Faculty Learning Communities: Online Synchronous Successful Example! FridayLive! 8/31 2pmET Online Free #TLTGfrlv TLTGroup

"Online Synchronous Faculty Learning Communities - It Can be Done Successfully!

Recommendations and findings from first full-year experience (with physician educators)."

We've gone way beyond tin can telephones!

August 31, 2012 at 2:00 pm ET - free to all. Register in advance

Guests: Charles “Chip” Finch, D.O., Chair, Department of Integrated Medicine, Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine (AZCOM); Tracy Middleton, D.O., Chair, Department of Family Medicine, AZCOM; Linda L. Carr, Ph.D., CEO, Faculty-Ed Solutions, LLC

Description and discussion, including assessment of effectiveness, of one of very first [almost] entirely online Faculty Learning Communities;

Lessons learned and recommendations - for presenters' and others' next online synchronous FLC (Faculty Learning Communities)

Many colleges and universities--including medical schools--are developing Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) as a means to provide meaningful faculty development. FLCs are voluntary, multi-disciplinary, year-long, structured communities of practice of size 8-12, meeting monthly (or bi-weekly) with a facilitator as a member, and include building community and the development of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.


This session will share the results of an attempt to measure the effectiveness of a Faculty Learning Community that adopted a synchronous, web-based format, supported by e-mail and learning management tools for both on- and off-campus clinical faculty at a medical school, including those preceptors in remote areas of the state. Effectiveness measures include both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (pre/post survey) assessments of the meaningfulness of this faculty development experience.

In this FridayLive!, the presenters and guests will discuss these findings and share experiences with and suggestions for using web conference technology in online Faculty Learning Communities. Presenters will address some of the following questions:

• How do Faculty Learning Communities differ from other types of faculty development programs?


• How effective was the online Faculty Learning Community in meeting the needs of the university medical school?
• What critical elements need to be considered when selecting web conferencing technology for faculty development (i.e., Faculty Learning Community)?
• What role did the co-facilitators, university administrator, faculty developer/consultant play in creating an effective online Faculty Learning Community?
• Under what conditions is an online Faculty Learning Community likely to be effective?
• What lessons were learned and what changes, if any, will be made with future online FLCs?

Selected participants' comments from FIRST online (via Webex) FLC session (Nov 2, 2010) as reported by presenter Linda Carr:

- "I think the technology is great ..."

Wading into Online Teaching Part Deux; Archive, Presentation Slides, & Chat Transcript #TLTGFrLv 20120420

PresenterJennifer McCrickerd

Associate Professor, Philosophy

Drake University

Text Chat Transcript - including links - Below

Digital Archive - full recording of this online session.
[Archive includes slides;  here is link to slides published separately - McCrickerd's presentation slides + Steve Gilbert's intro/close slides.]

Back in October, Jennifer agreed to teach an on-line class thinking it would stretch her skills as a teacher. Now that it is April and the course will begin in a couple of months, Jennifer appreciates the way that thinking about an on-line class has made her think about teaching and what means she uses and wants to use to achieve her goals. Most importantly, she is being forced to more explicitly draw on learning theory to inform her decisions because she doesn’t have any ‘standard’ approach to fall back on.

Steve Gilbert and 40+ online participants heard and responded to Jennifer's thinking about the final stages of preparation before launching her first online class. Be ready for lots of good discussion and interaction. Many useful suggestions, questions, and online resources were exchanged by voice and within the text chat.

This is the second in a series of visits with Jennifer about her journey into online teaching. The archive of our first conversation with her back in November is available to Individual Members in the Archives section of this website. We look forward to an update on her progress in the fall, possibly including some comments from her students.

Text Chat Transcript

Whose Voices Don’t Matter? Feb 24, 2012 FridayLive! #TLTGFrLv

New Options, New Trade-Offs 
Voice, text, video, F2F, autodidactism

Voice  and alternatives - relative capabilities, usefulness, i.e.,  in courses, entertainment (live theater vs. TV)

PANEL:  Chuck Ansorge, Beth Dailey, Sally Kuhlenschmidt

This Home Base Web Page:   tlt.gs/voiceetal

Description, Resources, Attribution/Citations

Emerson - Compensation Essay

This is a "banyan" or "banian" tree. See last sentence in quotation below.

Also, see link to Web page for FridayLive! special session "Staying Sane - in Insane Times."

A. "For everything you have missed, you have gained something else..."

B. "...the compensations of calamity are made apparent..."

See below for more extended versions of these two brief excerpts from "Compensation," an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Essays — First Series"; see further below for citation, links to full text.

A. 1st Excerpt:

"… Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something…."

B. 2nd Excerpt (part of last 3 paragraphs of the full essay):

" growth comes by shocks.

"We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent where once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, 'Up and onward for evermore!' We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards.

"And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men. ["banian" = tree; see picture above]

Image of banian tree from:
http://www.bungsang.org/doc01/baniantree10.jpg

Citation, access to full text of Emerson's "Compensation" Essay:

Essay III Compensation (First published 1841?)
Available free online from Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2944

Also see:
http://www.emersoncentral.com/compensation.htm and
http://www.emersoncentral.com/essays1.htm

"First published in 1841 as Essays. After Essays: Second Series was published in 1844, Emerson corrected this volume and republished it in 1847 as Essays: First Series."

Excerpts to Help Stay Sane - Quindlen

Link to Web page for FridayLive! special session "Staying Sane - in Insane Times"

A. "...always searching for some version of the truth...They have experienced firsthand the great soothing balance of human existence…"

B. "...biggest mistake I made is ...I did not live in the moment enough..."

As of May 1, 2007, you can find the full text of the Preface, 1st two essays in Chapter 1

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/bookExcerpt/978081297027

A. "Real reporters are always searching for some version of the truth so that, in the long run, they can assemble the truth about the world out of all the stories they have covered and the things they have learned. That is why, in contrast to the common belief that they are the world’s great cynics, the best journalists are the world’s great idealists. They have experienced firsthand the great soothing balance of human existence. For every disgrace there is a triumph, for every wrong there is a moment of justice, for every funeral a wedding, for every obituary a birth announcement."

Above is from the preface of Loud and Clear, by Anna Quindlen, Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (March 29, 2005)

B. Below an exceprt from the same book about life - with 3 young children.

Chapter 1 "Heart" "Good-Bye Dr. Spock":

"But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

"Attending Genocide Conference" (4.5 Mins - Video)

Please watch/listen to "Attending Genocide Conference." (4.5 Mins - Video)

[Photo copied April 13, 2007, from "Portfolio - Being Human - Philosophy of Teaching: This, Too, Is Part of Being Human" by Kathleen Z. Young, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, Western Washington University,

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/portfolio.htm]

This was one of first, and most provocative, responses to my request for examples of "clips" yesterday. It is embedded in a Website and related "portfolio" of materials that provide an excellent model for one way to extend the possibilities of a brief clip. By sending this sample I hope to prompt more of you to share clips and suggest different ways of using them.

This simply constructed videorecording is disturbing, perhaps profound. Young describes the atrocities of Srebrenica and her commitment to "not looking away." She ends with a hopeful explanation of new international responses to genocide. This clip is presented as her response to "Why did you take your students with you to the International Genocide Conference in Sarajevo?"

Please watch/listen to "Attending Genocide Conference" at:

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/showcase3.htm

First click on the above URL, then to begin this videorecording, click on the "play" (left-most) button on the control panel that appears beneath the viewing screen as shown here.

You may also need to increase the audio volume or listen carefully. It is worth it!

Please don't be intimidated by this example. We need to find a wide range of useful models. Far below in this message, I include links to a few other valuable examples that are much simpler. I hope more of you will be encouraged to share your first modest efforts! We need the LTA approach to 5-minute clips and hybrid workshops!

In four and a half minutes Kathleen Z. Young of Western Wash. U. calmly describes how she came to take a group of "… students to travel to Bosnia with me to attend an international conference on genocide in Sarajevo and participate in the excavation of a mass grave and the Muslim mass funeral and reburial of 600 of the 8,000 Bosniaks killed in the United Nation's 'safe haven' of Srebrenica in 1995."

You can go deeper into this experience and learn more about Young's teaching and the responses of some of her students by visiting other parts of this extraordinary Web-based "portfolio".

Student Reflections (about Genocide Conference trip - includes photos):

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/student_reflections.htm

Student Comments about Young as teacher:

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/student_comments.htm

Student Essay - text + photos - "Because I was There" - response to trip to Genocide Conference:

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005/young/becauseiwasthere.htm

Excerpt from Young's website:

"The first time I taught the class on Islam and Conflict in Europe it was as an unpaid labor to prepare interested students to travel to Bosnia with me to attend an international conference on genocide in Sarajevo and participate in the excavation of a mass grave and the Muslim mass funeral and reburial of 600 of the 8,000 Bosniaks killed in the United Nation's 'safe haven' of Srebrenica in 1995. From the conference in Bosnia, the students traveled with me to Den Hague in The Netherlands and attended the trial of the Slobodan Milosevic. Students went with me to the new International Criminal Court, also in Den Hague, to meet with a judge on the new court and discuss the importance of anthropology in ending the impunity of the rogue actions of leaders committing genocide and crimes against humanity and helping the weak and victimized have a forum to speak their truths."

_______________________________________________

Comment added to TLT-SWG Blog Posting April 12, 2007

From Karen Casto, Director, Center for Instructional Innovation, Western Washington University, Karen.Casto@wwu.edu

At the Center for Instructional Innovation at Western Washington University we have been using the concept of short videos as part of our innovative teaching showcase published on the web each year since 1999. In past years the showcases have a theme, with last year's being "educating global citizens". We create both written and video materials for these showcases and our goal is for both faculty at our institution and faculty from around the world to be able to use this resource.

Last year for the first time we used Google to host our videos, in part because we had an ever changing campus video environment, but mostly because Google provides statistics for each video, and also allows users to download the videos, search for appropriate videos, and use them for their own purposes.

The two highest rated and most viewed and downloaded, according to Google, from last year can be seen at:
Teaching Russian [2 Mins 53 Seconds - teaching basic Russian by speaking (almost) only Russian from very first class session + other suggestions - SWG]

Inviting class to accompany teacher who was invited to give a paper at international conference about/at memorial to srebendsa genocide; description of what happened at the conference and roles and responses of students
Attending Genocide Conference

The full showcase can be seen at 2005-06 Innovative Teaching Showcase

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/showcase2005

These videos are all made here at the teaching/learning center, mostly by students.

Share 5-Minute Clips, 5-Minute Hybrid Workshops

Please add a comment to this posting in which you provide a URL (Web address) for one or more 5-minute clips and/or 5-minute hybrid workshops. (Definitions below.)

Please add at least one sentence for each example in which you describe it. Please add your name and email address and any other contact info you would like - including times when you would prefer NOT to be contacted about this! If you have any trouble adding a comment, or simply prefer an alternative, send your info to gilbert@tltgroup.org

Thanks for your help!
Steve Gilbert

HERE ARE DEFINITIONS FROM HOME PAGE FOR THIS TOPIC
For more examples in many formats/media and other resources go to:
http://www.tltgroup.org/TLT5.htm

"5-Minute Hybrid Workshops" & "Clips"
Working Definitions - As of April, 2007
Use of term "hybrid" here is confusing to some. We welcome clearer 1 or 2 word alternatives.

Clip vs. Workshop
A "clip" is a pre-recording produced as a single computer file. It may include a variety of media elements: sound, images, text, etc.
A "5-minute hybrid workshop" is the combination of a "clip" AND some other files, activities, documents, ... intended for use together with a group of people in 5 minutes or less. (Of course, some groups may find the materials so fascinating that they extend the session well beyond 5 minutes!)

5-Minute Hybrid Workshops

• Less Than 5 Minutes
  When run without interruption, the pre-recorded elements require less than 5 minutes!
  [Note: The person "playing" the pre-recording may be so intrigued by some references that she/he may interrupt the session to examine those items more closely. Such activities may quite legitimately extend the required time well beyond 5 minutes!]

• Faculty/Professional Development (and the improvement of teaching/learning in specific courses)
  Its purpose is to support faculty development, professional development, teaching, or learning.

• Combination
  It combines SOME of the following: media, modalities, resources, plans, and activities.
  It can have both synchronous and asynchronous components.
  Example A: Entirely synchronous. Within a face-to-face meeting, use of a 2-minute pre-recorded explanation of a technique in conjunction with 1 minute of silent thoughtful reflection and 2 minutes of open discussion.
  Example B: Synchronous + Asynchronous: Within a synchronous online meeting, "play" a 2-minute pre-recorded introduction of a new topic, ending with clear instructions about how to submit questions and comments via a blog for an assignment that is intended to require each student to continue or extend his/her thinking about this new topic for a few more minutes whenever convenient within the next week.

• Individual or Group
  It may be intended for independent individual use or for group activities such as workshops. For example, a recording of an audio-narrated set of PowerPoint slides could be designed to introduce and demonstrate a single skill to a faculty member working alone in his/her office. Alternatively, an audio-narrated set of PowerPoint slides could be designed to explain a simple teaching strategy, describe one or two examples of its use, and suggest several questions for discussion among a group of faculty during a small portion of a departmental meeting.

• Internet-Accessible Components
  It includes at least some components available via the Internet.

• Low-Threshold
  It is to some extent an LTA [Low-Threshold Activities/Application]

FridayLive! Google Docs & Spreadsheets [5 min. audio attached; slides also avail]

Join us for FridayLive! Demo/Discussion of Educational Uses of Google Docs & Spreadsheets 2pm EST Friday, March 9, 2007. For free-but-required advance registration,

click here.

For more info, including several alternative versions of the 5-minute intro/prep workshop, and some additional resources and guidelines for using Google Docs,
click here.
Recommendation: Try Google Docs!! Watch/listen/use the 5-minute intro [preparatory] workshop created by Cindy Russell esp. for this event!


Why bother? Easy to use. Reliable, accessible. Good for joint planning, collaborative work. Many potential educational uses - esp. well-suited for student collaborative projects.

The following lists of features are intended to help you decide how to use this free resource most effectively. Please suggest additional items for these lists of Advantages, Educational Uses, or Disadvantages by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" just below this posting.

Advantages: Free and relatively easy Web-based tool for creating and collaboratively editing documents online. Resulting documents are similar to wikis, blogs, but easier to edit and share, publish or hide. With Google Docs, previous versions of the document are always accessible and it is easy to see who made which changes. However, the most easily visible version is the aggregation of all previous changes, completely hiding the process by which it was developed. First time users can be assured that they do not need to worry about making mistakes - no matter what they do, the favorite contributions of each collaborator are always still accessible and can be retrieved and displayed elsewhere or re-integrated into the document. It is relatively painless to establish the online account required for active participation. There seems to be no inappropriate use of the info that must be given to obtain the account. Google's financial success makes it likely that documents created by using this service will not disappear and neither will the service.


Educational uses: Many. Especially nice for student teams in which someone is likely to worry that his/her contributions will not be matched by comparable work done by each team member. At any time, anyone who has permission, can easily view previous versions and see who has made which contributions.


Disadvantages: This tool keeps improving but some functions still work with unpredictable delays. The results of some kinds of attempts to change formatting can also be difficult to predict. Many people who begin working on a Google Docs document for the very first time find it a little more challenging than ideal to understand and follow the directions that are automatically sent as part of an invitation to become a "collaborator" on a Google Docs document. Establishing another online account - with user name and password - is required for active participation.


NOTE: MORE DETAIL THAN YOU PROBABLY WANT OR NEED ABOUT ADDING A COMMENT
To be sure we receive your comment, click on one of the options below the box in which you entered your comment. Then type in the letters that you see in the weird script in the most obvious place - the "word verification" box. THEN CLICK ON "LOG IN AND PUBLISH" - DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE "LOG-IN" PART. You do NOT need to have a Blogger account to leave a comment. If you wish to comment anonymously, click in the circle to the left of that option. If you want to avoid getting a Blogger account, but want to indicate who you are, add your name and contact info WITHIN your "comment" and then choose the "anonymous" option.

Hybrid (Blended) Faculty Development & Professional Development

How can we use some of the new technologies to help meet the increasing need for faculty development and professional development that those technologies are also creating? How can we improve undergraduate teaching and learning?

Hybrid professional development, hybrid faculty development, and hybrid undergraduate courses can be part of the answer.

NOTE: The terms "hybrid" and "blended" are used almost interchangeably. I prefer "hybrid" because the other term implies more complete integration of the parts than is often possible - or desirable.

Hybrid Education: Synchronous and Asynchronous; Face-to-Face and Distance; Virtual and Tangible; Local and (Inter)National; Mixing Media; Using Web 2.0 Options AND older asynchronous options!

Goal: Provide something BETTER than was possible via any of the components ALONE.

-=-=-=-=-=-=---=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-

We know we can't keep up separately. How can we do better together? How can we use some of the new technologies to help meet the increasing demand for faculty development and professional development that those technologies are also creating?

Hybrid-Hybrid Professional Development is part of the answer.

The accelerating pace of development and access to new technologies with educational potential keeps

1. increasing the need and expectation for professional development

2. increasing workload and decreasing discretionary time for faculty and other academic professionals

3. increasing availability of tools and resources that seem likely to help cope with this overload

This collaborative approach to professional and faculty development is based on ten years of work by the TLT Group which began with a focus on intra-institutional multi-role collaboration (TLT Roundtables) and has shifted more recently to focus on inter-institutional collaboration and greater reliance on WebCasts, Web 2.0 and other Internet-based resources. The TLT Group has learned to develop and offer hybrid professional development by working collaboratively with a variety of professionals from a variety of institutions, because, more than ever, no one can keep up with everything.

The heart of the current model is learning to match what can be done best in face-to-face settings run by local campus professionals with what can be added by providing access to experts and activities who are located elsewhere via online synchronous and asynchronous activities. In particular, we design and support online synchronous live Webcasts including multi-directional audio and a variety of visual displays and interaction options IN CONJUNCTION WITH local gatherings of small groups.

Some of the small groups are linked to the "outside" via a single computer in their meeting room; some participate co-located but with each participant individually logged in within a computer lab; some participate with individual computer connections from their own offices or other campus locations. The success of these ventures depends on effective communication and collaboration among the local leaders and the online presenters. Some of the local leaders can share skills and knowledge that is valuable not only on their own campus but elsewhere too.

Importance or relevance to other institutions: There are so many platforms, operating systems, and software applications available to educators that finding a way through the maze individually can often interfere with the basic need to communicate and work together. The TLT Group has worked over the last ten years to use new technologies and new pedagogies to support, not undermine, communication and collaboration in pursuit of the improvement of teaching and learning. This "hybrid" collaborative professional development has been largely facilitated by offering moderated synchronous, multidirectional, voice, text, and visual applications using web conference interfaces. The synchronous environment is then complimented by asynchronous resources such as blogs, RSS feeds, web pages, and wikis - and whatever other options have emerged recently from Web 2.0, etc.

"Take 5 for Teaching" Five-Minute Workshops - Example, "The Last Day of Class"

Provided by Todd Zakrajsek, Director, Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching (FaCIT), Central Michigan University. EMAIL: zakra1t@cmich.edu


Several examples available at:
http://facit.cmich.edu/whats-on/archive.html

[5 MINUTE VIDEO] "The Last Day of Class"
Need QuickTime or similar player.
http://facit.cmich.edu/videos/tfft-last-day.html

To what extent is it useful to have this available as a 5-minute video recording?
vs. Audio recording?
vs. Text description?

Which combinations of video, audio, text, etc. and a possible face-to-face session would be especially useful? For which purposes?

List of main points from video presentation:

• Food
• Undergrad research possibilities
• Review syllabus
• Link course content to life
• Greet students by name
• Ask for student feedback
• Discuss what current students would write to students who take course next term
• Discuss next semester
• 3 most important things learned in course
• Describe what TEACHER has learned
• Self-addressed stamped envelopes for students - encourage later feedback
• Course-evaluation survey at BEGINNING of session
• Resist urge to cram in more topics
• Discuss purpose of course and hopes

Help! Need webcast telephone connection!

Need 2-way link between Webcast and telephone conference call.

• Prefer software interface solution (e.g., linking Skype phone call with Webcast connection INSIDE a computer).
• Hardware device linking computer, phone and headset would be OK, but Andrea PCTI device is inadequate due to local radio interfeernce.

CHALLENGE
Some people who participate in the Webcast cannot use a headset connected to a computer for audio participation, so they need to be able to use a telephone to connect to a conference call to hear and be heard.

GOAL

1. Run live Webcast with 2-way link to telephone conference call.
2. This link must be monitored and controlled by someone via a headset.
3. Everyone who is participating in phone conference call must be able to hear everything that is "broadcast" by the Internet Webcast.
4. Each person who is participating in the phone conference call must be ABLE TO BE heard by everyone who is participating via the Internet in the Webcast. This person needs to be able to click on the microphone to speak option in the Webcast when someone in the telephone conference call wants to speak and be heard by others on the Webcast.