Tips for Virtual Teacher Professional Learning

ONLINE AND PROGRESSIVE - Tips for Virtual Teacher Professional Learning

— by Jim Vanides BSME, M.Ed., Online Instructor, National Teacher Enhancement Network, Montana State University

The educational principles described by Progressive Education Network begin with:

“The purpose of school expands beyond prevailing education policy and practice. Progressive educators support their students’ deep intellectual development and healthy identity formation—as developing individuals, as active learners within a school community, and as engaged citizens in the broader world.”

Those who have spent their careers providing high-quality professional learning experiences for teachers would quickly agree that the same could apply to adult learners. Drawing on some literary license, we might mirror the statement above in the context of professional learning:

“The purpose of educator professional learning expands beyond prevailing “professional development” practice.

Progressive professional learning for teachers supports their deep intellectual development and ongoing professional identity formation - as lifelong learning professionals, as active learners within a professional community of practice, and as educators who invite their students, and themselves, to be active citizens in the broader world.”

It’s a tall order. Is there a role that online learning can play to scale this high bar? Yes - if the online learning experience is designed thoughtfully to support this vision and model the progressive pedagogy teachers will be practicing in their own classrooms.

There are many effective ways to approach online professional learning for teachers. “Learning Online: What Research Tells Us about Whether, When, and How” provides an excellent frame to think about the possibilities. (see chart >)

ONLINE LEARNING DESIGN

OPTIONS (moderating variables)

MODALITY

• Fully online • Blended (over 50% online) • Blended (25–50% online) • Web-enabled F2F

PACING

• Self-paced (open entry, open exit) • Class-paced • Class-paced with some self-paced

STUDENT-INSTRUCTOR RATIO

• < 35 to 1 • 36–99 to 1 • 100–999 to 1 • > 1,000 to 1

PEDAGOGY

• Expository • Practice • Exploratory • Collaborative

ROLE OF ONLINE ASSESSMENTS

• Determine if student is ready for new content • Tell system how to support the student (adaptive instruction) • Provide student or teacher with information about learning state • Input to grade • Identify students at risk of failure

INSTRUCTOR ROLE ONLINE

• Active instruction online • Small presence online • None

STUDENT ROLE ONLINE

• Listen or read • Complete problems or answer questions • Explore simulation and resources • Collaborate with peers

ONLINE COMMUNICATION SYNCHRONY

• Asynchronous only • Synchronous only • Some blend of both

SOURCE OF FEEDBACK

• Automated • Teacher • Peers

Source: Content adapted from Barbara Means, Marianne Bakia, and Robert Murphy, Learning Online: What Research Tells Us about Whether, When and How (New York: Routledge, 2014).

The course I have been teaching for the last 18 years is a conceptual physics course - a hands-on, guided-inquiry course designed for upper primary grade teachers. Referring to the modality chart on page ?, my course is • Modality - fully online • Pacing - class paced (each week, new content, activities, and discussion topics are released) • Student:Instructor Ratio > small seminar (7-15 learners at a time) • Pedagogy - mostly exploratory (experiments and projects), with some collaboration and LOTS of group discussion) • Role of Online Assignments - provide (formative) feedback to learner and instructor. Yes, I grade some of it, too (begrudgingly, as required by accreditation) • Instructor Role - active presence (but I wouldn’t call it all “instruction”) • Student Role - explore and collaborate • Online Synchrony - asynchronous (with optional synchronous “live” office hours) • Source of Feedback - teacher and peers

But this doesn’t tell the whole progressive design story. When I designed the course 18 years ago, my goal was to recreate, as best as possible, the engagement and curiosity that came from an on-ground week-long summer workshop on the same Science of Sound topic. Knowing that I couldn’t entirely replicate the experience, I challenged myself to create an experience that would have similar value to the teachers, while retaining the progressive philosophy expressed in the research about how people best learn science. • Guided Inquiry - providing opportunities to explore and wonder by DOING science, not just reading about it, with facilitation and guidance from the instructor • Learning Together - each cohort of teachers becomes a “community of learners”, sharing what they know and what they are wondering about. The discussions are where the understanding takes shape. • Alternative Assessments - where measuring conceptual understanding is more important than determining how well students have memorized facts • Reflection to spark metacognition - “thinking about your thinking” is built into the course, as it helps participants see their own progress, find their own questions, and helps me know “what sparked their curiosity this week”.

With these in mind, my Science of Sound course has the following elements: • Things to read • Things to watch - including short videos, as well as a virtual “tour” and an interview with professionals who use the Science of Sound • Things to do - explorations that in some cases us materials from a modest

“kit” of supplies shipped to each participant, and projects (such as building a schematic model of the ear) • Creating a science notebook to capture predictions, experimental plans, experimental findings, questions, and reflections on science teaching read • Discussion - lots of discussion, actually; each week has 3-4 topics which watch require a posted reply plus the expectation that everyone will respond to others with some high quality comments and questions do • Assessment - but not traditional tests. Formative insights (and ultimately create their grades) come from: • An open-ended concept map, early in the course (pre) and again at discuss the end. To learn more about how to design this type of score-able open-ended assessment activity, see “Using Concept Maps in the assess Science Classroom” (Vanides, Yin, Tomita, and Ruiz-Primo, NSTA Science Scope, Summer 2005) • The quality of their weekly science notebook entries • The quality of their contributions to the discussions • Submitted projects NOTE: There are no simplistic, auto-scored multiple-choice tests on science facts, and there are no “timed tests”. What is so intriguing about asynchronous online discussions (threaded discussion boards) is that they provide a way for deep intellectual engagement to happen in a way that is quite different from in-person conversations. Much has been written about the “affordances” and characteristics of asynchronous discussions: In essence, everyone answers at the same time - in their own time. Turn-taking has more parallelism, allowing everyone the same opportunity to share their thoughts • To some extent, it levels the “playing field” in discussions. Discussion aren’t dominated by the learners with the most outward enthusiasm and volume; reflective, “introverted” personalities aren’t swamped by the extroverts in the room • There is more time to think - and continue thinking. The quick repartee of a seminar discussion can be invigorating - but it can leave out the voices of those who take time to gather their thoughts. In an asynchronous discussion, one has the option to ponder for days before posting or replying • Facilitation is more measured. In studying traditional live discussions, Mary Budd Rowe’s research on waittime clearly showed that the time between asking a question and calling on a raised hand to answer is often less than 1 second; the preferred practice is to count to 10 before calling on someone so that more hands go up, and more minds are engaged. In an asynchronous discussion, the best wait time can often be DAYS; if the facilitator responds too soon, fewer students participate.

I have personally experienced, year after year, how the asynchronous discussions are far deeper and scientifically engaging than the discussions in my original on-ground face-to-face workshops. For example, I begin with an discrepant event called The Cocoa Mystery. On-ground, it’s a demonstration of filling a mug with powdered cocoa-mix, adding hot water, stirring with a spoon to mix it, then tapping with the spoon on the inside bottom of the mug - and listening to the sound (try it! You’ll be surprised…); online, it’s an activity they do on their own and then report their findings in the discussion area.

In person, the activity took about 30 minutes, including a lively discussion about what might be causing the sound to behave as it does. But the first time we did this online (asynchronous), the threaded discussion LIT UP (everyone had theories and ideas) - and more interestingly, the discussion lasted for six weeks!

Clearly the online teachers were engaged and couldn’t stop thinking about the mystery. They reported waking up in the middle of the night with more questions and ideas for testing their theories using other liquids and mixtures. Unlike the 30 minute workshop demo, it became a platform for inquiry - and it was great fun.

Let’s be honest: Deep intellectual engagement doesn’t happen from a demo or in a lecture hall alone - at best, it happens AFTER an inspiring lecture or curious demo; more often, it happens in the course of smaller discussions (seminars) and personal reflection, supported by thoughtful facilitation and guidance.

Watching videos online won’t make people smart. Sadly, it makes people THINK they’re smart - but they don’t know what they don’t know until they go deeper, apply what they think they know, then think-it through again, talk it out and wrestle with what doesn’t make sense. Then the learning begins to take root.

Yes, effective and engagement teacher professional learning can be accomplished online - especially when we leverage what we know from the learning sciences and the principles of progressive education.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Vanides is a senior education and industry consultant to organizations around the world that are passionate about creating extraordinary learning experiences for students. His consulting practice focuses on working with education and industry organizations to create new possibilities through partnerships. Jim’s experience includes more than a decade of leading global education philanthropy initiatives for HP. From the launch of his engineering career in Silicon Valley to today, Jim has been a tireless advocate for STEM(+) education and teacher professional learning. He serves as an advisor for the California Science Project, an initiative of the University of California Office of the President, and for 18 years has been teaching science teachers online through Montana State University. Jim is also an adjunct faculty member for the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College. Jim holds a BS in Engineering and a MA in Education, both from Stanford University. james.vanides@montana.edu