more of us. Those of us who have taught online, who have learned online, um, now more than ever. But I also think that because we’re calling all of this online learning that we’re gonna have a problem.
With true online learning. Um, and I think it’ll be short term, but that people will think that what, what really the world is experiencing right now is online learning. And it’s, it’s not, it, this is an emergency situation. So it’s very, very different from something that’s been designed purposefully for online learning and, and I think that people like you are going to be ambassadors.
To tell the world, Hey, no, this is not how this should be. Um, and you’ll probably have to continue to repeat it because people have had bad [00:07:00] experiences and, uh, that’s understandable.
Matt Bailey: Absolutely. Yeah. What, so what does it take to design and develop a course that is exclusive for, uh, online or distance learning?
Jennifer Summerville: I think it depends on a lot of different things, including. The amount of time that you have for your classes. So at American College of Education, our classes are five weeks long. Some are eight, um, some are longer than that. But for the most part, uh, graduate level classes are five weeks long. So you have to purposefully design those, knowing that every single week is just really jammed with a lot of information.
You want to Yes. You’re laughing.
Matt Bailey: I’m laughing. Yeah. Yes. It’s,
Jennifer Summerville: um, you, you really want to create something where a student will be learning at a very fast pace, [00:08:00] but that most students won’t be overwhelmed. And I say most because there will be some students who will be overwhelmed by the amount of material.
If you’re talking about an actual amount of time, that can really vary based upon the resources that you are creating yourself. So as an instructional designer, as an educational technologist, my, my doctors in educational technology, I designed a lot of my own materials early on. Mm-hmm. And so it took me over a hundred hours to create a course.
Um, and now I have help. When I create a course, it’s me creating content and then somebody else might be creating, you know, video or some other type of media. It’s not just me. I don’t have to do it all myself. And I have an editor. Um, you know, there are people who, it’s not just all mine, so it’s not a [00:09:00] hundred hours anymore, but it might be 50.
Um, and if I’ve taught a similar class, it takes less time than we have a template to use and that takes less time. So, you know, the, the idea that we can have something turned around in 48 hours or even a week is, is really, it’s, it just can’t happen because you can’t think, if you think about a brick and mortar class, if you think about teaching some topic for the first time.
You know, it takes more than a couple of days to, to figure out how to teach that. If you think about curriculum that takes time to get done. So, you know, even if you’re talking about at the training level, at the corporate level, all of that takes time as well. So yeah, we, we just have to cut ourselves some slack today, um, and understand that.
This is, we’re just doing this and flying by the seat of our pants. Even those of us who are [00:10:00] experts are trying to figure this out day by day.
Matt Bailey: That’s, that’s certainly true. Um, I, you know, I was talking to someone the other day that, uh, you know, from their corporate training standpoint, but then also what I see even in the, in the, in the online business training world is.
Basically it’s a series of videos and they call that online learning or online training. And that’s one thing that this course has been phenomenal to do is just open your eyes that, you know, just a series of videos is not online training. Mm-hmm. And unfortunately, that has gotten in the heads of a lot of people that, oh, we just, you know, create a bunch of videos, put ’em out there and make people watch ’em.
And, and from being on the other side of that, uh, you know, seeing that side of the world, that’s not fun. And you really can’t make people do that.
Jennifer Summerville: That’s very, very passive. And we know that passive learning doesn’t really stick. [00:11:00] People don’t enjoy it that much. Um, you know, hey, when we had to have video learning years ago, because that’s the way distance learning was done.
That was a great thing. We can do better today. We have so many technologies that will allow us to. Really get in touch with each other. We use old fashioned discussions in the classes, like the ones that you were taking with me. Um, and they work really nicely with the correct prompts, and that way it can be asynchronous.
You can get home from work at six 30 on. Thursday and be able to participate. You know, you don’t have to have video. There are lots of different ways that you can be involved and communicate and learn, but the one thing about distance learning is that it’s on you. I, as the instructor living outside of Fort Worth, [00:12:00] Texas cannot come and knock on your door and say, Matt, hey.
Hey, hey, you, you’ve got something to do. You know, I can’t do that. So I mean, I, I’m, I’ll send you an email, but that’s as close as I can get. Um, and so the, that’s one of the things that really cements the learning process is that it’s as much on the onus is on the learner as it is on the instructor or the class or the design.
It’s, it is a system and we all work together to create kind of a community of learners. That is supportive and learning occurs that way.
Matt Bailey: From going through this and, and looking at everything that, you know, some modern LMS systems offer, there are almost more opportunities in an online course to interact, to learn to.
I would say express the learning. Absolutely. Uh, then there are, in an, you know, a [00:13:00] typical, uh, undergrad or graduate level class that when you’re taking it in person, you’ve, you’re synchronous, you’re there, you may be working with a group, it’s a certain number of hours. Uh, but online, there, you know, with the discussion groups, with the readings, with interactions.
I, I, I got the impression there’s so many, there’s almost more things you can do to reach out. And one thing that jumped out was allowing people to learn in methods and ways that work for them, right? That not everyone learns from the lecture, homework format.
Jennifer Summerville: That’s right. And I think that that’s something that’s very important.
Um, when I first started teaching online, and we did not have learning management systems back then, so well sometime we’ll talk about exactly what I had, but basically two tin cans and a string in between. Um, but, uh. You know, the, the, that was the, the [00:14:00] one issue that, that we kind of discovered is that, um, you know, people could learn not just at their own pace, but how they really wanted to.
And I remember distinctly, one of my most vocal students, very highly participatory, she said she’s painfully shy and doesn’t really, you know, in regular classrooms, she doesn’t really speak up. We were all shocked by that because we could really not get her to stop talking in, in the online class. And that I think is, is, it’s like the great equalizer.
You have people like myself that I could talk to a wall especially about this topic, and then you have people that are really, really shy but has something to say and it, you know, this, this whole online with the synchronous and asynchronous aspects that we can have. It doesn’t matter. You know a whole lot about you.
It matters [00:15:00] about your knowledge and what you have to say. So, you know, you become genderless and your ethnicity isn’t as much of a a part. It’s really more of of. Your your thought processes, what you think about the topic, what you believe about certain things, and, and it really is kind of a, you know, your, your personality can come out for sure, but it is amazing to me how when you meet people in person, and I’ve been very lucky that I’ve been able to meet some of my students.
That they’re totally different in person than they are online. I am, I apparently am very different. I’m kind of surprised by that, but I apparently am, am a lot more subdued in person than I am, uh, online. So, uh, that’s just the way that it’s,
Matt Bailey: no, I, I think I got your personality [00:16:00] very, very well from the, the video lectures that you did.
Um. It, it, it seemed like you, you had the script, but you couldn’t help but interject your opinion and very strong opinion at a few points. I’m like, I like that she’s, she’s kind of stepping outta the bounds there to do that.
Jennifer Summerville: Yeah. They told me to not be a talking head, so, um, and I said that I didn’t want to, uh, and so when, when we recorded, um, some materials for one of the classes that I’ve created.
Um, I, and I was like, what do you mean I have to use a teleprompter? What, you know, it was, I was like, I am a very off the cuff person. Um, and I do not rerecord, you know, if something happened in this podcast, I just say, I’m sorry I messed up, lost my train of thought, whatever. But I don’t usually rerecord because I find that students really appreciate it when it’s not a talking head, when there is a real person behind the words and you know, your personality comes out and I say [00:17:00] that.
So often when I’m talking to faculty members who are struggling is it’s this notion of creating something. We’re talking about social distancing right now, but in distance learning it’s called. So having a social presence, and it can be many different things to many different people, but having a social presence is so important in online learning and just be yourself.
If you’re crazy like me, like I am very Irish and I gesture all over the place. I have to sit on my hands if I’m ever doing video. Um, and yet there may be somebody who’s far more chill. You just have to be yourself, and that is part of, of creating a social presence so that you know you are who you are, even if it’s, you know, at a distance.
Matt Bailey: That genuineness either very reserved or very, uh, you know, extroverted, that genuineness still comes across. Absolutely. Uh, I, [00:18:00] I think when someone, there, there are times where I, I catch myself looking at the eyes to see are they reading a teleprompter or are they, you know, because sometimes it’s a bit robotic and, you know, and I, I read from scripts all the time, but yet knowing that.
Well, one of my early, uh, in high school, I did a internship at a radio station.
Jennifer Summerville: Mm-hmm.
Matt Bailey: And that was probably one of the best things because they, they, they taught me why they use such. Varied inflections on their voice. And, and he said, frankly, people get bored listening to you talk. And so your voice has to carry the ups and the downs and the impact and the uh, and he says, and that’s why DJs have that reputation of being that over the top voice is they only have that audio ability to keep your attention.
So it has to [00:19:00] be, uh, a constant inflection and movement of the voice. And I, I’ve kind of carried that with me into the video, that when you’re not in person, you have to really kind of bring your personality, step it up in some way because you’re, you’re limited then in the, uh. In the nonverbal, you’re limited in the eye contact.
You’re limited in those areas. So it needs to, uh, step it up in other ways.
Jennifer Summerville: Right, exactly. And one of the, the, this is just something that you, you know, you pick up in your various, um, business. Well, for me, it was in business then eight o’clock Monday. Conference call every Monday to talk about what we were gonna do for that week.
So the managers and some of our, uh, business analysts and our project managers, we would all meet and talk about, you know, the different things [00:20:00] that had to get done that week in terms of training and development. I’m telling you, eight o’clock in the morning is very, very early, and yet the person who ran the meetings, we called him the preacher because of his inflection.
He was hilarious because, I mean, you could not sleep through his stuff even if you wanted to. He would constantly wake you up. His inflection was so, and he sounded as if he was passionate about everything he was doing, and although I, I’m not quite like that. I have toned mine down quite a bit, but, but that was so impactful for me that you could have somebody that at an eight o’clock meeting on a Monday morning would have everyone’s attention and would keep that attention for a full 30 minutes.
So that has kind of changed the way that when I record something, whether it’s video or it’s audio, [00:21:00] that I really do keep up the inflection, just like somebody would on the radio, just exactly the same way.
Matt Bailey: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s look about, let’s talk about designing the course. Uh, one thing that, uh, has really jumped out to me is, is the, in the engagements, the, uh, intended engagements and the activities.
Structured activities for learners to work through and, and that’s one thing that has really jumped out to me is, yes, you can do this in a live classroom, but in the virtual classroom you’re giving people really as much time as you want to work on this, you have and. It produces in them, I think a better understanding.
Well, not, I think it’s, I think it’s proven, uh, that when they’re actually looking, when they’re pulling together the information, when they’re producing a project, they’re learning when they do it. Uh, but [00:22:00] it also creates, from the instructor standpoint, I can see. How they are learning and, and what they’re learning reflected in their activities, uh, and developing those structured activities for an online delivery.
It, again, it takes some planning, it takes some understanding of how you’re going to make this happen. Uh, but I, I, you know, I think we had this conversation. I have fallen in love with Bloom’s Taxonomy. I think it has been to me. You know, I’ve been, I’ve been training online and offline for almost 20 years and I just discovered Blooms Taxonomy this year and I’m like, how did I live without this?
This is fantastic.
Jennifer Summerville: Yeah, it’s, it’s funny ’cause I think of Blooms as being, you know, very much a K 12 thing, but it is applicable across the board, um, in my full-time job. Uh, when we create courses, they have a curated list of different bloom’s [00:23:00] verbs for different levels, and every single course has to have certain levels of these bloom’s verbs in the courses, which.
For me as an instructional designer does make me a little bit crazy. And yet for us as an institution, it really helps in terms of overall assessment and evaluation. So, you know, we are able to look across programs and see are we, are we hitting our marks? So, you know, we get back to this whole systematic kind of thing.
And that’s where Bloom’s taxonomy and Goya’s action verbs. Um, and types of learning all comes in. So Blooms is very K 12. Goya is very much a military, started out military and a little bit more corporate, and it’s a little bit more prescriptive than Blooms. Um, although there have been some tweaks to Bloom’s taxonomy that I think are really helpful.
Um, you know, for the, the next versioning [00:24:00] of Bloom’s Taxonomy to make it a lot more applicable. But yes, once we understand what type of learning it is, what category it falls into, that really, really helps for us to translate those learning outcomes into something that we can do. And, you know, it’s, it’s observable because that’s key.
The, the word that you really will not see in ganet is understands. You’ll see it in Blooms. It’s, it’s an overall category, but you won’t see that in Ganet because what does that mean? Now, in a brick and mortar, I can see a light bulb moment as it happens, right? But usually that word is not super observable, so we tend to go with.
What we can observe through writing, through video creation, through graphic creation, [00:25:00] you know, through a whole bunch of different measures that we can see and that are observable and measurable to those of us who are doing the, um, the assessment of student learning.
Matt Bailey: Yes. What you, so the word understand, I, yes.
Especially when I work with, uh. Core objectives, uh, for, you know, especially when I’m working with other organizations, understand is like the default, uh, learning objective. And, uh, my brother is a, an analyst and, and works for some pretty large companies. And, and, and he, he has this shirt that says. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.
Uh, yeah, because that’s nice. He was like, yeah, I can’t measure your understanding and I can’t make you understand. I can give you the tools, but ultimately you have to figure it out. And yeah, understanding is a big, undefined, nebulous [00:26:00] concept and you can’t demonstrate that. But yet it’s the default word that so many people rely on.
Jennifer Summerville: We have better words. We have much better words. Blooms has better words. Um, ye’s. Types of learning in his action verbs, there are better words. So if you look at the word understands, there are a whole bunch of action verbs that go along with that. And you can Google it. I mean, Google anything. You can, you know, Google Bloom’s taxonomy, you can Google, uh, Gagne action verbs and you’ll come up with.
Burbs that fall under different categories of learning. And it is amazing once you have that understanding, and I just used the word understanding, once you have that knowledge and once you can demonstrate that knowledge, um, there you go.
Matt Bailey: There you go.
Jennifer Summerville: Then it things just. They fit so much better. There’s a lot less anxiety [00:27:00] around assessment and around evaluation.
Um, and it is, it, it’s just, I can’t say it’s easier because it’s just never easy to do that kind of stuff, but it just, it just reduces the amount of effort required to show that learning has occurred.
Matt Bailey: Absolutely. I, so I’ve been, I’ve taken, you know, gangs, I, I’ve, I’ve adopted so much of this now into my training and I, I train, uh, digital marketers.
And one of the ways I’ve incorporated it is when I teach marketers how to do analytics and ultimately they have to present. Their findings to somebody. And so I’ve introduced Bloom’s Taxonomy as to now, when you present, what’s the outcome that you want? Do you want them simply to know the information?
Do you want them to act on the [00:28:00] information? If you want them to act, what do you want them to do? Do you want them to reassess what they’re doing? Are you proposing a new campaign? And we can use that taxonomy then we. So first of all, they have to go into the meeting or going into the research saying, this is what I want to, uh, this is the outcome, my desired outcome.
And so now all the verbs that I use when I present this data should surround. This area of the outcome. And it’s been a, it’s been a great shift to see, uh, you know, marketers kind of catch on to this idea of, you know, that’s what I wanna produce. I wanna produce thinking around, let’s develop a new campaign.
So now all my verbs are going to focus around, develop, create, rather than understand which. I see that, uh, you know, we, we tend to go around that area as well,
Jennifer Summerville: [00:29:00] and I, I think that that’s, you know, what’s most important? I mean, if, if you take away nothing from what we’re discussing today, it is that this is applicable.
Across any discipline, in any form of learning, and at any age anywhere in the world. This is about how we learn and how we demonstrate our learning and these action verbs, and there are a whole host of them. Can really help you to develop really good learning outcomes and also to kind of break those down into what we expect to see once the learning has occurred.
And I think that’s something that’s very important, is that we have expectations of what we see, what we see demonstrated. And that can be a, like a, a. Physical [00:30:00] seeing, or what we read or what we hear, um, a lot of different ways that I use the word see, but a lot of different ways of being able to recognize that learning has occurred.
Um, I also think it’s, it’s a important, it, I, if I can segue into. Models and, um, elements of design that I think lend themselves very well. Um, I have always been a very big ADDIE framework person. Addie is not a model, it’s not prescriptive enough, but it does contain the five different building blocks that are in most models, which is analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.
Um, and so I’ve always been a big proponent of the ADDIE framework. My favorite model was the Kemp model, which is very elliptical, not very, you know, [00:31:00] procedural at all. Um, you could put a procedural task in there, but it involves a whole lot of different elements that you continue to circle back on and re-review in a very iterative process.
And that’s what I’ve always been involved in. I started to add a newer model, and it’s not that new, but it’s newer, which is backwards design, and that’s where you start from what you expect to see the end state. So once they have reached that learning goal, what does it look like? And you work backwards from there.
To create different assessments, different discussions, learning opportunities for students that all help solidify that knowledge of that learning outcome, whatever it is. Because that way you can build kind, kind of starting backwards and become more and more foundational until you’re basically, you start with kind of the icebreakers [00:32:00] and the fun stuff, and then you move your way into deeper and greater learnings.
Matt Bailey: I, uh, I love that model. I, I think a few months ago in one of the other courses, someone brought up Grant Wiggins and the link to his video, and after watching just the first video, I think I ordered two of his books before the video was even over. Uh, so now I’ve got the, the understanding by design, uh, you know, different and I love it.
It, it because it distills down what are the takeaways that the learners have to have rather than, and, and this is what jumped out to me rather than as an instructor, what do I think they should know? Right? Uh, and, and then it becomes a laundry list of things that may not be entirely relevant. And I love that, that framework of what are the essential things they have to take away, but.
What really jumps out to me is the development of [00:33:00] questions that prompt the curiosity or that prompt the thinking towards that goal. Uh, I’m a big proponent of, of. Ask better questions and you’ll get better answers. You know, you know, to come back to that, that, you know, in all walks of life, if you ask a better question, you’ll get better information, and, and that model surrounds the development and that’s the hours of work is what’s a better question to ask.
And it results in more engaged students and it results in more highly focused activities and lessons for that specific result. So I’m glad you brought that up ’cause that is one of my favorite models.
Jennifer Summerville: And I think then it’s also really important to mention that, you know, when you talk about instructional design, it is systems theory.
So, uh, you know, it all boils down to [00:34:00] zeros and ones in a computer system. It’s the same kind of thing. It’s very logical, it’s very organized. But in my opinion, once you have some of that logical organization down and you know what action verbs you’re going to be using to describe what it is that you want to see from students, once you have that whole system down, the freedom to be creative within that space totally opens up.
If I teach a class where, and I, this never happens ever, okay? It happens all the time where I’m not very, I’m not fond of whether it’s discussion prompt or I’m not fond of a, um, an assignment that students do, or there are aspects of it that I, I think this is just way too hard. Why are we making it so hard?
Then what I’ll usually do. Much to some students chagrin is I’m like, there are no right or wrong answers. Just take a stab at it. And part of that is within [00:35:00] our field of instructional design. Sometimes that’s what you do, that a lot of what you do is you’re just trying to take a stab at it. You may be doing something new, you may be going about it a different way.
You may have to plan for worldwide, um, you know, online classes in a couple of days. Um, but you know, these are, are, we often have to fly by the seat of our pants knowing that we’re systems people. So there are times when things don’t work. We may have something that worked. Perfectly with a previous class or a previous training session, and it is going terribly with this new group for whatever reason.
So that’s when you know you need to be able to have this depth of creativity that allows you to be in shades of gray rather than total black and white systems theory zeros and ones. I, I submit to everyone that, that once you have this nice framework [00:36:00] that’s clean and you know what it should look like, I call it the expert path.
Once you know that, then the novice path gets to appear, and sometimes the novice path is just way more fun than the expert.
Matt Bailey: It can be I and, and I, I totally agree that, you know, your, your best designed course and yeah, launch it goes fantastic. Maybe one or two deliveries. Fantastic. And then you get a, a wall.
And what happened? Uh, and, and again, it’s. It could be the learners, it could be so many other external forces, but then you have to work through that, uh, and, and figure out what was it. Uh, that’s something I’ve experienced and I, we just covered that in that last course. Uh, and it was so valuable to hear other people’s, uh, inputs as far as how do you handle something like that?
What, how do you test it and how do you know if it’s the curriculum, if it’s the activity, it’s the instructions. Uh, and that’s [00:37:00] probably one area where I, I think. If, if I could put my finger on one area where things need to approve its instructions, I don’t think people take enough time in developing clear instructions.
And, and if you don’t have that, then it affects the activity. It affects the performance of the activity, affects then the, the grading of the activity even.
Jennifer Summerville: And that’s a fine line between. Having enough instruction and having too much. ’cause I have seen in the courses that I don’t develop, but I teach, um, I’ve seen the pendulum swing both ways.
Like they had not very good instructions at first, and students were kind of stressing about, you know, what exactly am I supposed to do here? And then in a class a few semesters later, I’m like. Now we have 20 pages of instruction and we can’t get through that either. So, you know, there is this, they
Matt Bailey: just keep adding and adding [00:38:00] as different problems show up.
Jennifer Summerville: And I’m like, oh my goodness. So there is some of that that happens. You always hope, oh my goodness. Do you hope as an instructor, as an instructional designer that your classes go off without a hitch the first time that you teach them? I can honestly say in my bazillion years of doing this, it has happened one time.
One time, and I was amazed. And the only reason that it happened is that the students that were in that class, there were only like 10 of them. They had been with me through every single class. We knew each other really, really well, and basically the class ran itself. I developed the materials and I just stood out of the way and let ’em talk.
Then the next time I taught the class, it was much, much larger. Um, it was a different time of year. It was during the summer. I didn’t know the students as well and talk about [00:39:00] hitches. It really was a very challenging class and a lot of students didn’t like it. They shouldn’t have been in the class in the first place.
They wanted to take it ’cause they had heard it was a really great class. But when you have a lot of K 12 teachers taking a corporate instructional design class, sometimes they don’t know why they’re even there.
Matt Bailey: Well, and I think that’s, that is really, I, I mean, thank you for sharing that, that because I mean, it really, I think, reinforces that nothing’s static. No. That even though you spent hours creating this course, you’ve got to be ready to change, adapt, tweak. Uh, you just can’t put it out there and call it a day.
Jennifer Summerville: No. And with online learning, you there again, we’re back to fine lines. With online learning, you do not have time as an [00:40:00] instructor to both develop the class while you’re teaching it. For the most part, it has to be completely done. When you hit that launch button, what you spend your time on as an instructor.
Is teaching, mentoring, making sure conversation is continuing, you know, allowing for some openness, being able to reign people back in if they go down, you know, some type of weird rabbit hole. But you also, if you see that the class is just not, there’s just something missing. That’s where you as the instructor have to jump in and say, let’s do things a little bit differently.
Let’s change this up. Let’s, I, you know, I, I, I can’t add in to anything that I teach. I can’t add in an extra assignment ’cause that just doesn’t work. But what I can do and what I try to do even within the discussions is I will take a spin on something that we’re talking about, or I will throw in something that I’ve [00:41:00] seen in one of my experiences and how it relates to what it is that we’re discussing.
That. And I think that that is. When you’re talking about online learning and you are an instructor or you’re a trainer. These are opportunities that you have to interject some additional information into a course or, or, you know, a training module or whatever it is to be able to reign a class back in if they, they’re off in tangent land or, you know, be able to, you know, provide some, some enrichment to a class that they are kind of seeming like they’re getting bored.
So there are all these different things that you can do, but that is what you have to do as an instructor. The instructional design aspect of that other than evaluation, really should be over by the time it launches. So if your instructor as designer as I have been many, [00:42:00] many times in my career. Then your job as instructional designer gets put, uh, you know, in, on the back burner and it becomes, then you’re an instructor.
Then you are, um, usually guide on the side more than sage on the stage, but you become the, the person who monitors and watches and pays attention and comes in to say, Hey, have you thought about this? Discuss. And it, it, it’s a living, breathing thing. These online courses, if they’re done properly,
Matt Bailey: that is such a great distinction to make that the, you know, the, the learning and training is in the development.
And then once the course is live, you are a manager.
Jennifer Summerville: Yep. That’s exactly right.
Matt Bailey: Yeah. And, and that, I, I, I’m not sure that that is the mentality that most people see online learning. Uh. I, I think they see it almost, uh, opposite that I’m managing the curriculum as it comes together, [00:43:00] but then I’m teaching when it’s live, and that’s not the case at all.
It’s, I like what you said, it’s mentoring, it’s guiding, it’s, you know, you’re, you’re almost a, a, a manager and an analyst at the same time, uh, working through the data that’s being produced as well as the feedback that you’re seeing and, and then making sure no one’s. Falling behind and challenging those that are, like you said, getting bored.
I, I think that is such a critical distinction to make, uh, about managing the course versus creating the course.
Jennifer Summerville: And the, the one thing, the higher level, the course is the less involved I become. So the class that you just took, for example, that it’s a higher level class. I probably spent more time teaching the other class that I was teaching than I did the class that you were in.
And it’s because I’m like, okay, let ’em go, let ’em go, let ’em discuss. Let them, you know, have [00:44:00] their time to, to peer teach, to, you know, be able to discuss some of these topics that, that they see in their own reality every day. Instead of having me come on and say, this is the way this must be discussed, you know, I just don’t do that.
And I try to have a very hands-off approach to discussion and to other aspects in the class because. It’s yours. It’s not mine. And it should never be an instructor’s main ego trip. It should be something that was built by an instructional designer and possibly a trainer and possibly an instructor and created by the membership that’s in that class or course or module.
Matt Bailey: Well, I could, yeah, from a, a business and graduate level. Uh, you know, from, you know, as a learner [00:45:00] in both, I enjoy those discussions and there, because, and that’s one thing I noticed with the, the course that, that I, or the courses that I’ve been taking most are, I would say K through 12. Educators. Uh, but I would say there’s probably about 10% of, of business, uh, trainers in there as well.
And while we’re sharing, you know, I feel a little kinship with the, the business trainers. We have a little more than common, but yet I’ve learned things from the K through 12 educators. And they’re learning that, oh wow. You know, here’s the corporate side of this as well. And yes, the, the amount of learning that takes place just in the discussions, but it’s, it’s not what I would call that book learning.
It’s, I’m hearing the experiences of others. And that contributes to the knowledge I’m gaining in how they’re applying that in different [00:46:00] ways. And you know, as an instructor, I only have my frame of reference, but in the discussions now I’m getting the experience of 20 or 30 other people and it, it, it adds that different facet.
To the content that we’re learning and, and that you don’t always get that in the in-person, but in online it is a powerful training method
Jennifer Summerville: and it’s forced, you know, you either do that or you don’t take a class. And you know, when I started doing this. So many years ago, um, you know, people, I remember that the, the last graduate level class that I taught in person, um, I was in Kansas.
My students, most of my students had a two hour drive, get there to sit through a three hour class and drive two hours back. The straw for me was that we had a tornado and some of my students were in this tornadic event. They were [00:47:00] all right as they were driving back home in the dark. So that sort of led me to like, I’m not doing this anymore.
This is just, we can do this a better way. And that is, you know, when you have situations like that, that kind of throw you into it where you know, you know that you have students who have this need. You know that you have, um, different and varied opinions. I, I’m not a K Twelver, I’m a mostly a higher education person with a smattering of corporate thrown in.
Um, but once you start to discuss with your, the people that are in your classes, you realize that, hey, you know, we’re not all that different. And of course we’re not that different. You know, our K 12 experiences guide. To us when we’re adults and how we teach and how we learn. Um, so, you know, it it, we may.
We may learn differently at different paces, but it’s, it’s basically the same fundamental building blocks when you [00:48:00] have a discussion and you just kind of let that discussion go and people can learn from each other. And there, there is the, the peer teaching and the, you know, we have peer reviews, which I love.
Um, all of that makes a very robust learning experience where people feel empowered not only to express an opinion, but also to give really good, constructive feedback. And I think that that is something that is critically important for online learning is that I can get feedback all day and all night, but who’s to say that my opinion is the right opinion?
My opinion may be more of an expert path, but there is something to be said for the novice path. Some of the best, the best assignments that I have ever developed have come from a conglomeration of ideas that my students gave me. Like, what would you like to see? And in many classes, if [00:49:00] we’ve got something that’s just not, I don’t really like it and I can’t put my finger on why I don’t like it.
’cause just to say I don’t like it, that’s not helpful, you know? But how do we fix this? Those ideas have come from my students, I would say nine times outta 10. Uh, the other time it’s just, you know, I’m walking down the street and all of a sudden a lightning bolt hits me in the face. But for the most part it’s, you know, the, my students have said, you know, I really liked it except I was confused by this thing, but I’m not confused anymore ’cause this is how I got through it.
And that to me is, that is very powerful. That makes a sustainable. Class that makes for sustainable programs, whether they are programs in higher ed or whether they’re K 12 programs, or whether they’re corporate training programs, it makes for sustainable things. If it’s not all you, um, designer as instructor or instructor as designer.[00:50:00]
Matt Bailey: That is fantastic. That is so good. And, uh, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll let you off the hook with that because that was just brilliant that, uh, you know, as instructors we are not, uh, you know, we’re not the sum total of all knowledge and that feedback is so critically important. And, and I can, I, I. I’m with you there that a lot of, some of the, the best ideas that I incorporate in my in-person training have come from feedback and, you know, what did you know?
They really like this? Didn’t like that so much. Okay, let’s figure it out. What, what could be better? So, Dr. J, thank you so much for your time today. I have enjoyed this discussion. I’m.
Kind of deal with the next few weeks and, and who knows what, what’s gonna happen in the next few months.
Jennifer Summerville: So I am hopeful that this, um, our experience, our collective [00:51:00] experience that we’re just going through for this blip in time will really create a lot of opportunities for people to learn that never had them before.
So that’s my excitement for, you know, the positive that can come out of this. And I really appreciate you asking me to do this, Matt. It’s, it’s been a lot of fun.
Matt Bailey: Oh, good. Thank you. And yes, I share the same sentiment. I think we’re going to have to, uh, reeducate the world what online learning is, and once we get through that, the result could be some very strong educational programs coming out over the next, uh, few years.
I, I look forward to that. As long as people are listening to you, I think we’ll be all right. Mm-hmm. Thank you so much. Alright. Thank you. Well, thank you so much, listener for listening in on the conversation with Dr. Jay. I hope you enjoyed that and especially with everything that’s going on, A lot of educational institutions, a lot of [00:52:00] online learning sites are opening up their catalogs, and so please.
If you’re interested at all in online education or would like to know more about instructional design and either knowing how to make online courses better or engage people at a different level, I encourage you to check into some of the principles of instructional design. I’m gonna list a lot of the resources that we talked about on the page at Site Logic, uh, right underneath the podcast so you can access them there.
And through this time, if you’ve enjoyed, uh, my stepped up series of podcasts over the past few weeks, you know, please go, uh, give us a rating, leave a note, uh, on iTunes. That’s how we can increase the listenership and continue to bring you, uh, the content that you enjoy. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend.
Stay safe, and boy, take advantage of this time. Don’t let it go to waste. Thank you so [00:53:00] much for endless Coffee Cup. Talk to you again soon.
