Online Learning in the Second Half

John Nash & Jason Johnston
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  • ÉDUCATION
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In this podcast, John Nash and Jason Johnston take public their two-year-long conversation about online education and their aspirations for its future. They acknowledge that while some online learning has been great, there is still a lot of room for improvement. While technology and innovation will be a topic of discussion, the conversation will focus on how to get online learning to the next stage, the second half of life. Click here to give us feedback on our podcast!

  1. EP 36 - Miriam Reynoldson: The Open Letter Shaking Up the AI-in-Education Conversation

    11 NOV.

    EP 36 - Miriam Reynoldson: The Open Letter Shaking Up the AI-in-Education Conversation

    In EP 36, John and Jason talk to Miriam Reynoldson of Melbourne, Australia, about the Open Letter From Educators Who Refuse the Call to Adopt Gen AI in Education. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com Join Our LinkedIn Group - Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too) Guest Bio: Miriam Reynoldson is a learning design specialist, educator, and design facilitator working across higher ed, VET, and professional learning. She is currently completing an interdisciplinary PhD exploring the value of learning beyond formal education in postdigital contexts. Miriam researches and writes about education, sociology, and philosophy, and teaches educational design at Monash University. You can connect with Miriam at https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriam-reynoldson/ or her blog https://miriamreynoldson.com/ Resources: The Open Letter: https://openletter.earth/an-open-letter-from-educators-who-refuse-the-call-to-adopt-genai-in-education-cb4aee75 The Library of Babel listserve space: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/assembly The Design Justice Network: https://designjustice.org/ Michelle Miller’s “Same Side Pedagogy”: https://michellemillerphd.substack.com/p/r3-117-september-15-2023-reflection Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. Middle Music: Hello (Chiptune Cover) by RoccoW is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License. Transcript We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections! Miriam Reynoldson EP 36 [00:00:00] Jason Johnston: Miriam, you are part of an open letter from educators who refuse the call to adopt gen AI in education. Would you, for us, summarize what this letter's about before we get into the details? Miriam: So it's a really short letter. It's a 400-word statement that essentially positions a certain stance for educators, in saying, "I choose not to use GenAI to teach, to assess to build my course materials. And I do not want to sell these products to students to do their work, either. John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston. Jason Johnston: Hey John. Hey everyone. And this is Online Learning in the second half the Online Learning Podcast. John Nash: Yeah. We're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation that we've been having for the last almost three years now about online education. Look, [00:01:00] online learning has had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but a lot still isn't. And so how are we going to get to the next stage? Jason Johnston: John, that's a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it? John Nash: I think that's a great idea. What do you want to talk about, today, Jason Johnston: Today I'm not sure we've covered this at all. How about we talk a little bit about AI for a change, right? John Nash: Never Jason Johnston: That's a joke. Never heard of it. Well, I'm Just very excited today to be talking with Miriam Reynoldson. We connected on LinkedIn, and she is somebody I just really wanted to have this conversation with around ai. She's an instructor and a student, a learning designer in Melbourne, Australia. Welcome, Miriam. Would you maybe just introduce yourself to our listening audience a little bit? Miriam: No worries. I am a bit difficult to introduce because I really don't know where I am. I'm kind of juggling multiple identities at the moment and across multiple universities. So, [00:02:00] probably my primary identity in this conversation is mostly my teaching at Monash University. I'm also doing my PhD exploring non-formal learning in digitally mediated spaces at RMIT. I do a little bit of teaching there as well, and I'm also a digital learning design specialist. Jason Johnston: That's great. Yeah, we on LinkedIn and we'll probably talk a little bit more about how that came about, but a lot of it was around an open letter that you are part of an open letter from educators who refuse the call to adopt gen AI in education. And we'll include the link if anybody wants to preview that before we get into the conversation, we'll put the link in our, podcast. But Miriam, can you talk a little bit first about, how this open letter came about, what led you to do that and who you letter? open letter. Miriam: Yeah. The dirty secret really is that I was having a bit of a chat to a friend [00:03:00] of mine in Ohio, Melanie Dusseau, who as the first signature on the letter. And she had sent me a link to this letter that had been put together by Literary Hub in the us a consortium of publishers. And it was essentially a position from the public publishing industry. We don't support the use of AI to replace our authors, our editors or any part of the work that we do in furthering human creative expression. And I went to Melanie, "Why don't we have something like this, but for educators?" And I think she said to me, "Oh yeah, yeah, the Netherlands have just done that." And she sent me another one. And these amazing people, initially out of Radboud University in the Netherlands, had written this incredible really strongly worded letter presenting a position against the uncritical adoption of AI in academia. And I went, yeah, yeah, like that except not just [00:04:00] universities. So, we literally went, yeah, okay. We'll just we'll just put something together for like-minded educators who have made the personal choice and we're not going to say we're banning it or anything like that, but just essentially trying to create a space for educators like us who don't feel our voices are being heard. And I was going away for the weekend, so we kind of just whipped it up. Some exchange of messages. Melanie went, "Yeah, yeah, that's great. Let's go up." And it just went up and then kind of blew up. And so, I think we're just butting up against a thousand signatures now. But what's been much more striking to me is the hundreds of messages I've received from educators who are unable to publicly put their names to it but who feel profoundly sympathetic and struggling with the dissonance and challenges of being faced with mandates to adopt [00:05:00] or encourage students to adopt generative AI tools in their education spaces. So, I think that we're really just trying to create a space where It's safe to speak about how we feel. Even if that is not feeling, identical to the sentiment in the letter. Jason Johnston: Of these hundreds of educators that you've talked to, why do you think they feel like they support it, but they can't publicly support it. Miriam: It's a profoundly political situation. And we probably don't have enough time for a huge unpacking of global politics. And obviously I'm speaking to people in North America and I'm sitting here comfortably in down under. Jason Johnston: What's market like down under? Asking for a friend. Miriam: In university is absolutely shocking. So, I speak as a learning designer. That's been the vast majority of my career. And for learning designers, this is profoundly difficult [00:06:00] because we don't have our own syllabi, we don't have our own courses and our own ability to determine this is what our curriculum is going to be. We're there as support and we work with academics across universities to guide them, particularly in the technological aspects of the work that they're doing. And so, it generally means being agnostic to a whole range of things. But particularly to the technologies that are being trialed either by the academics or by the universities that have made partnerships with certain technology companies that makes it an incredibly political position to have more so for people in the third space than in academic roles. But as I'm sure you're both aware, academic freedom is a very fraught concept. And so, we, we do often self-censor because we're very [00:07:00] conscious of how tight the education job market is. Jason Johnston: it seems, anyways, yeah, that's a whole thing. It seems like we have educational freedom until we don't have it. Would you, for us just summarize what this letter's about before we get into the details? Miriam: No worries. So, it's a really short letter. We used a platform that doesn't allow hyperlinking. There's no references or anything like that. It's a 400-word statement that essentially positions a certain stance for educators, whether they're in K to 12 early childhood education, university, community education, professional training, any aspect of education. Walking in saying, "I choose not to use GenAI to teach, to assess to build my course materials. And I do [00:08:00] not want to sell these products to students to do their work, either. It's not about a ban. It's not about preventing students from making their own choices or evaluating the outcomes of those. So, from my perspective as a signatory, not as the author of the letter I work with my students really closely on their use of generative ai. protect their right respect to use it to if they choose that. Jason Johnston: Great. Well, it's a very well-crafted letter. What are your what are your first questions about this? What would you like to get into? John Nash: I just wanted to get into less of a question, but more of a maybe a reiteration of something you said, Miriam, which is that it's not a request for a ban. And I think if you read between the lines here it aligns with this idea that, there could be a world where large language [00:09:00] models could be developed and work in a way that we could all agree with if some of these issues were resolved, but they aren't. And the world we live in now looks like what is laid out here in the letter, and therefore if you agree with these notions, then you should be a signator to it, I think. So, I, could see how

    54 min

  2. 6 OCT.

    EP 35 - Educators with or versus AI? Grammarly, Canvas AI, and Cyborg Pedagogy

    In EP 35, John and Jason kick off fall 2025 with a conversation on how AI has been added to Grammarly and Canvas (whether we like it or not) and if the future of online learning will be formed by Cyborg pedagogy (and what that means).  See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)* Guest Bios: John Nash, PhD, is an associate professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky. Jason Johnston, PhD, is the Executive Director of Online Learning and Course Production at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Resources: Canvas and OpenAI Partnership Press Release Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. Transcript: We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections! EP 35 - Educators with or versus AI? Grammarly, Canvas AI, and Cyborg Pedagogy Jason: But I'm looking forward to the, great list of potential guests that we have. I don't want to say any names yet 'cause nobody said yes yet. John: No. Jason: We don't have any yeses yet, John: Yeah. Everybody's just Jason: on the calendar yet John: our list is amazing, Jason: Yeah, we've got a great list. John: no one's, we haven't sent them invitations yet. Jason: Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess there's that too. So we haven't gotten any nos. That's a good part John: No. No. Jason: Yeah. John: No. Yes. I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston. Jason: Hey, John. Hey everyone. And this is Online Learning in the second half, the Online Learning podcast. John: Yeah. We're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for now our third season kicking off about online education. I know. And so, hey, newsflash, online learning is still trying to be great. Some of it is, a lot of it still isn't quite there, Jason. We're gonna keep talking about how to get it to the next stage. How are we gonna do that? Jason: That is a great question. How about we talk about today, what we're thinking about this fall as we head into this new school year and new season? John: Yeah, absolutely. It's been an interesting summer. Little things popping up here and there. I notice Grammarly's doing some interesting things. Looks like Canvas is doing some things. A lot of stuff on the horizon. Jason: . Yeah. And I would love to get into those, but I wanted to just kind of on the front end as we're kind of restarting the season, just even talk a little bit about, just a overall standpoint just for a moment here to talk about why we are doing this podcast. What do you think, John? Why are we doing this podcast again? John: I think we're doing this podcast for a couple of reasons. I'll throw out the very selfish reason why I'm doing this podcast. This is my professional development activity. This keeps me honest in terms of thinking about what I believe is important about teaching and learning online. It also gives me a chance to hear what you're thinking and I value your opinion and your philosophies a lot. And I think it also lets us share some ideas with like-minded people who are really interested in trying to make online teaching and learning better. Jason: Yeah. That's good. I've got a check mark beside all those. Always enjoy the conversation with you, John. This is a big part of wanting to do these. I always look forward to them and And we realized when we started adding guests to our podcast, although we really enjoy our conversations, but it just adds another element of another voice. And that's one thing I really value about bringing different guests with different viewpoints in. As we get started this year, I hope to bring in some different viewpoints, not just people that would just agree with everything that we have to say, but people that maybe would challenge us and challenge some of our approaches to online learning and integrating technology and trying to humanize online learning, all of those things. I would love to get into conversations with people who really push us to think more deeply and more concretely as well. Like, how is this really gonna play out? John: Yeah, I want to keep talking about that. I want to keep talking about as we're gonna probably chat about today as we think about the topics that I wanted to bring up things are getting a little more automated. The prevalence of AI across platforms is increasing and it's going to be a slippery slope, I think, for keeping humans in the loop. I think even the, sort of the sales scripts that are coming out are saying, it's almost as if it's saying, " you don't need as much humanity in the loop; we got this now." And I don't think that's the case. And I think I want to, I want to be a part of the band that's playing the song set that says, Hey folks, we need to stick together on this. We need to be humans in this loop and keep it all human centered. Jason: Yeah, I agree. Yep. Well, those seem like perfect themes to keep going on here in our podcast. And as part of that you were talking a little bit to me the other day about these kind of new features that Grammarly is rolling out. And a lot of people, I use Grammarly. I used it on my I use it often. Sometimes it's a little frustrating 'cause it just pops up everywhere it seems like now that I have it, installed on my computer, but I find it very helpful. I don't pay for it right now. I'm not being paid by them, but I find it very helpful to just have this grammar help. But it feels like they're moving into a new kind of AI era. John: Yeah. And what's interesting is here, in my department we have a doctoral program. We have an online curriculum. We held the first meeting of the new cohort of doctoral students and we talked about, tools that they might find useful in their doctoral journey. And we had some currently enrolled doctoral students, a couple of other professors. And Grammarly came up. And one of the new students asked " if I use Grammarly for like, changing my phrasing or things like that, is that gonna be considered cheating when in my new program with you?" And and I said, and my colleague, professor, colleague also concurred that I asked students to use Grammarly before they turn in their material. Because, as a mentor in a scholarly process, I want to be able to think about the ideas that they are bringing forth, and not necessarily the mechanics and correcting the copy. I want to jump right into the thinking. And so by running the typical Grammarly checker on subject verb agreement and clearing up things, that's fine. I like doing that. Now , I'm jumping into Grammarly and I'm seeing new features are popping up. And so it's interesting to think about what are these new AI agents that they're sticking in there that go beyond just checking your grammar as the name of the app says it's "Grammarly," right? We want, " please turn in your stuff having been checked for grammar." We like that 'cause we can get to the ideas. But what do we think about these new agents? I'm not so sure yet because they're, it's kind of interesting. Jason: yeah. And it's a good question by the student. I'm glad you're having the conversation. Right. It was like, it was just over a year ago, there was a university of North Georgia student who was placed on academic probation, accused of using AI for for creating a paper. Whereas she said that she just used Grammarly for fixing and getting feedback on some of the grammar, right? I think that we need to be thinking about what the features are as well as how we're having these conversations with students and where, where our limits are. So, what all did you find out about Grammarly as you were digging into it? Some of your thoughts. John: So Grammarly has all these agents now and stuff we knew about before, a plagiarism checker and some, but they have a paraphraser now, a reader reactions agent, A proof reader. Duh. That's why we use it. Jason: Yes. John: And AI grader. And so the AI grader. " Revise. Revise your writing with purpose and see your score improve, get feedback based on your assignment rubric and instructor expectations so you can make changes that count." " Estimate your grade, get early feedback. Revise with intention and submit confidently." So it's an agent that "estimates your score based on your assignment rubric and your instructor's grading style." Oh boy. It "provides personalized feedback, allowing you to see how your writing aligns with the assignment requirements and make adjustments to improve your grade. Ideal for all types of written assignments." " It's designed for students who want to predict how their work will land with their instructor and take control of their grades." I mean, I guess, well, I mean, wouldn't it be nice if you just had a good relationship with your instructor? Jason: That does feel ideal. But at the same time, I mean, we've always . Encourage students to use like a tutor of some sort if they're struggling, right. To be John: Yeah, Jason: able to understand assignments and to help them achieve higher levels of learning and achievements in the classroom. John: They've also thrown in an AI detector. So how ironic with the University of North Georgia student: will Grammarly detect itself being used and therefore go into some kind of a death loop? I don't know. I mean, Jason: Or, like, when somebody is like supplying weapons to two sides of a war or something like that, right? So, John: yes. Jason: it kind of feels a little bit like they're work in both sides of the equation here. John: I may have to experiment with this 'cause I wonder how it gets the student to... Look, i'll be honest. I mean, I do the best I can. You do too. We all have colleagues that aren

    35 min
  3. EP 34 - The Evolution and Future of Online Learning with Dr. Judith Boettcher

    24 FÉVR.

    EP 34 - The Evolution and Future of Online Learning with Dr. Judith Boettcher

    In EP 34, John and Jason discuss with Dr. Judith Boettcher the evolution of online learning, the importance of instructional design, and the centrality of student engagement. The conversation also touches on project-based learning, AI's impact on education, and the critical role of teacher-as-mentor. Tune in for an insightful discussion on making online learning more effective, human, and future-ready. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)* Learn more about Dr. Judith Boettcher on her website: http://designingforlearning.info/about-dr-boettcher/ Resources: PLATO Computer System Judith’s Website Judith’s book: Online Teaching Survival Guide (2021) Jason’s other top Online Teaching Books Michelle Miller “Minds Online” Flower Darby - “Small Teaching Online” Catherine Denial “Pedagogy of kindness” Judith’s article: Student-Centered Learning in Dewey’s Holodeck – It Doesn’t Get Any Better than This—Now! IHE article - The Absurdity of Asynchrony Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. Transcript We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections! [00:00:00] Jason: Today is a fulfillment of a little bit of a dream of mine. Do you know this? So thank you for helping me fulfill one of my dreams. [00:00:06] Judith: Wow. Sounds like excellent planning, Jason! [Intro Music] [00:00:10] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston. [00:00:13] Jason: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast. [00:00:19] John Nash: Yeah. We're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the past. Wow. Are we going to start our third year of this soon? Yeah. [00:00:28] Jason: I guess so. [00:00:30] John Nash: About online education, online learning has had its chance to be great and some of it is, but still a lot of it isn't. So how are we going to get to the next stage, Jason? [00:00:39] Jason: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it? [00:00:44] John Nash: I'd love to do that. What do you want to talk about today? [00:00:47] Jason: Well, I'm very excited today, John, because we have a very special guest with us. Somebody that I've been reading her work now for a while and it is Judith Betcher. Judith, welcome. [00:01:00] Judith: Well, thank you very much for being here. I'm delighted to be part of your series. [00:01:04] Jason: Yeah, well, it's so great to have you. Judith, why don't you tell us just a little bit about kind of your your background? What have you been up to for the last little while? I know that a big part of your life is online learning and you've done it both in various capacities. So just tell us a little bit. [00:01:19] Judith: well, actually, getting ready for this podcast, I started going back and thinking, and when you're as old as I am, that's kind of dangerous, you realize, and I thought, Oh my God, my first experience with anything approaching online learning was when I was working for a computer company and we were building and designing. What was called at that time computer based instruction. So, as man, as we've moved along here, over these years, I was thinking it's actually online learning has become it actually is a merging of the computer based instruction movement with the traditional distance learning, in the old distance learning correspondence learning. So what we have Today in 2025 is really elements of all of these different movements, starting back with the like I said, the computer based instruction movement. [00:02:11] Jason: Yeah, that's great. And do you mind me asking what year that might have been with a computer based instruction? I just think it's interesting to think about historically our, trajectory with online learning. [00:02:24] Judith: Yes, actually, I will confess that was the decade of the 80s and it was with control data corporation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And at that time we built computer based instruction and it was designed. For the Plato system, which was a mainframe computer application. And so then I'm afraid I have lived through moving from the mainframe application to the microcomputers, to the now, of course, to the powerful computers that we Carry in our pockets and our watches on our arms, it's been quite a journey to be honest, but after I finished that work at Control Data, that was when I went to Penn State and at that time for a few years there at Penn State. I Managed a group very similar to what it sounds like you do, Jason. I had a group at that time, the folks at Penn State were very innovative and forward thinking, in that we, I had a group of instructional designers and video folks, and, programming folks, and we. Assisted faculty in, we actually would load up a van and put, computers, these huge computers, and take them around campus and set them up and say, wow, look what you could, Mr. Faculty Member, what can, what, see what you can do with these computers. It was quite, it was, it's been quite an adventure to be honest. [00:03:47] John Nash: You bring back memories, Judith, because my dissertation at the University of Wisconsin contained the word microcomputer in the title. Um, that's what the desktop computers were. They were like, just, yeah, it's funny. We still don't use that term because basically we're just all running microcomputer, microcomputers on our desks, but we don't use that anymore. The Apple IIe days. Yes. Right. Yeah. [00:04:10] Judith: Yes. Yes, exactly. But anyway, and to finish up a little bit after Penn State, I moved down here to Tallahassee, to Florida State, and in, in part of this time period, I did start consulting with with faculty who were teaching online at Duquesne University. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And as I, start was consulting and meeting with them, I started developing these tips and ideas and best practices. And as you can anticipate, it was all of that work, the tips and the practices. When I found myself repeating myself over and over again, that was when I decided, well, maybe a book would be a good idea. So that was kind of the genesis of the survival guide for teaching online. [00:04:58] Jason: And that's really how I came to know you, Judith. and I was talking to John about this. Today is a fulfillment of a little bit of a dream of mine. Do you know this? Of being able to have you on the podcast. A little bit of a goal. So, [00:05:09] Judith: No [00:05:10] Jason: yeah, because these are the four books, and I'm being honest about this. Well, three, these are the three books, actually, over a long time I've I have recommended to people. And then I've added one, in the fall Michelle Miller's "Minds Online." Flower Darby's Small Teaching Online, and then your book, the Online, Teaching Survival Guide. And then recently added, because it just came out in the fall, Catherine Denial's Pedagogy of Kindness, which is not an online book, but is such an important book, I think, particularly for this day and age. So those are my four book recommendations for people that want to get going online with practical tips and not so much from a development standpoint, more from a teaching standpoint. So first year we had Michelle Miller on the show, and then last year we had Flower Darby and Catherine Denial on the show, and now you are joining us today. So thank you for helping me fulfill one of my dreams. [00:06:08] Judith: Wow. Sounds like excellent. [00:06:15] Jason: Well, and it wasn't actually too calculated, except that, as John and I are talking just about what kinds of, people and conversations we want to have on this show, we realized we started almost two years ago. And, we realized we kind of just jumped into things. We started talking about making your online courses more human and creating student agency. And we talked a lot about AI and about some of the risks and challenges and opportunities around that. And we haven't really gone back to talk about more foundational teaching online. Because it's online learning in the second half, we're kind of positioning it as looking back on the first half of online learning. Now, , we know how to dump information on people now online, right? We can do it. What do we hope for in our second half of online learning? And as John and I are peering into our second halves of life and well into our second halves of lives, we're thinking about that in terms of online learning. So , that's a long introduction to say this is one of the reasons why we have you on today. So, [00:07:19] Judith: Well, let me just mention, I did start listening to the podcast on the Pedagogy of Kindness, and I didn't get very far because I ran out of time this morning, but I look forward to going back. It sounds like a great, perspective to add to our designing. And in fact, then, to add to that. The whole reason my website is called Designing for Learning is that's my passion Whenever I started working with faculty, trying to ask them the question is what is it, what are the outcomes, the takeaways that you really want your students to take away from a course I'll see if I can remember this. Remember there's that five minute short video of the person, who tried to summarize the college education in five minutes, and he said, okay, here's what I learned from Spanish, como esta, and that was it, that was the total impact, from the whole Spanish, sequence. And similarly, so just when we have our wonderful students, who'd commit to time and energy and focus. What, in fact, and how will they change as a result of those experiences? And I think if w

    53 min
  4. EP 33 - Flower Darby on Improving Online Teaching: Small Changes, Outsized Impact

    13/12/2024

    EP 33 - Flower Darby on Improving Online Teaching: Small Changes, Outsized Impact

    In EP 33, John and Jason talk to Flower Darby about small steps for inclusive, equitable, and humanized online learning, and explore the transformative power of community, connection, and compassion in digital classrooms while tackling the future of AI’s role in education. Join Our LinkedIn Group - Online Learning Podcast Resources: Flower Darby Website Small Teaching Online (book) The Norton Guide to Equity-Minded Teaching Request a free copy: https://seagull.wwnorton.com/equityguide Karen Costa’s 99 Tips For Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos(book) Steven Covey - Circle of Control - Circle of Influence Flower’s Recent article in the Chronicle: https://www.chronicle.com/article/5-small-steps-for-ai-skeptics I’m a Doctor. ChatGPT’s Bedside Manner Is Better Than Mine.  Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. Transcript We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections! False Start [00:00:00] Flower Darby: It's always fun to talk to interesting, intelligent people who care deeply about our work. So I've, enjoyed our conversation. [00:00:11] Jason:. So that's our,that's a lot of our main goal here, really, John, is to get to that point. Where people say nice things about us. And to know it's coming from a real person. I mean, ChatGPT loves everything I say, NotebookLM. Absolutely adores every article I've ever written and every line, but to know this is coming from a real person makes a difference for me. So thank you. Real Start [00:00:34] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston. [00:00:37] Jason: John. Hey, everyone. And this is online learning in the second half, the online learning podcast. [00:00:42] John Nash: Yeah. We're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great and some of it is, but there's still some that isn't. So can we get to the next stage? [00:00:56] Jason: That's a great question, John. How about we do a podcast to talk about it? [00:01:00] John Nash: I think that's a great idea. What do you want to talk about today? [00:01:04] Jason: Well, you know, one of the great things about being able to do a podcast is meeting cool people and people that can help us answer this question about, you know, what are we going to do in the second half of life as it comes to theonline podcast? And maybe the second half of our lives too. I don't know, John. We could, I guess we could that into some of our podcast, actually get some, get some life coaching or something from the, from the guests as they come in. [00:01:32] John Nash: if that involves me divulging my age. I'll, I'm not doing that yet. [00:01:36] Jason: Okay. All right. Well, I think I just did a little bit, so, in just in a general sense. So that's good. Well, we have Flower Darby with us as a guest. And so I'm really excited to talk to Flower. Hi Flower. How are you? [00:01:51] Flower Darby: Hi, Jason. I'm so good. Hi, John. Thank you so much for inviting me onto your podcast. It is always a pleasure and a privilege. I don't take that for granted at all, but anybody cares what I think about anything. So thanks for having me. [00:02:05] Jason: Yeah, well, thank you so much. Yeah. How would you like to introduce yourself, Flower? I mean, we could read some of the things off your bio, but what would you like our audience to know about you that might be helpful for them to understand our conversation today? [00:02:21] Flower Darby: Sure, let me just quickly and conversationally sum up my background I don't, I'm not a fan of reading a bio, people can look that up themselves if they would like to get more information, right, But I have been teaching in higher education for coming up on 29 years, this January, it'll make 29 years, I have taught lots of different things, including English, dance, Pilates, and I've been teaching for over 30 years. Leadership technology, educational technology. And as we were chatting about a few minutes ago, now I'm teaching social psychology because I just like to keep it interesting. But most of that teaching, there's two other things that I would quickly add. Most of that teaching has been as a part time instructor on top of the rest of my life, right? That's just how we do. And that's how a lot of online instructors do. And the other thing I would add is that I've been teaching online for 16 years or so and have had the amazing opportunity to. Co author a couple of books on that topic. So, that's the perspective that I'm bringing here today. [00:03:18] Jason: That's great. Yeah. And really the first time I saw your name that a little bit about who you were, through some of your writing and specifically book, Small Teaching Online. This was a resource in my work that I both valued and learned from, but also have recommended to a lot of people over the years. and I think it's a really brilliant book and brilliant approach, which of course is a book, Small Teaching. You give people a synopsis of the approach of the book, if they're not familiar?  [00:03:59] Flower Darby: All credit to James Lang for the concept in general. Small teaching is about how we can make little changes in our teaching practices that are based in the science of how people learn. And because they're based on such strong evidence, and such a strong research base, they actually have an outsized impact on student learning, student engagement, student memory and recall of information. And, but the point is that these things are not overwhelming. They don't create a large grading burden. They don't take a lot of time to execute in a class or in a module. They're little things, little changes that have that outsized impact. And so, his book, Small Teaching, has been extremely impactful for many faculty because it is so doable. And so in around 2018 or so I met him and asked if he would be interested in working on a project together. Because I know that for online instructors, sometimes at heart, it can feel overwhelming. So that's what this book does, is it takes his very practical idea and just applies it very directly to specifically asynchronous online classes. Synchronous classes were not As much of a thing when we wrote that book as they became during COVID-19. So that's the idea. Little things that online instructors can do that are not overwhelming that really help online students to persist, to learn to thrive in these spaces. [00:05:20] Jason: Yeah, and I think that that's a great synopsis. I love that. And I think I would just like to say to people, if you haven't read this book, and if you teach online, whether it's asynchronous or, or synchronous, I just go grab the book. It'll be really helpful. And I'm not saying this just because Flower is here, but it truly is is one of those books when people have asked me over the years. and I'm kind of glad we're coming back to this a little bit, John, too, because we've talked about the fact that, you know, we started this podcast to talk about online learning, and we just kind of dived right into talking about some of the almost 10, 000 foot kind of level stuff, right? And we've talked a lot about AI and about overall theoretical kind of things. I'm not sure we've really gotten into kind of the smaller day to day practices. So this is just a good, maybe call it for that [00:06:11] John Nash: Yeah, not so much. I think that's right. Yeah, [00:06:14] Flower Darby: And thank you for your kind words about the book. [00:06:18] Jason: Yeah. Well, it's true. You wrote that, it was published at least in 2019. A couple things have happened since then. I don't need to remind everybody of all the things, but one being COVID that you mentioned, of course. Hearing you describe it today, Got me thinking about , , some of the mental health crisis, both in students, but also the fact that teachers are feeling overwhelmed and how helpful it is to think about these small iterative improvements that we can make that don't feel overwhelming when we feel so overwhelmed about teaching and all the things that we're being expected to do on campus. Do you think, so there's, I think there's. it was pre-COVID doesn't mean there's not a lot of value there, because I think that there is, and I think a lot of it continues to translate. But is there anything in this book that you would change, or update, or a new chapter that you would tag on if you were to write it today? [00:07:18] Flower Darby: Yeah, good question. And I, one that I've thought a lot about, of course, and it may happen. There may be a second edition. I'm not going to commit to that right this minute, but I think there would be interest if capacity, becomes open enough to take that on. For right now, hypothetically, one of The things that I would do would be to foreground the importance of community. So right now, building community is chapter four in the book, and honestly, I think I would make it chapter one instead. I just really feel like all the logistics and everything that goes into creating inclusive online courses and applying universal design for learning and bringing in the community of inquiry framework, I feel like all of that. This might sound like heresy, but I feel like all of that is actually secondary to the importance of relationships. And that's really how my thinking has evolved, and it was shaped by our experience during lockdown, when we sorely felt the lack of social contact and, whether at a personal level with family members who were remote from us, with our students really struggling to connect. There's lots of stuff in the book I agree with you and I thank you I think there's still lots that's relevant. But o

    44 min
  5. EP 32 - Pedagogy of Kindness: Fostering it Online with Cate Denial

    12/11/2024

    EP 32 - Pedagogy of Kindness: Fostering it Online with Cate Denial

    In this episode, John and Jason talk with Cate Denial, author of “Pedagogy of Kindness” about kindness to self and students in the online classroom. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)* Guest Bio: Cate Denial is the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Her new book, A Pedagogy of Kindness, is now available from the University of Oklahoma Press. Her historical research has examined the early nineteenth-century experience of pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing in Upper Midwestern Ojibwe and missionary cultures, research that grew from Cate’s previous book, Making Marriage: Husbands, Wives, and the American State in Dakota and Ojibwe Country (2013). From July 2022 to December 2023, Cate was the PI on a $150,000 Mellon-funded grant bringing together thirty-six participants from across higher education in the United States to explore “Pedagogies, Communities, and Practices of Care in the Academy After COVID-19.” Cate consults on teaching in higher education with individuals, departments, and institutions in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, and Australia. Connecting with Cate: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-denial-8869a115b/ https://bsky.app/profile/cjdenial.bsky.social https://catherinedenial.org/ Links and Resources: Critical Digital Pedagogy: A Collection (free access) A Pedagogy of Kindness (book) Michelle Miller’s post on Same Side Pedagogy Rethinking Rigor (Kevin Gannon) Annotate Your Syllabus (Remi Kalir) Digital Pedagogy Lab 2025 Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. Transcript We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections! False Start [00:00:00] Jason: good Well, thank you. Yeah, that was a great conversation [00:00:02] Cate Denial: Yeah. Let me know, you know, if you need anything from me and otherwise I'll look forward to listening in when you get it all done. [00:00:10] Jason: Okay, our our timeline is usually somewhere between two weeks and six months [00:00:18] Cate Denial: Okay. Start [00:00:19] John Nash: I'm John nash here with Jason Johnston. [00:00:22] Jason: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning, the second half, the Online Learning Podcast. [00:00:28] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two years about online education. Look, online learning has had its chance to be great and some of it is, but. A lot of it still isn't. So how are we going to get to the next stage? [00:00:43] Jason: That's a great question. How about we do a podcast, John, and talk about it? [00:00:48] John Nash: I think that's a perfect idea. What do you want to talk about today? [00:00:51] Jason: Well, today we have a special guest with us. With us is Catherine Denial. Cate is the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Welcome, Cate. [00:01:07] Cate Denial: Thanks for having me. [00:01:09] Jason: Can we call you Cate? [00:01:10] Cate Denial: Of course. [00:01:12] Jason: Sometimes I take that liberty when people have that on their little thing in the video screen. I say, well, if it's there, then I guess we can call them that. [00:01:20] Cate Denial: Yeah, absolutely. [00:01:22] Jason: Yeah. Well, good. Well, it's so great to have you here. One of the reasons why we reached out to you is because of your book, which we'll get to. But even before that , in the spring of this last year, so I've got a digital critical pedagogy book club that we started in the spring. So. There's a great anthology that you're part of that talks about the pedagogy of kindness as part of that anthology the Critical digital pedagogy anthology. We'll put the link in our notes. I got to know you're writing there and then of course connected through LinkedIn and Always great to see your posts. I feel like they are kind of North Star-ish posts and I and I like following people who who helped to kind of bring me You bring me back and keep me pointed in the right direction with all of this because you can get really, really in the weeds and also caught up with all the new technologies and everything like that and what we're doing. So anyways, that was kind of my background of connecting with you. And so thank you so much for coming on to the, into the show. I just really look forward to having this conversation and have been looking forward to it ever since we set it up. We're going to get into your first chapter here in a second, but I would like to talk to you a little bit. We would like to talk to you a little bit about just kind of how you got to the place that you are today as as a professor and maybe a little bit about what, It kind of drew you to, to write this book and to kind of take this kind of trajectory, I think, in terms of, of your focus in this direction. [00:03:06] Cate Denial: So it has been 30 years. I am from England originally. And so I showed up in America to go to graduate school and was put in front of a classroom. And I had graduated exactly 1 month before that because the British system goes longer into the year than the American system. was terrified. I didn't know what I was doing. So I projected Dana Scully every time I walked into the classroom from the X Files to try and make sure that I was someone who could actually command some kind of presence in that room. I was taught as a graduate instructor to think of students as antagonists, to suspect them of cheating, to watch out for their plagiarism, to think about the way that they would try and change their grades, to anticipate they wouldn't do the reading. People are very familiar with these sorts of things. And it quickly became clear to me that this wasn't working for me. And it wasn't working for my students either. Setting up that kind of antagonism in the classroom just put us all on edge. So little bit by little bit, I tried things to change. try and change that relationship. I was really flying blind for a great deal of time. I did not know there was such a thing as pedagogy scholarship. I had no idea about the scholarship of teaching and learning. I was just experimenting in my classroom. And then when I became a professor. I was a much better than I had been in 1994. Thank goodness. And that trajectory continued and To conduct myself in a classroom. I was trained in intergroup dialogue as of 2013 from the University of Michigan and intergroup dialogue is a really structured way of talking across big differences around issues like race, gender, sexuality, religion, disability. I have colleagues at Knott's College who were part of my journey alongside me, my colleague, Gabriel Raley Carlin, my colleagues, Hilary Lehrman and Deidre Doherty in particular. And then I went to the Digital Pedagogy Lab in 2017, and that was really where I had this aha moment where the people in charge of my stream asked us to look at our syllabus and to identify who we were writing it to, to literally describe them with a bunch of adjectives. And I realized, despite all the changes that I had made in my teaching, that syllabus communicated that I was a distant authoritarian figure just waiting for people to mess up. that was a shock to me. So I set about completely changing that, right? Going into the granular detail of my syllabus, changing the way that I expressed myself and the things that I asked students to do with the goal of making the self that I presented to them the same self that I am. Right. And so that was really how I got to distilling a pedagogy of kindness. It came very, very directly out of that digital pedagogy lab experience. [00:06:13] John Nash: I'd like to build on that. Cate, I was I, I don't know where this is written somewhere, but it's about the, about the hook. And when you start a book or anything, it's like, you need to capture the reader in the first place. sentence or paragraph and yours did just that. I even texted Jason when I started reading your book saying, I'm on the Kindle version, "I'm 4 percent in and I'm enthralled." And so um, Um, You to get towards kindness. And it's what struck me was also, we talk a lot about, in this podcast with others, about building capacity amongst the ranks of our faculty colleagues to be better teachers the centers for teaching and learning that try to do this. it struck me that this, description you make, which I think is true is a challenge to those that are trying to do the capacity building towards kindness, good pedagogy, is that your take? [00:07:30] Cate Denial: Yeah, I think that's accurate. I think that the culture of higher ed is sort of more than the sum of its parts, right? It's not just the distillation of everybody's individual values and goals. It sort of has a life of its own uh, a culture of its own. And I think that culture is very highly individualistic. I think that it is very, very competitive. I mean, for some of us, it's competitive from the moment we decide we want to go to college, right? and I think that it is antithetical to so many things that are so important for teachers, like community. Right? Like, knowing who you can count on and who's going to be able to assist you in moments where, I don't know, you've run out of chalk, or something terrible just happened in class, or you have too much homework to grade, like, all kinds of things, right? But you need community, and I think that higher ed is actually really bad at building that community in general. [00:08:34] John Nash: Your, your take also reminds me o

    53 min
  6. EP 31 - Notebook LM's "Do It For Me" Podcast Button: A Threat to Real Educator Voices?

    28/10/2024

    EP 31 - Notebook LM's "Do It For Me" Podcast Button: A Threat to Real Educator Voices?

    In this episode, John and Jason react to the new button in Google’s Notebook LM that allows users to make an instant podcast. Will it be a threat to educators' voices and hard-working podcasters everywhere? See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)* Links and Resources: NotebookLM Jason’s article “Better Definitions of Distance Education” The AI Deep Dive Podcast based on the article. Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. Transcript We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections! [00:00:00] Jason: That's onlinelearningpodcast.com. [00:00:03] John: Perfect. And that was a real human doing that. [00:00:06] Jason: That was a real human, even though I sounded a little more. I leaned into the mic to make it sound a little more podcasty. [00:00:12] John: Good. Well, we'll have to work on our upbeat banter between [00:00:16] Jason: guess so. [00:00:16] John: too. [00:00:17] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston. [00:00:20] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the Online Learning Podcast. [00:00:25] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but a lot of it still isn't. How are we going to get there, Jason? [00:00:40] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it? [00:00:45] John Nash: That's a great idea. What do you want to talk about today? [00:00:48] Jason: Nice to see you. How's Sweden? [00:00:50] John: Sweden is good. It's a little rainy here, but now the sun is coming out. It looks like we'll have a nice weekend here. So, it's [00:00:57] Jason: Yeah. Good. [00:00:59] John: So, Jason, what do you think about Google's notebook the LM and what it's doing in particular with these that we'll make from content? Yeah. [00:01:12] Jason: was wild, we've been at this at least a couple of years talking about, at least between you and I, and then like a year and a half here in the podcast, talking about AI and some of its effects on education primarily, but also just on a lot of the creative work that you and I do in different ways. Right. And I joked with somebody that, was fine when AI came for the graphic designers because, I'm not a graphic designer and, when it came for the writers and because I've never been that enthralled with the five paragraph essay anyways, [00:01:45] John: yeah. [00:01:45] Jason: the, the podcasting [00:01:47] John: it's fine that AI put the writers and the graphic designers out of business, but this part about podcasters, that's just too far, That's right. Exactly. [00:01:55] Jason: Notebook LM has been at it for about a year. I believe is the first time that I used it. And it had some nice features of pulling in different content and so on, but they just popped out this podcasting feature and I was blown away by how natural it sounded and then how like up and positive and excited the podcast hosts were about everything that it talked about. John maybe we can listen to a couple of clips that we made. Here's one that I made actually out of a 2020 article that I had published around creating new definitions of distance education. And so, yeah, anyways, let's listen to a little bit and, and see what you think. [00:02:44] John: Yeah, let's do that, because I think that'll show the banter and the give and take. [00:02:48] Notebook 2: Totally. Technically, both are distance learning, but they're totally different experiences. Night and day. And I think that's why you started seeing researchers like Simonson and Seeprasad trying to add more to the definition. [00:03:01] Notebook 1: They were really emphasizing things like two way communication, individualized instruction, that kind of thing. [00:03:06] Notebook 2: They knew those old definitions were too simple for this new world of online learning. It wasn't just, are the teacher and student in the same room anymore. [00:03:14] Notebook 1: But even with those additions, finding one definition everyone agrees on. Still tough. [00:03:20] Notebook 2: Moving target for sure. And it matters. It's not just a theoretical debate. [00:03:24] Notebook 1: Right. This whole definition dilemma has real consequences. [00:03:28] Notebook 2: Big time. [00:03:29] Notebook 1: Like that whole thing with Western Governors University WGU. [00:03:32] Notebook 2: Oh yeah, the WGU case is a perfect example of why this matters. So you've got this university, huge online enrollment, all about competency based learning, really innovative stuff. [00:03:43] Notebook 1: And then they got in trouble with the U. S. Department of Education, I vaguely remember this. [00:03:47] Notebook 2: Yeah, big audit back in 2017, and suddenly they're being accused of basically running a glorified correspondence course. [00:03:53] Notebook 1: Seriously, what was the problem? Did they just forget to file some paperwork or something? [00:03:58] Notebook 2: It was more about how they were defining, or not defining, distance education. See, the Department of Education was about ready to pull their Title IV funding, make them pay back a ton of money. [00:04:10] Notebook 1: Whoa. All over a definition. All because the auditors , [00:04:13] John: yeah, that was really interesting. Was also a little blown away by the attempt at sort of natural banter between two people in English what's available now is English only. I can put it to you this way. The people that we're working with here at Kristianstad University in Sweden we met them actually our, they came back from a flight from Madrid, and we landed from Atlanta, or no, well, actually from Amsterdam in Copenhagen, and we were on the same plane to Copenhagen. We got on the train together to come to Kristianstad. So, we were sitting there and they're talking about how they're using 11 labs. And they're really happy with them to do some, some capturing lecture and just some presentation. And I said, well, let me just show you. And so, off my phone, while we're going 70 miles an hour on the train, I played a little bit of a piece of a podcast, just 15 seconds, but they put their ears down to it and they both looked up and said, that's pretty amazing. They think it's better than 11 labs. I do too. Then of course they're first to say, and that's very Americanized banter and really just only centered on that. And so, it'll be interesting to see.. That's my first thing. I think the other thing is that the there's too much banter. It's almost trying too hard to make it seem like the the hosts, and there's a male and a female co host on these podcasts, that they're just really into whatever it is they're talking about. And it's, I'm not sure how you tone that down or you can the LLM in brackets or something, [00:05:47] Jason: Right. [00:05:48] John: prompt, because it's all based on a piece of content that you give the notebook. So that's a little concerning. And then there may be some, as we're learning, talking to colleagues, you shared an email with me from someone, you know, that, you know, there's an article that was posted or a blog post about the, it's a little bit gendered and sort of the male host may be talking more than the female host. That's not great. It doesn't have the ability to critically look at stuff. I don't know how you program that into the prompt, but those are things that I've been thinking about since you raised them with me before we got on the line today. Yeah. [00:06:21] Jason: And cause we, we know that AI [00:06:24] John: so upbeat. They're so upbeat. [00:06:27] Jason: is mean centric. Like it gives us the average of things most often. And I wonder if that's some of what is playing out as well. It's interesting? The people you're traveling with to get their impression to them, that just sounded like typified American kind of podcasting because I think that there's a way in which that is true. And so, I wonder about how. How much of an average the notebook LM responses to pod like this is the absolute most average podcasting feel that you could get a man and a woman and some of these, perhaps some of these gendered kind of responses and ways in which they response. Yeah. And yeah, [00:07:12] John: It's almost like you could give it any content. Content that's even mediocre or bad ideas and it would be like putting lipstick on a pig. They're, they're [00:07:20] Jason: going to just [00:07:20] John: say, Oh, this great y'know [00:07:22] Jason: right. Yeah, I noticed that too. If one of my, one of my concerns about it in that way is that any paper that I wrote that I, I These co hosts loved it. They loved everything about it. They, they loved me. They thought it was amazing research. Wow, so cool that there was no disagreement whatsoever. They just went with everything and just thought it was wonderful. And when one person just gushed about it, then the other person would be like, [00:07:51] John: that's right. [00:07:53] Jason: Exactly That is right. You are so right. [00:07:56] John: In fact, I think I want to test it now and maybe I'll just put something in about how pollution is awesome and then see if they say, because they'll start up like, "Hey everybody, welcome back to the Deep Dive. We're going to talk about something that's important to everybody. Pollution. Oh yeah, pollution. It's a big deal. Yeah I know So we're gonna talk to about how to make more of it. More of it? That's wonderful. Yeah, tell me more I'm g

    22 min
  7. EP 30 - Dr. Omid Fotuhi and the Sense of Belonging in Online Learning

    09/09/2024

    EP 30 - Dr. Omid Fotuhi and the Sense of Belonging in Online Learning

    In this episode, John and Jason talk with Dr. Omid Fotuhi, a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh and the Director of Learning Innovation at WGU Labs, about the notion of belonging in the evolving landscape of online learning. They discuss the WGU model and how it breaks traditional barriers through competency-based, self-paced education, the critical role of fostering a sense of belonging for student success, the need for institutions to move beyond temporary interventions to address deeper structural issues, and the future of education where learning becomes more independent. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com   Join Our LinkedIn Group - Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)   Links and Resources: Inscribe - Community-based educational software application "Where and with whom does a brief social-belonging intervention promote progress in college?” Article https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade4420 Dr. Omid Fotuhi Contact Information LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omidfotuhi/   Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. Transcript We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections!       [00:00:00] Omid Fotuhi: The notion and the assumption that learning happens best, as measured by seat time, the number of hours you spend.     [00:00:07] Omid Fotuhi: Ha.   [00:00:08] John Nash: So   [00:00:09] Jason Johnston: rookie mistake, John. Come on. We haven't quite been at this a year yet, Omid. so…   [00:00:15] John Nash: My phone is off, but my Macintosh rang   [00:00:18] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.     [00:00:21] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.   [00:00:25] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey everyone. And this is online learning in the second half, the online learning podcast.   [00:00:31] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two years about online education. Look, online learning has had its chance to be great and some of it is, but still, a lot of it really isn't. And so Jason, how are we going to get to the next stage?   [00:00:47] Jason Johnston: That's a great question, John. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?   [00:00:51] John Nash: I think that's a great idea. What do you want to talk about today?   [00:00:55] Jason Johnston: Today we are joined by Dr. Omid Fatouhi. Omid, welcome to the podcast.   [00:01:01] Omid Fotuhi: Thank you. It's great to be here.   [00:01:03] Jason Johnston: Can we call you Omid?   [00:01:05] Omid Fotuhi: That sounds great.   [00:01:06] Jason Johnston: Okay. Omid is a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh and director of learning innovation at WGU labs. So great to have you here to talk with us today.   [00:01:17] Omid Fotuhi: I look forward to it.   [00:01:19] Jason Johnston: You and I, we met over dinner through the company Inscribe at a conference. And one of the things that, of course, immediately, just made me realize that you were just a great guy is our common love of Canada We talked about living in Canada and talked a little bit about longing to live in Canada again.   And so I appreciated that. And then we connected, of course, over the topic of online and the panel that this company Inscribe, which I can put a link in, great people, cool product. Not paid by them. But I'll put a link to our show notes. But they connected us over this idea of belonging, student belonging online, which is a huge topic.   And we'll get into that because you've done some research. in this area. But first, we wanted to get to know you a little bit and just to chat about that. Tell us a little bit about your current roles and where you are living right now.   [00:02:17] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah, I think the best way to describe my current role is as a fish trying to climb a tree. If you've heard the expression that you shouldn't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, nonetheless, that's what I am. It's akin to what's also known as the Peter Principle, which is to say that if you're trying skilled and competent, you'll eventually be promoted into incompetence, often into management.   And that's not too far from the truth with where I am, except that I've been able to create a pretty unique situation for myself. So I am a trained social psychologist by training. That's where a lot of my thinking and a lot of the way that I look at things comes from. And currently, I'm working for WG Labs which is a R& D arm of Western Governors University, which does focus on how it is that we can create the technological tools and the research base to understand how to optimize learning for students, both in traditional but also online student populations. So that's what I'm doing right now. And the great thing is that throughout my position with WGU labs, I've still been able to engage in conversations like this And invest in ongoing research on the topic of belonging and our conversations with inscribers, just an example of that.   [00:03:35] Jason Johnston: Yeah. And for those listening, you may or may not know WGU huge university, interesting backstory, some interesting Even in the news the last few years in terms of its funding from the government and the back and forth on that, which sparked a huge conversation about regular and substantive interaction.   And anyway, we could go into so many directions with one of the unique things I think about WGU is that it's competency-based. If I understand this, basically, every course that they put out is more competency-based. Talk to us a little bit about that. And like, how do you intersect with that kind of way to deliver online content?   [00:04:19] Omid Fotuhi: mean, I think what I'll mention is the fact that WGU offers an alternative to the traditional design of education. And it's one in which the WGU is able to challenge the prescriptive norms and standards of how it is that learning and assessment take place. And back in 1995, they said, hey, let's do this crazy thing of putting learning online and see what happens.   Fast forward to today, with over 150,000 currently enrolled and over 300, 000 graduates, there is something to that recipe that seems to be successful, that resonates and offers a value proposition to individuals who may not have seen themselves as being viable into the pathway of the traditional online or the traditional higher educational opportunities that many other students would themselves into. Now, when you look at some of the components of WGU, it is a competency-based, fully online, and self-paced learning model, which means that it challenges some of the common barriers to accessing higher education. Those include things like a model of learning that challenges the standard assumptions of what learning ought to be, one of which is that this moderated learning, which is measured by seat time, the number of hours a student spends in the classroom, is the primary metric of how it is that learning should be captured.   And instead, it offers some freedom to some of those constraints. Specifically, it challenges the time-paced, place-based, and standardized testing approach to learning by having this online where you can learn at your own pace, it is competency-based, which importantly is able to capture learning in a way that's much more dynamic.   It allows the inclusion of experiences and learning that you may have acquired in other domains so that testing is a better reflection of the learning in itself as such, as I mentioned, with over 300, 000 graduates and over 150,000 currently enrolled, many of whom are seen as the non-traditional student populations it, it's a strong testament that this model, which is an alternative to the traditional higher educational model, seems to be resonating and working for many students.   [00:06:50] Jason Johnston: Could I ask one more question about WGU? Are you so far down the road now that like you're not even talking about Carnegie hours or about time in your seat or about those kinds of things or how it works there?   [00:07:02] Omid Fotuhi: What I'll say is it's important to unpack what we mean when we talk about students. For me, what comes to mind is a recognition that students are not a monolith group, that they are comprised of many diverse individuals with diverse characteristics diverse needs, and diverse preferences for learning. And if you take that insight and combine it with the understanding that we've all been exposed to recently, given the disruptions of the pandemic, given the advent of AI, given some of the increasing Awareness of the conditions of the more traditional higher ed institutions with their legacy admissions and other admission criteria that, that do selectively benefit some groups over others, but there is this, appetite in this atmosphere of exploring alternative models.   And so I think having schools like WGU that have an alternative model which appeals to a group of individuals who again, in the traditional view would not have seen themselves as being part of the educational process now becomes a reality. And I think As we're at this precipice of the, at this nexus of technology having a greater and greater role on how it is that we take, think about learning that more and more of these alternative models will have value for different subgroups of individuals.   So I think that's the way to think of it. And I also would maybe mention

    58 min
  8. EP 29 - Dr. Ericka Hollis - Teaching in the Digital Age: Cultivating Belonging and Excellence Online

    29/07/2024

    EP 29 - Dr. Ericka Hollis - Teaching in the Digital Age: Cultivating Belonging and Excellence Online

    In this episode, John and Jason talk to Ericka Hollis, PhD, about silence as liberatory practice, student backchannels, belonging in the online classroom, and leadership challenges with professional development. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)* Links and Resources: Great list of foundational articles on the Community of Inquiry ACUE's Effective Teaching Framework for Higher Education John’s paper on online discussions: “A Tale of Two Forums: One Professor's Path to Improve Learning through a Common Online Teaching Tool” Dr. Ericka Hollis Contact Information ACUE Page Email: ehollis@acue.org LinkedIn Twiiter / X Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. Transcript We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections! Mic Check [00:00:00] Jason Johnston: Hey, John, could I ask you will you tilt your mic back a little bit? I'm sorry to be so mic-picky these days. [00:00:09] John Nash: Should I talk while I do that? Here's where it was and now I'm still talking and here's where it's going and now it's here. [00:00:17] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's pretty good. [00:00:19] John Nash: I do appreciate your pickiness. I do. Silence as Liberatory Practice [00:00:21] Jason Johnston: All right. As you can see, this is pretty pretty tight operation we run here. The Online Learning Podcast. Heh. We basically When we started it, we decided that we would just do what we could do. You know what I mean? And we're having a good time. And I think that, I, we're getting some good responses from it. I think people that listen and we produce it up to the level that we can manage. And yeah. And this is it. [00:00:50] John Nash: I especially like the silences. It's a solace, not soul less. It's a SOLACE. [00:00:57] Jason Johnston: Solace. The silences. Yeah. [00:01:00] John Nash: Yes. [00:01:00] Ericka Hollis: One of the effective teaching practices is wait time. Most of the time in education, we don't wait long enough. So for someone to actually think and respond, right? There's research behind that when you jump right in. And so I love awkward silence. I'm really an introvert. Although most of my career, I do things that are very extroverted. So I'm okay with the pause and the solace, if you will, John. Yeah, [00:01:30] John Nash: we'll just do Erica Hollis episode and we'll just have it be 40 minutes of no talking. [00:01:36] Jason Johnston: Yeah. Like John Cage, if you're familiar with his pieces. He sits at the piano and he's got sheet music and it's all blank. After four minutes and thirty three seconds, packs up the sheet music and then goes. But I feel you on that. I'm an introvert as well. And I'm also, I feel like I'm slower, sometimes slower to respond, especially in a classroom where I'm taking in a lot of stimulus. And so I always found in the face to face classrooms, I would think of really like good things to say, like later two hours later, or good questions to ask, but it was rarely like right in the moment. It was like, it was always later which is one of the things I liked about online learning is that it was the asynchronous gave some simmer time for me and some time to think about things and to be able to respond some. [00:02:29] Ericka Hollis: I think that's a fair point. That's one of the reasons I have one of my youngest sister is she has extreme social anxiety, and she has just done so much better in asynchronous online courses, even as an undergraduate student. Just because that works better for her, instead of being like called on in the class, like cold calling, we cold call on people. And some people are like, yeah, they jump right in. And some people you can see like terror in their face when you call on them. And so I think it's a very good point in thinking about who's in your classroom and what actually works for them. And are you giving everyone like the same level playing field where I feel like in a face to face class, even in a synchronous Zoom class, it favors an extrovert, right? One that wants to put their hand up. It doesn't really favor those who are still thinking, still processing, in that kind of way. So that's one of the things I do enjoy about it the most from a like, pedagogical, andragogical standpoint, like the process time, the wait time. [00:03:36] Jason Johnston: So like silence as a liberatory practice. [00:03:42] John Nash: Oh, I like that. [00:03:44] Jason Johnston: I think that makes a lot of sense, and even the way that Zoom is made, those , that feel comfortable being seen, and they have their video on, are going to pop to the top, right? [00:03:57] Ericka Hollis: Yeah, [00:03:57] Jason Johnston: So those that don't say as much, and don't feel comfortable having the video on, they're going to be at the bottom, or even on the second page, if you have a very large class, or [00:04:07] John Nash: Or the third page or the fourth page, I've noticed that. Yeah. You have to go way in to find all the students. [00:04:14] Ericka Hollis: exactly. [00:04:15] Jason Johnston: That's good. So, we've started already. Thank you. That's a good conversation. Intro [00:04:22] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston. [00:04:26] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the Online Learning Podcast. [00:04:31] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but a lot of it still isn't. How are we going to get there, Jason? [00:04:45] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it? [00:04:50] John Nash: That's a great idea. What do you want to talk about today? Start [00:04:53] Jason Johnston: In addition to that, how about we do a podcast and invite really cool, wonderful people from our past to talk to as well. Wouldn't that be cool [00:05:02] John Nash: That would be cool. Let's get some good old friends on here and have a good yarn about. "What is up in online?" [00:05:09] Jason Johnston: That sounds good. Today we have with us Dr. Erica Hollis, a good friend of ours from way back at the University of Kentucky. I can say that you're still there, John, but the rest of us have moved on, no, I'm just joking. Erica, welcome. [00:05:25] Ericka Hollis: Thank you so much. I'm enjoying this already. [00:05:28] John Nash: it's so wonderful to have you here. It feels like old home week. [00:05:32] Ericka Hollis: It does. It feels very, I feel very comfortable, and I can't wait to have this conversation with you both. I haven't seen either of you in probably a decade. So, I'm really happy to catch up. [00:05:46] Jason Johnston: Yeah, all of a sudden, we start talking in decades. This is what happened. Now you're younger than both of us, Erica, but this is what happens as you start to, get up there. You start talking and measure your years and in decades. Online PhD Backchannels and Support [00:05:57] John Nash: Yeah, so, Erica, it's wonderful to have you here and we do have a bit of a backstory. We first met when you were a doctoral student at the University of Kentucky. Was that 2012, 2013? [00:06:12] Ericka Hollis: That was 2012, my friend. [00:06:15] John Nash: Yeah. And I, among all the things I remember from your time in the program I I recall that because we were the first online PhD at the University of Kentucky, we hoped that the students would start a back channel and you all were inside of Google chat. I think subsequent cohorts have chosen everything from Voxer to Signal. And But you and Todd Hurst, I think, wrote a paper, did an analysis of all the chat that went on in the back channel and what makes community in an online, and I thought, we're onto something now here. I think that was, but I remember that from your time in the program, and now you've gone on to apply that in so many new ways. It's cool. I can't wait to talk about that, but that, that sticks out. [00:06:59] Ericka Hollis: I definitely remember that. Our backchannel came, you should both know this, came out of necessity. We were in a synchronous class and one of our professors, who I will not name, was talking and someone started the backchannel and said, what is he talking about? Does anyone know what he's talking about? And people started laughing on screen, right? And then everyone started chiming in the professor is talking about this is what we're doing. And the back channel stayed, it's still intact. Like years later, we've graduated, we still use that back channel. I'm not kidding. Like when someone gets promoted or someone has a question or you want someone to look at something, we still use that back channel. And it was Google Hangouts now I think it's called Google Meet or whatever Google has changed to. But yeah, it the back channel was amazing. Um, I have four life colleagues I believe. And I would say the community that we built is, it was just so special. Like I haven't seen. anything like that. And I've tried to figure out how to recreate that in other avenues. And sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't. But giving people the opportunity to figure out how they want to connect and not tell them how to do it, I think is the most important thing, but suggesting that they do. [00:08:23] John Nash: Yeah, that's carried on. And so in the program, we've done just that. We said, we don't care what you create here or how you create it. Just make one and pick a platform. And then, yeah, it's stuck. It's become a necessity. I think. Ye

    53 min
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In this podcast, John Nash and Jason Johnston take public their two-year-long conversation about online education and their aspirations for its future. They acknowledge that while some online learning has been great, there is still a lot of room for improvement. While technology and innovation will be a topic of discussion, the conversation will focus on how to get online learning to the next stage, the second half of life. Click here to give us feedback on our podcast!

Informations

  • Création
    John Nash & Jason Johnston
  • Années d’activité
    2023 - 2025
  • Épisodes
    36
  • Classification
    Tous publics
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
  • Site web de l’émission
    Online Learning in the Second Half

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