Notes on 'POGIL Best Practices in an Asynchronous Environement'

Here are my notes from my later viewing of the POGIL Best Practices in an Asynchronous Environment webinar by Claire Major and Kevin Forgard.

• Focus is on asynchronous environments, using POGIL principles, not necessarily 'How to do POGIL online.'
• Planning online courses;
• (Claire) Backwards design is a good start (learning objectives, assessments, processes, etc.) Our own experiences (and lack of) in online learning makes teaching online more difficult. 
• (Kevin) Purposeful course design is one thing we have to do for all courses, but online there is much more planning, how to organize learners, how are we going to communicate, more front loading of assignments and materials, etc. 
• (K) If given a course and asked to 'plug-and-play' that can be difficult for some instructors. 
• (K) In thinking about group work and POGIL principles, how are we going to plan to be in the discussion forums, roles, management, etc. What about online skill sets of individuals? (First time online learner, etc.)
• What about blended, hybrid, hy-flex models?
• How can we make an engaged online experience?
• (K) Community of Inquiry Framework - Cognitive presence, teaching presence, social presence. Online courses is not taking face-to-face courses and putting them online, need to adapt. Need to think about formative assessments and how that informs your next steps/JiTT.
• (K) The use of videos doesn't have to be high production. As an example, a finance instructor took a short video in front of a bank and discussed what are banks, why we need them, whats the purpose of them. What about students creating videos?
• (K) Communicating systems beyond emails and discussion boards, Slack and Teams given a more flexible way, less formal to communicate that isn't open to the internet. You as the faculty member are modeling what it means to communicate, and really leading the course. 
• (C) Engagement - the cognitive part (deep thinking, intellectual effort) and the affective part (feeling, sensing). How can we motivate students to learn, wanting to learn, valuing the task, etc. If we don't have that part the course really isn't going to happen. There are things we can do to provide motivation; creating authentic tasks, students create professional products, etc. Make the material deep, meaningful, connected to their personal lives, relevant, etc. 
• (C) We also need to plan for their cognitive engagement. Is it that some students don't try very hard, or don't know how to try very hard? Do students know how to perform deep learning vs. shallow learning. In thinking about our tasks we have to think about how do we move them from lower levels of intellectual engagement to higher levels. We can do that regardless of the task. Passive learning isn't a thing, even in lectures where you have to listen actively. 
• (C) If tasks are 'low level' then they could be moved up Bloom's Taxonomy by developing meta-cognition and/or analysis of these skills. (Ex Solving equations, moving from solving to determining when/how to improve on solving them.) We can create tasks that move students from low-level to high-level cognition. 
• How do we create this engaging environment online? We can do this ad-hoc in our class rooms, but online this is more difficult. 
• (C) Scaffolding! Ex. videos that convey information, we could use scaffolded guided notes. At the start of the term the notes may be fuller, contain more questions, etc. and later on in the term contain less. 
• How to scaffold the group work assignments?
• (K) By the end of the course we want there to be a metacognitive learning development, almost like a secondary learning objective. To get them there we have to scaffold the process. 
• (K) At the start of the term we could have very well defined roles, points for following those roles, etc. As the term goes on we could remove those scaffolds so by the end of the term, students are able to work on their own w/o our micromanaging. This could work for many levels of students.
• (K) Build your discussions with these external motivators (sticks and carrots, grades) in mind, and removing them over the course of the term. We know we've succeeded because there is a natural dialog that happens. It really is about planning. 
• "What's the end goal in mind?" POGIL Process Skills are part of the course and building them in. Let's talk about one of these and how we would build it into an online course. 
• (K) We want students to develop these higher order thinking skills. What about critical thinking? Are the learning outcomes aligned to those critical thinking skills? Can we have students take these ideas to the next level? (Project-based learning. Padlet) Critical thinking is really about getting students to develop mental models and externalize them, what are the schemas, how do they express that? Critical thinking is about creating that evidence, their rational, etc.
• How do we do that online?
• (K) Collaborative tools online. Ex. Google doc creating a common assignment. Using communication tools. Many of us think about the LMS as a delivery tool, but we can also use it to have students create tools. What about a lesson where we ask students to write a lesson, which turns into an electronic artefact? It could be added to a student's portfolio, 
• What about metacognition?
• (C) Structure and build over the term. Start out with short tasks and build up to bigger reflections. If I'm lecturing or in videos, pencutate it with a question "What are you doing right now? Write it down on a piece of paper." Students are surprised by how they lose focus. In videos there may be a question of "Is this now on 1.5x speed?" Create awareness of what their brains are doing?
• (C) Reflect on what students have done and learned. "What is the most important thing you learned?" 
• (C) In online courses have used 'ungrading assignments', where a certain portion of the grade is determined by students and how they want to be graded. Through the term ask a series of T/F questions on how they did. Ex. "I read all the assignments.", "I tried as much as I could have." etc.
• (C) Later on in the course ask students to do self-reflection, how they did as learners, how their preferences for learning helped them, extraneous things prevented them from course work.
• (C) "So what?" or "What now?" reflection assignments where you ask students "So you learned this material, what are you going to do with it?" or "Now that you've learned this material, what are you going to do with it?"
• (C) Create a personal learning environment through a concept map of how to learn the material after the term. 
• (C) Start with small things and build to bigger things to help them think about their learning, and how to think about themselves as learners. 
• What about student-to-student learning? What do I need to do online to create a format that can help that happen? What can I do as an instructor to promote group work?
• (K) Humanizing the experience. Creating a culture in the online course. What is the tone? Humor? Pathos or ethos? How do you model it? Students look to us. 
• (K) POGIL Roles, Reflector Roles, the opportunity to say "What happens in the group?" This is more about reflecting back on the group not instructors.
• (K) Make sure to have a good icebreaker discussion. "What is your gif?" Each week have a 'fun' discussion. At first it should be modeled, but over time it could be 
• (K) Want discussion boards to not be very formal, really want the comment sections on social media, YouTube, etc. Ex. a video of painting a ceiling with comments. How do we get students to do what they do out in the open internet in our classrooms with our learning objectives. 
• (C) Students are going to be communicating with each other. There will be 'back channel' discussion. How to put discussions into productive use?
• (C) Short informal videos. First is introducing themselves and really basic. Need to establish rapport. 
• (C) Build in group-work to ensure communication. Student work is done independently and is then contributed to the group so everyone has something to add. Don't want communication to become a problem.
• (C) In discussion boards have been difficult; wanting to replicate the in-class experience and it becomes really stilted. Discussions are very important, but they have to be structured differently. Weekly create for students that are shared out with students. Must be intentional with how discussion forums are structured to support communication centered on the learning outcomes. Communication for communication's sake isn't very helpful. 
• What about the asynchronous component? Social media is asynchronous communication. Are there timing hints we should build into the course. 
• (C) For me its about inclusiveness. Some students may not be on a laptop with a high-speed internet connection. They may be on a phone. No synchronous sessions. Assume students are not going to have not great internet access.
• (C) To get around this students have used Twitter, use videos for online discussions, but try to use low bandwidth tools and low communication tools.
• Last term we did things because we had to. What advice would you give faculty who are planning for fall. Could by hybrid, online, etc. What should instructors think about now for their fall classes?
• (K) Plan for the fact that students are taking online courses who may not have the resources or tools. Ask students at the beginning what their situation is. Have a survey over your needs and how you can adjust your needs. We want to meet the needs of students, and try to get them the resources they need. 
• (K) Plan on things messing up, so have some contingency plans in place. Mistakes happen.
• (C) Have taught hyflex with online course materials, with f2f sessions that included students Zooming in. Having contingency plans is critical. Be ready to pivot asynchronously. 
• (C) Even if nothing happens, there will be some students who can't come. How will we help those students?
• The biggest frustration of faculty is "How can I be ready for everyone, AND create an active learning environment that achieves my learning objectives, AND has all the high goals I want for students?" Nothing is as it is expected. 
• The traditional POGIL approach would suggest a concurrent synchronous environment (Zoom breakout rooms) but include students/groups who can't meet during that time working through the activities. How can an instructor constructively help them move forward? POGIL facilitators can do that f2f, but how do we do that online in a discussion board? We want students to learn and own the material, but not answer the question for them?
• (C) It is really hard. Refer students to each other, ask students to respond to each other. Give them a way to respond. For example, there is a format for them to follow. Possibly a compliment, ask a question, make a connection, make a comment, etc. There are many formats for guiding responses. (ED: Scaffold the experience!)
• (K) The purpose of these activities and our presence is that we're providing feedback. The feedback should be aligned to our goals for the activity. If the groups are behaving in the same way in a copy/paste, provide individualized content-specific feedback. If students may not have energy for a group activity, provide the feedback 'Step it up.' What is your relationship with students?
• Deadlines. How strict should we be with deadlines?
• (C) For weekly modules there is a routine; watch a video, read, application exercise, study guide, quiz, discuss, and then build towards a final product. The same kinds of activities are due on the same day of the week. Structure and repitition is really helpful. 
• (C) Send an email each week that lays out what they need to be doing. Don't use announcements very much, unsure if students view them. 
• (C) Send a text via GroupMe and students really liked it. Use student tools. Use reminders. 
• (C) Not super strict by an hour or a day. 
• Recommended to read over the following POGIL page; https://pogil.org/teaching-online-during-the-covid-19-crisis
• On the hyflex course, is it like teaching two courses?
• (C) While there is a lot of work that goes into building a good online course, I do think of it as one course. There is an efficiency in having everything online. From now on face-to-face courses will likely have a strong online course site. 
• (K) When you create course material for hyflex, you create a learning artefact. We want to create course materials that can be reused over and over.
• (C) We're creating an interactive online text. 
• Last thoughts. 
• (K) We're in a strange place, and running into a big experiment of how online learning works and can work. We should think about taking ideas in POGIL and expand it online. We will make mistakes. 
• (C) Situation the pedagogy first, and use the technology to support the pedagogy. How will the tech let me do this? Let the pedagogy lead!