Check out these great shares from our Division A scholars!
We used two calls for scholar shares for this newsletter, and both are shared below. First, we present shares about working during the challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Second, we present shares about resources for effective online instruction.
First, here are shares about Working During the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic:
George Theoharis shared:
Rebecca Lowenhaupt and I have edited a book due out March 2021 titled "Parenting in the Pandemic: The collision of school, work, and life at home" (Information Age Press). The book features 44 auto-ethnographic essays from education faculty on navigating the realities of parenting during COVID. The essays are organized in 3 sections: Section I: “Fierce Urgency of Now:” Pandemic Parenting, Justice & Identity; Section II: “Got to Go Through It!” Schooling at Home; Section III: “We are here for the storm”: Seeking balance in the midst of crisis. It is worth the read as the essays are beautiful in how the capture the weight, struggle and joy of this moment.
Ty-Ron Douglas shared:
Here is a link to my blog.
www.tcpress.com/blog/class-leading-pandemic/
Daniella G. Varela shared:
In January 2020, I became an assistant professor. When COVID-19 rocked our world just a few weeks later, I suddenly had 3 children learning at home and a fatigued husband (essential frontline worker) trying to balance fear with duty. All the while I felt this nagging obligation to prove myself as the new kid in a space no one really knew how to navigate yet. After a week's long roller coaster ride of emotions and (ahem) outbursts, I decided I needed to rededicate myself to myself. I began an exercise regimen to improve my mood, focus, and energy. I stopped obsessing over daily case counts and instead obsessed over healthy new recipes and overdue home projects. I turned my curiosities about how to best adapt and overcome into research opportunities (and finished the year with 5 peer-reviewed publications). I studied mental health and its influence on educational leadership. We have an incredible opportunity to reshape the future of education, but we cannot be so internally broken that will lose sight of our individual potential. Instead of relying on “when things go back to normal,” we must nurture and protect confidence in our ability to move forward. Take care of yourself, first!
Jenny Dutton shared:
Teaching in both face-to-face and online formats from undergraduate to doctoral learners, it's important to know that, while we are physically separated, they are still a valuable part of the learning community within their courses. Whether students physically attended class or connected through a video platform, its critical to show our (as professors) appreciation of the students. Be encouraging, caring, flexible, and yet teach the course to standards so students walk away learning something about the material and can feel good about their perseverance. This is a time to support and engage students on a more personal level. I have also adjusted my curriculum to include leading in a COVID-19 environment. How do we lead virtual teams? How do we still contribute to the success of the organization?
Elizabeth Walker shared:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, REFLECTION has allowed me to thrive. As a full-time, non-profit leader, an EdD student at USC, and a mom to a teenager, the pandemic has slowed down my life considerably. Pre-pandemic, I traveled for work every other week, ate poorly, drank too much, ran from one meeting to another, and didn't exercise enough. Like many families, mine has experienced considerable loss during the pandemic — the loss of my young nephew and my great uncle, the loss of my favorite feline, the loss of my independence and control. Further, parenting a teenager during this time has proven to be especially interesting! In addition to the loss though, I have gained a love of "reflection." As a primary tenet of my doctoral program, I was introduced to reflection last year. I now carry small reflection notebooks with me wherever I go—in my purse, in the car, in my backpack—so that I can jot down "ahas" that arise in my readings, new learnings that can be applied at work, conceptual frameworks for my dissertation, how to parent better at the next opportunity. Reflection has been "my mindfulness" and a way to better connect with my authentic self and my goals (and, just like an old diary, it's fun to go back and read the entries).
K. Kayon Morgan shared:
During the Fall 2020 semester, I taught Organizational Theory and Qualitative Research to the same group of students consecutively on the same night. This meant that I had doctoral students who had worked all day, were tired, had family commitments tugging at every fiber of their being, all while trying to remain present and focused for five hours in class. My strategies for self-care that led to a successful semester were:
Kimberly Kappler Hewitt shared:
I have leveraged several strategies to promote wellness and productivity. In terms of productivity, I have maintained a daily writing practice of writing at least 30 minutes each morning M-F. This is a practice advocated by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (see here for a brief newsletter article about it: https://www.facultydiversity.org/octobernews20). It keeps my scholarship moving forward. For wellness, I have been keeping a gratitude journal and writing in it each morning when I wake up. There's substantive research about the positive effects of gratitude (see here for a brief article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-transformative-power-_2_b_6982152). Also, I recently started scheduling one hour of wellness time every other week. During this hour, I do whatever I want to in that hour, as long as it isn't anything on my to do list. I LOVE this time. It fills my bucket and allows me to be spontaneous. I especially like to use the time to take a solo hike and picnic at a nearby lake.
Brooke Soles shared:
Transhumanism, Future Studies, and Educational Leadership
Higher education must engage its educational leadership graduate students in futures studies to ensure equity and access for everyone and get comfortable with the uncomfortable. I understand the coronavirus has changed the way we live and work. I also understand COVID-19 and our current context of exposed racial injustices has highlighted inequities in our educational systems. What must follow is a radical examination of how these inequities occurred and implement changes through collective, anti-oppressive conversations. One definition of transhumanism (Gidley, 2019) is embracing direct application of medicine and technology to overcome our basic biological limitations; another definition of transhumanism addresses human progress and improvement through education and culture (Bostrom, 2005). If the former definition can be used to engage in effective teaching and learning online to avoid receiving and transmitting the coronavirus, how might the latter definition function as a conduit for human progress and improvement through education and culture to address our deeply racist and oppressive schooling systems?
Bostrom, N. (2005). A history of transhumanist thought. Journal of evolution and technology, 14(1), 18.
Gidley, J. M. (2019). Transhumanism. In H. Paul (Ed.), Critical Terms in Futures Studies (pp. 319-326). Palgrave Macmillan.
Charles Steven Bingham shared:
My first response is but a singe word--grace. But, first, the backstory, I am sure all too familiar with many of my Division A colleagues charged with teaching practitioner scholars.
My EdD students are all working as professional educators, primarily but not exclusively in K-12. Many are teachers, administrators, and parents of school-aged children, all of whom at some time or another have been learning remotely.
My university courses, including how I interact with my dissertation advisees and interns, have been challenged by uncertainty and volatility as face-to-face classes and meetings were cancelled. Particularly hard hit were courses, heretofore with no online component, now transformed into virtual sessions.
I appreciate the advances in virtual learning and applaud my colleagues who have risen to the challenges of online instruction. I myself have developed technical skills I never knew I would need.
But what has been most difficult is helping ambitious young and middle-aged professionals understand it's okay not to be perfect, especially in the Time of COVID-19. So my policy has become family-first, program-of-study second.
I suppose my new approach is working. After last fall experiencing the most stressful semester in my career, my students rewarded me with the most creative, innovative, and thoughtful course capstone projects and Student-Observation-of-Instruction ratings I have ever received.
Both my students' resiliency and mine have led to bonds of affection and deepened understanding about human nature and leading in difficult times heretofore unimagined. And we owe it to our permission to grant grace in all things.
Next, here are shares about Effective Resources for Online Instruction:
Mark E. Deschaine shared:
I have done presentations in the past related to flipped instruction. During the sessions, I utilized Hunter's ITIP and called our model IFLIP. The model was picked up by a blog and was highlighted here https://bit.ly/3t0Hhag. The pandemic has caused a renewed interest in IFLIP, and has supported appropriate lesson design and development utilizing flipped instruction.
Deschaine, M. (2018). Supporting students with disabilities in k-12 online and blended learning. Michigan Virtual University. https://michiganvirtual.org/research/publications/supporting-students-with-disabilities-in-k-12-online-and-blended-learning/. This resource highlights basic issues related to providing IEP driven supports and designs for students with disabilities in online learning environments.
Maxwell Yurkofsky shared:
drive.google.com/file/d/1Jw2yDiktc-N2IKx7qWIyHYFKApZ6uDUx/view?usp=sharing
Blum-Smith, S., Yurkofsky, M. M., & Brennan, K. (2020). Stepping back and stepping in: Facilitating learner-centered experiences in MOOCs. Computers & Education, 160, 104042.
This paper explores how a set of facilitation teams described enacting their learner-centered pedagogical aspirations through MOOC platforms. Drawing on in-depth interviews, we present a set of six facilitator actions: “giving up control,” “distributing facilitation,” “being live,” “amplifying,” “modeling,” and “being explicit.” We discuss these actions as emerging from the negotiation between existing pedagogical aspirations and the realities of a new medium, highlighting how they involve facilitators both stepping back (making space for and foregrounding learner expertise and perspectives) and stepping in (intervening and directing as a facilitator).
Ruth Best shared:
Here is an article entitled: Distance Teaching and Learning: Group Projects and Oral Presentations
learningandteachingexchange.wordpress.com/2019/08/14/distance-teaching-and-learning-group-projects-and-oral-presentations/
Brooke Soles shared:
Soles, Brooke; Maduli-Williams, Denise
Student Perceptions of an Accelerated Online Master's in Education Administration Program through the Lens of Social Presence
Educational Leadership and Administration: Teaching and Program Development, v30 p56-82 Mar 2019
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1206790
Here is an article in which I was featured that focuses on online instruction:
https://news.csusm.edu/ask-the-experts-education-covid/
Gerald Dryer shared:
www.leadershipforlearning.org/what-we-do/personalized-learning
This is a survey and PD system that I have designed as part of my research. It gives educators feedback about their practices of personalization and student agency.
dangerouslyirrelevant.org/
This is a great blog about education technology by Dr. Scott McLeod.
Suzanne E. McLeod shared:
www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/sept20/vol62/num09/Encouraging-Student-Participation-in-Distance-Learning.aspx
Even graduate courses need new approaches in distance learning to encourage active participation. This resource from the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development inspired our Educational Policy class to take a virtual field trip to the Southern Poverty Law Center, considering its significant and continuing contribution to shaping US educational policy. An email outreach resulted in a field trip tailor-made to course objectives, enlivening the routine of class after class via computer screen. Based on the success, this semester we are exploring a field trip possibility to a presidential library to enhance our learning about leadership.
Zarna Shah shared:
Here is an article with helpful ideas:
www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/07/12/7-guidelines-effective-teaching-online
Thank you to all the contributions from our Division A scholars!
We used two calls for scholar shares for this newsletter, and both are shared below. First, we present shares about working during the challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Second, we present shares about resources for effective online instruction.
First, here are shares about Working During the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic:
George Theoharis shared:
Rebecca Lowenhaupt and I have edited a book due out March 2021 titled "Parenting in the Pandemic: The collision of school, work, and life at home" (Information Age Press). The book features 44 auto-ethnographic essays from education faculty on navigating the realities of parenting during COVID. The essays are organized in 3 sections: Section I: “Fierce Urgency of Now:” Pandemic Parenting, Justice & Identity; Section II: “Got to Go Through It!” Schooling at Home; Section III: “We are here for the storm”: Seeking balance in the midst of crisis. It is worth the read as the essays are beautiful in how the capture the weight, struggle and joy of this moment.
Ty-Ron Douglas shared:
Here is a link to my blog.
www.tcpress.com/blog/class-leading-pandemic/
Daniella G. Varela shared:
In January 2020, I became an assistant professor. When COVID-19 rocked our world just a few weeks later, I suddenly had 3 children learning at home and a fatigued husband (essential frontline worker) trying to balance fear with duty. All the while I felt this nagging obligation to prove myself as the new kid in a space no one really knew how to navigate yet. After a week's long roller coaster ride of emotions and (ahem) outbursts, I decided I needed to rededicate myself to myself. I began an exercise regimen to improve my mood, focus, and energy. I stopped obsessing over daily case counts and instead obsessed over healthy new recipes and overdue home projects. I turned my curiosities about how to best adapt and overcome into research opportunities (and finished the year with 5 peer-reviewed publications). I studied mental health and its influence on educational leadership. We have an incredible opportunity to reshape the future of education, but we cannot be so internally broken that will lose sight of our individual potential. Instead of relying on “when things go back to normal,” we must nurture and protect confidence in our ability to move forward. Take care of yourself, first!
Jenny Dutton shared:
Teaching in both face-to-face and online formats from undergraduate to doctoral learners, it's important to know that, while we are physically separated, they are still a valuable part of the learning community within their courses. Whether students physically attended class or connected through a video platform, its critical to show our (as professors) appreciation of the students. Be encouraging, caring, flexible, and yet teach the course to standards so students walk away learning something about the material and can feel good about their perseverance. This is a time to support and engage students on a more personal level. I have also adjusted my curriculum to include leading in a COVID-19 environment. How do we lead virtual teams? How do we still contribute to the success of the organization?
Elizabeth Walker shared:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, REFLECTION has allowed me to thrive. As a full-time, non-profit leader, an EdD student at USC, and a mom to a teenager, the pandemic has slowed down my life considerably. Pre-pandemic, I traveled for work every other week, ate poorly, drank too much, ran from one meeting to another, and didn't exercise enough. Like many families, mine has experienced considerable loss during the pandemic — the loss of my young nephew and my great uncle, the loss of my favorite feline, the loss of my independence and control. Further, parenting a teenager during this time has proven to be especially interesting! In addition to the loss though, I have gained a love of "reflection." As a primary tenet of my doctoral program, I was introduced to reflection last year. I now carry small reflection notebooks with me wherever I go—in my purse, in the car, in my backpack—so that I can jot down "ahas" that arise in my readings, new learnings that can be applied at work, conceptual frameworks for my dissertation, how to parent better at the next opportunity. Reflection has been "my mindfulness" and a way to better connect with my authentic self and my goals (and, just like an old diary, it's fun to go back and read the entries).
K. Kayon Morgan shared:
During the Fall 2020 semester, I taught Organizational Theory and Qualitative Research to the same group of students consecutively on the same night. This meant that I had doctoral students who had worked all day, were tired, had family commitments tugging at every fiber of their being, all while trying to remain present and focused for five hours in class. My strategies for self-care that led to a successful semester were:
- I logged in a half hour before class and played music, (mostly classical) until about five minutes into the start of class when all students were logged in.
- We took regular breaks to do deep breathing, stretch, and walk outside.
- I facilitated moments for students to connect on a personal level such as in breakout rooms or sharing their stories with the larger group. This fostered a sense of community but allowed for the social and emotional needs to be fulfilled rather than only focusing on academics.
- Assignments were adjusted as needed to lessen the demand and stress for students.
Kimberly Kappler Hewitt shared:
I have leveraged several strategies to promote wellness and productivity. In terms of productivity, I have maintained a daily writing practice of writing at least 30 minutes each morning M-F. This is a practice advocated by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (see here for a brief newsletter article about it: https://www.facultydiversity.org/octobernews20). It keeps my scholarship moving forward. For wellness, I have been keeping a gratitude journal and writing in it each morning when I wake up. There's substantive research about the positive effects of gratitude (see here for a brief article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-transformative-power-_2_b_6982152). Also, I recently started scheduling one hour of wellness time every other week. During this hour, I do whatever I want to in that hour, as long as it isn't anything on my to do list. I LOVE this time. It fills my bucket and allows me to be spontaneous. I especially like to use the time to take a solo hike and picnic at a nearby lake.
Brooke Soles shared:
Transhumanism, Future Studies, and Educational Leadership
Higher education must engage its educational leadership graduate students in futures studies to ensure equity and access for everyone and get comfortable with the uncomfortable. I understand the coronavirus has changed the way we live and work. I also understand COVID-19 and our current context of exposed racial injustices has highlighted inequities in our educational systems. What must follow is a radical examination of how these inequities occurred and implement changes through collective, anti-oppressive conversations. One definition of transhumanism (Gidley, 2019) is embracing direct application of medicine and technology to overcome our basic biological limitations; another definition of transhumanism addresses human progress and improvement through education and culture (Bostrom, 2005). If the former definition can be used to engage in effective teaching and learning online to avoid receiving and transmitting the coronavirus, how might the latter definition function as a conduit for human progress and improvement through education and culture to address our deeply racist and oppressive schooling systems?
Bostrom, N. (2005). A history of transhumanist thought. Journal of evolution and technology, 14(1), 18.
Gidley, J. M. (2019). Transhumanism. In H. Paul (Ed.), Critical Terms in Futures Studies (pp. 319-326). Palgrave Macmillan.
Charles Steven Bingham shared:
My first response is but a singe word--grace. But, first, the backstory, I am sure all too familiar with many of my Division A colleagues charged with teaching practitioner scholars.
My EdD students are all working as professional educators, primarily but not exclusively in K-12. Many are teachers, administrators, and parents of school-aged children, all of whom at some time or another have been learning remotely.
My university courses, including how I interact with my dissertation advisees and interns, have been challenged by uncertainty and volatility as face-to-face classes and meetings were cancelled. Particularly hard hit were courses, heretofore with no online component, now transformed into virtual sessions.
I appreciate the advances in virtual learning and applaud my colleagues who have risen to the challenges of online instruction. I myself have developed technical skills I never knew I would need.
But what has been most difficult is helping ambitious young and middle-aged professionals understand it's okay not to be perfect, especially in the Time of COVID-19. So my policy has become family-first, program-of-study second.
I suppose my new approach is working. After last fall experiencing the most stressful semester in my career, my students rewarded me with the most creative, innovative, and thoughtful course capstone projects and Student-Observation-of-Instruction ratings I have ever received.
Both my students' resiliency and mine have led to bonds of affection and deepened understanding about human nature and leading in difficult times heretofore unimagined. And we owe it to our permission to grant grace in all things.
Next, here are shares about Effective Resources for Online Instruction:
Mark E. Deschaine shared:
I have done presentations in the past related to flipped instruction. During the sessions, I utilized Hunter's ITIP and called our model IFLIP. The model was picked up by a blog and was highlighted here https://bit.ly/3t0Hhag. The pandemic has caused a renewed interest in IFLIP, and has supported appropriate lesson design and development utilizing flipped instruction.
Deschaine, M. (2018). Supporting students with disabilities in k-12 online and blended learning. Michigan Virtual University. https://michiganvirtual.org/research/publications/supporting-students-with-disabilities-in-k-12-online-and-blended-learning/. This resource highlights basic issues related to providing IEP driven supports and designs for students with disabilities in online learning environments.
Maxwell Yurkofsky shared:
drive.google.com/file/d/1Jw2yDiktc-N2IKx7qWIyHYFKApZ6uDUx/view?usp=sharing
Blum-Smith, S., Yurkofsky, M. M., & Brennan, K. (2020). Stepping back and stepping in: Facilitating learner-centered experiences in MOOCs. Computers & Education, 160, 104042.
This paper explores how a set of facilitation teams described enacting their learner-centered pedagogical aspirations through MOOC platforms. Drawing on in-depth interviews, we present a set of six facilitator actions: “giving up control,” “distributing facilitation,” “being live,” “amplifying,” “modeling,” and “being explicit.” We discuss these actions as emerging from the negotiation between existing pedagogical aspirations and the realities of a new medium, highlighting how they involve facilitators both stepping back (making space for and foregrounding learner expertise and perspectives) and stepping in (intervening and directing as a facilitator).
Ruth Best shared:
Here is an article entitled: Distance Teaching and Learning: Group Projects and Oral Presentations
learningandteachingexchange.wordpress.com/2019/08/14/distance-teaching-and-learning-group-projects-and-oral-presentations/
Brooke Soles shared:
Soles, Brooke; Maduli-Williams, Denise
Student Perceptions of an Accelerated Online Master's in Education Administration Program through the Lens of Social Presence
Educational Leadership and Administration: Teaching and Program Development, v30 p56-82 Mar 2019
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1206790
Here is an article in which I was featured that focuses on online instruction:
https://news.csusm.edu/ask-the-experts-education-covid/
Gerald Dryer shared:
www.leadershipforlearning.org/what-we-do/personalized-learning
This is a survey and PD system that I have designed as part of my research. It gives educators feedback about their practices of personalization and student agency.
dangerouslyirrelevant.org/
This is a great blog about education technology by Dr. Scott McLeod.
Suzanne E. McLeod shared:
www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/sept20/vol62/num09/Encouraging-Student-Participation-in-Distance-Learning.aspx
Even graduate courses need new approaches in distance learning to encourage active participation. This resource from the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development inspired our Educational Policy class to take a virtual field trip to the Southern Poverty Law Center, considering its significant and continuing contribution to shaping US educational policy. An email outreach resulted in a field trip tailor-made to course objectives, enlivening the routine of class after class via computer screen. Based on the success, this semester we are exploring a field trip possibility to a presidential library to enhance our learning about leadership.
Zarna Shah shared:
Here is an article with helpful ideas:
www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/07/12/7-guidelines-effective-teaching-online
Thank you to all the contributions from our Division A scholars!