Month: August 2020

We’re bringing you the latest on the BCcampus Research Fellows program. This update features changes to the program to increase inclusivity, break down silos, and explore opportunities to improve teaching and learning in the post-secondary sector of British Columbia.

Post by BCcampus’ editorial team

The BCcampus Research Fellows program has a history of success, enabling researchers to dive deep into their interests with the support and funding they need to investigate their inquiries. In previous years, funding and support has been spread across a variety of disciplines, including ed tech, scholarly teaching, and open education advocacy. Earlier this year, we decided to amalgamate the specialties and open the program up to a broader audience, including post-secondary educators and students across the province. Our goal is to support research in a variety of institutions across the B.C. post-secondary system.

Deliverables of the Program

Our research fellows will develop, conduct, and review their research topics, with a targeted completion date of January 31, 2022. The successful applicants will present their research outcomes at an upcoming BCcampus event or ETUG workshop, author a pair of blog posts about their research, and publish their results in an open format, acknowledging BCcampus as a funder.

All materials will be shared under a Creative Commons Attribution licence so that future research can build on the findings from today’s investigations and explorations.

2020–2021 Research Projects Made Possible via BCcampus

We’re excited to see what the following projects will reveal to our research fellows, as well as the opportunities they will create for teachers and learners in B.C.

Gripping the paddle with both hands: embedding Indigenous learning approaches into online education

Rob-Roy Douglas from Northern Lights College is looking at how Indigenous experiential and narrative learning can be integrated into the online education environment to improve student engagement and outcomes.

“This project will improve student comprehension of subjects that are challenging to deliver online,” shared Rob-Roy in his research proposal. “This will have obvious benefits to B.C. post-secondary education by increasing its effectiveness. As well, by explicitly incorporating Indigenous approaches to learning in cooperation with an instructor in the Aboriginal Education Department at Northern Lights College, this project will contribute to the Indigenization of post-secondary education in British Columbia.”

File of uncertainties: identifying themes and issues that act as barriers and supports when incorporating decolonizing and anti-racist knowledge into nursing practice with Indigenous clients

Leanne Kelly and Christina Chakanyuka from the School of Nursing at the University of Victoria are investigating the specific themes and issues that act as barriers and supports when incorporating decolonizing and anti-racist knowledge into nursing practice with Indigenous clients.

In their submission, Leanne and Christina explained, “As nurse educators, we know that student nurses are taking the necessary theory courses to learn culturally safe nursing practice. We are less knowledgeable about how students incorporate this knowledge and information and build it into their practical experience. The results of this project will assist in developing instructional strategies that enhance understanding and praxis of the knowledge for the benefit of both service providers and clients.”

Effectively moving away from traditional proctored exams in first-year physics courses

At the University of Northern British Columbia, Meghan Costello is researching how we can effectively move away from traditional proctored midterm and final exams in first-year physics courses in a way that will improve student motivation and understanding of the course material.

“I will be teaching a first-year, non-majors physics course fully online during both the summer and fall semesters at UNBC,” shared Meghan. “Rather than using predominantly textbook-style questions on assignments and exams, I am planning to incorporate a variety of question styles (i.e., project questions answered via video, interactive questions involving online simulations, and revised calculation questions with increased emphasis on explaining the underlying theory). I expect that these question styles will lead to more student questions during office hours, as well as increased student participation in tutorial sessions and increased student collaboration with peers.”

Pivoting to inclusion: Designing ancillary OER in a collaborative cross-institutional environment

Theresa Southam from Selkirk College with College of the Rockies will implement and measure the effect of Hockings (2010) Principles of Inclusion for 4–6 OER, asking:

• What difference does the application of inclusion principles make to instructional design when instructors are designing and using ancillary OER in an online environment?
• Do students perceive ancillary OER (e.g., videos, podcasts, formative assessments, collaborative peer-based learning, and homework) in an online environment as inclusive, and if so, how? If not, why not?
• If staff are asked to make institutional changes to be more inclusive in the online environment, how do they react? What is their perception of the importance of the principles of inclusion?

Theresa shared, “Students utilizing the open educational resources (OER) in this research project will be asked to reflect on the inclusive nature of OER in their course (e.g., the original intention and their perception of the success of inclusivity or the lack thereof) so that the research pays attention not only to principles of inclusion from the research, but to the voices of students.”

The pivot to online, on the front lines: measuring the real impact of alternative assessment in remote learning

At Vancouver Community College, Elle Ting will be studying the modes of alternative assessment implemented by VCC instructors and how successful they feel these have been in supporting academic integrity. She’ll also work to discover what makes the deployment of an alternative assessment tool/method successful versus unsuccessful, in real terms, and which educational technology supports can help facilitate effective implementations.

Elle explained, “This study will evaluate, using qualitative and quantitative metrics, what the pivot to online actually means to individual instructors, students, and disciplines in terms of the development and adoption of alternative assessment, and what the most appropriate alternative assessment solutions would be for VCC and other small to mid-size post-secondary institutions.”

Creating impact through community-based co-design projects within curriculum

Caylee Raber at Emily Carr University of Art + Design is investigating how community-based co-design projects with marginalized populations (both in-person and online) impact student learning when embedded within a course context.

“This research project will seek to evaluate the impact and value of community-based co-design projects on student learning, as well as student success post-graduation,” said Caylee. “Data will be collected from a range of participants through surveys and interviews, then analyzed and synthesized to determine key themes. A final report will summarize the findings and will suggest strategies for the continued development of such projects, which can be shared openly within Emily Carr and other institutions.”

Learn More:

• Call for Proposals: BCcampus Research Fellows Program 2020–2021
• BCcampus Fellows Program
• Reflection on being a Scholarly Teaching Fellow – Heather Smith

Post by Helena Prins, advisor, Learning + Teaching at BCcampus

This has been a very busy summer for educators and those who support them. With many having made an emergency “pivot” to online delivery in the spring, there was a need to do some rethinking and preparation before courses ran again in the fall. At BCcampus, the Facilitating Online Learning (FLO) “family” of offerings has been a big part of our response to this critical moment. Since June, we have offered 17 FLO events, and about 700 educators have shown up to hone their skills!

Some new FLO offerings have emerged, too. FLO Fridays invite talented practitioners to share strategies, skills, and tools to engage students online. This summer, FLO Fridays featured hands-on technical training sessions for the most used web-conferencing tools, as well as sandbox sessions to give faculty time to try things out in a safe and supportive environment.

Another new offering we rapidly developed and deployed in response to the COVID crisis is FLO Bootcamp. The goal was to provide focused, flexible support to help faculty work through and adjust only a few key elements of courses that proved most problematic during the pivot in March, including:

• overuse of synchronous sessions
• online proctored exams 
• establishing and maintaining instructor presence
• assignment and assessment design

We assembled an instructional design “dream team” of colleagues who have worked in B.C. post-secondary institutions (PSIs) for years, some of whom were also on the front line hosting webinars during the first days of the mad “pivot” to online. BJ Eib, Krista Lambert, and Tracy Roberts collaborated on the design of this short, intense “bootcamp” experience, with early feedback and input from Anne Sommerfeld, Paula Hayden, Tannis Morgan, Ross McKerlich, Clint Lalonde, and Melanie Meyers.

Registration for the first offering of Bootcamp in July filled up in just a few hours. We ran it three times from July to August 2020, working with a total of 75 faculty from all over B.C. on their fall course preparation. This intensive (and fun) four-day course starts with a “Scan and Plan” challenge that invites each participant to take a deep dive into their course as it currently stands and plan on how they will be spending the rest of their time in Bootcamp. Day 2 activities focus on lectures and alternatives, while Day 3 tackles the challenging topic of adapting your assessment approach. Day 4 covers online presence and student engagement. In addition, we hosted two daily drop-in sessions with guests who were ready to answer questions and problem-solve challenges brought forward by participants.

When asked about some of the highlights of facilitating FLO Bootcamp, Terri Bateman from North Island College said that “seeing the connections that were made across institutions and disciplines — the sharing and the empathy” and reading several times that participants felt “less alone” made this a memorable experience for her.

Anne Sommerfeld, interim director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology at UNBC and one of the facilitators for FLO Bootcamp, is impressed with the resiliency faculty show during these storms and as they support each other.

Participants experienced both detailed course design support and collegial support. During one of the final drop-in sessions, a Bootcamp participant said, “I got something that I didn’t know I needed — that sense of community.”

Another wrote, “Prior to COVID-19, I was 100 per cent classroom-based. The only online delivery method I used was email (not kidding). I hadn’t even taken an online class. I thought Zoom was an aerobics class from the ’80s. Yikes! FLO Bootcamp was rich with information. The asynchronous activities were so well written. I could learn the basics, then go deeper when ready. I LOVED the synchronous sessions. I watched how they used Zoom and employed interactive tools. I learned from other participants. I also saw the importance of building a community for our students.”

And it doesn’t end here! Because FLO Bootcamp was created and shared as an open educational resource (OER), anyone can adopt it and offer it locally — and they are! Tracy Roberts, director of Learning and Teaching at BCcampus, said, “We are thrilled that two B.C. PSIs — UNBC and CNC — have already adopted FLO Bootcamp and will be offering it locally for their faculty before the fall semester. We would love to see more B.C. PSIs adopt all our FLO courses and build local capacity to support faculty on their ongoing learning journey, and to promote well designed and well supported online learning experiences for all students.”

On adopting FLO Bootcamp, Anne Sommerfeld says, “What a great open resource for small institutions to adopt! The ‘heavy lifting’ is done for you, and the resources are ready to go. I am also adapting this model for a teaching assistant workshop, as they need some similar skills.”

A final word from a faculty participant, Dana P., who took FLO Bootcamp not once, but twice this summer: “From the bottom of my heart, thank you FLO team (Anne, BJ, Helena, Krista, and Tracy). You rallied and gave us structure, information, and much-needed support. I am deeply grateful.”

Join us for an upcoming FLO course to discover the difference it can make to your students’ and your own online experience!

One positive thing we noticed during the COVID-19 pandemic was how quickly and effectively everyone came together to support teaching and learning across the province. In a survey conducted in May–June 2020, we asked B.C. faculty to share their approaches to the pivot to online learning.

Post by BCcampus’ editorial team

To help shape our immediate and ongoing responses, the teams at BCcampus wanted to get a better sense of what B.C. post-secondary educators were doing about conversion to and creation of online learning environments. With a phenomenal response, representing 22 of the 25 post-secondary institutions in B.C., we compiled this snapshot of where we were at during that stage of the pandemic and what’s in store for the months to come.

The Data

Of the 209 people who submitted responses to our survey, 91 per cent identified as a faculty member, associate faculty member, instructor, sessional instructor, or teaching assistant. Librarians made up 2 per cent of the respondents, and those working as an educational developer, instructional designer, faculty developer, or learning designer comprised another 2 per cent.

Here are some quick facts from the survey:

• 63 per cent of respondents had never taught online before the pivot.
• 78 per cent described the changes made to their course as several and/or significant.
• 46 per cent tried to make their course as similar as possible to their F2F model, and 39 per cent stripped the course back to the bare minimum, removing some readings and assignments.
• 44 per cent leaned heavily on their learning management systems (LMS) to conduct their courses, and 32 per cent said they relied primarily on web conferencing tools — such as Zoom, BlueJeans, Teams, and Big Blue Button — to continue their teachings.
• 68 per cent believe that, over the next 12–18 months, they’ll be teaching the same course they pivoted to in the pandemic. 65 per cent expect they’ll be teaching a different course that will need to change for online delivery.

Preparing for the Future

Moving forward, respondents shared what future courses could — or should — look like:

• 79 per cent said that the types of assignments used will need to change before the course can run.
  • 63 per cent believe that the technology needs to change.
  • 46 per cent feel that there will be higher expectations of students to participate in live online sessions.
  • 37 per cent expect changes in the distribution of grades.
  • 32 per cent see changes in the course learning outcomes or objectives.
  • 30 per cent foresee the addition of online proctored exams.
  • 18 per cent think exams need to be removed.
  • 6 per cent believe that no changes are required — courses can run as is.
• Web conferencing, LMS, email, and narrated presentations were all tagged as technologies that will be used in future online courses, as were online proctored exams and phone/text options.
• 57 per cent of respondents believe that more access to instructional/learning design support and more access to educational technology support will be most helpful for those teaching online courses in B.C.
  • 56 per cent would like more release time for teaching.
  • 49 per cent would like more help integrating free and open educational resources into their courses.
  • 48 per cent would like access to free professional development for teaching online.
  • 33 per cent want teaching assistance or other instructional support.

Better Together

“We’re all in the same storm, just in different ships,” explained Anne Sommerfeld, co-chair of the B.C. Teaching & Learning Council (BCTLC). “In the early days of the pivot to online learning, many of us felt that we were failing our students and educators, but through sharing, collaborating, and conversing with each other, we learned that we’re not doing so bad in our boats, and together, we can weather the storm. For faculty, the anxiety of not knowing, not being sure, is the hardest part. As leadership at the BCTLC, we are facilitating conversations to find out how each group is handling the obstacles, so we can bring consistency to the message and share it throughout the teaching and learning community.”

“As we made the pivot,” shared Paula Hayden, co-chair for BCTLC, “every teaching and learning centre across B.C. was tapped into in a very deliberate and high demand kind of way, especially around technology. Generally, our people are comfortable with their approach to teaching, but the urgency to make the pivot and use technology was a big, big deal. Students are always the ultimate focus, so we do whatever we can to make accessing learning easy and effective for students.”

Notable Quotes

“One great resource for our educators and institutions was BCNET — they support many of the tech solutions while doing the legwork around privacy concerns and connectivity issues.”

—Paula Hayden, co-chair, British Columbia Teaching & Learning Council

“Some of the transition to online has been very positive […] It has encouraged us to think about how to be more flexible and inclusive in our delivery. We’re really looking to reduce barriers to learning — something we didn’t focus on as much before. It sometimes takes a big change like this to re-envision our curriculum and really think about what it could be.”

—BCcampus survey respondent

Check out this infographic on the faculty pivot to online teaching for a visual representation of the survey’s findings.

Learn More:

• Problem Solving the Pivot to Online Learning
• The Basics of Online Learning
• Adapting to COVID-19: Learning Design Studio Drop-In Session
• Why Self-Care Isn’t Selfish: Caring for Yourself During COVID-19