EP2 - What is this Podcast About? Aspirations for Online Learning in the Second Half

In this episode, Jason and John talk about what this podcast is about. It’s not a show about nothing. We hope. 

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Readings

Boyd, D. (2016). What would Paulo Freire think of Blackboard: Critical pedagogy in an age of online learning. The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 7(1).

Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th Anniversary). Continuum.

 

Theme Music: Pumped 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!

S1E2 - What is this Podcast About?

[00:00:00] Jason Johnston: Do you hear the squirrel complaining outside my window?

[00:00:02] John Nash: No.

[00:00:03] Jason Johnston: This is what happens.

I got,

I got the cat scratching at my door. I've got a squirrel complaining outside my window.

Get rid of the squirrel. Let the cat in.

Welcome to podcasting,

MusicIntro

[00:00:21] John Nash: Hey everyone, I'm John Nash and I'm here with Jason Johnston.

[00:00:24] Jason Johnston: Hey John. Hey everyone. And this is Online learning in the second half the online learning podcast.

[00:00:29] John Nash: Hey. We're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two years about online education. So, look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is no doubt, but there's also a long way to go.

So how are we going to get this to the next stage?

[00:00:47] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?

[00:00:51] John Nash: Perfect. You know what, let's talk about today. I've been thinking about this. Jason, what is this podcast about? That's what I've been thinking about because we are two people who have been neck deep in the workings, the process, the enterprise of teaching and learning online, particularly in higher education.

And we come to it with a bit of a critical eye because we've been doing the work and we see opportunities for being better. And yet in the run up for me to us talking about this, I find myself just sounding like a curmudgeon. So, I'm trying to figure out and maybe that's what our, sort of our entering conversation here is about, is where we're seeing opportunities for improvement, hopefully.

And then if, to the extent that anybody's out there listening and wants to guide us on where the conversation should go or where we think the winds are blowing, we could do that. But I'm wondering for you, what do you think our overarching conversation is about here?

[00:01:55] Jason Johnston: I love the idea of having a section that just starts with kids today dot, dot, dot, and we just complain about what kids today are doing.

[00:02:05] John Nash: I feel like I need it. I don't know.

[00:02:07] Jason Johnston: And I think for me that's a great lead into that kind of idea of here we are peering into the second half of our own personal lives but also thinking about of what's going on in the online space and higher education and how post. Ish, we are looking at our education laid out for us over the next, into the next decade or decades and wondering what's going to happen next?

And what can we be aspirational about? What can we look back on and be proud about? What we've come to at this point and where we would like to see things go if we had the choice and power to help steer this ship

[00:02:51] John Nash: Yeah, I think that's part of it. And we've both been doing some reading of the works by James Hollis and I was looking at in his, early on in his book, living An Examined Life.

There are talks about, a familiar proverb in Japan, which declares it is the protruding nail that gets hammered. And yeah. So, I've just been thinking a lot about all the protruding nails.

[00:03:12] Jason Johnston: So, what do you what do you think about first, when you think about protruding nails, what are the first things that kind of pop up?

[00:03:18] John Nash: I think that coming out of the pandemic one of the protruding nails is the vast numbers of educators out there who were thrown into online learning who are. maybe in a position or put in a position rather to stick with it by either their institution or they think they want to. But the nail that's protruding, that needs to be smoothed out, hammered down is the professional development needed to really do well while teaching online?

I think that's a bit of a myth that's come around that it's simple to take your curriculum over. And I don't think it, it is and I think we've got a lot of colleagues out there that could be supported.

[00:03:57] Jason Johnston: Do you think post pandemic or Ish? I keep saying post pandemic and then I catch myself and so I'm throwing “ish” on the end post pandemicish that instructors/faculty who were thrown in online are feeling more confident about it and they feel like they know what they're doing and so they don't. Perhaps feel like they need that professional development, or do you think that they're coming to some awareness that, oh, that was interesting. We can do some things online.

We can throw things remote, but now I'm opened up to this world and realize that I need a lot more work than I thought.

[00:04:35] John Nash: I think it's, I think there's a few buckets there. I think there are I was remembering our notes from past conversations you and I have had, and we had one down here that said emergency remote learning is not mature online experiences for learners or are not.

So, I think we've got folks that are. Pining to get back into the classroom, that they're more comfortable there. I think there are those that had a, an interesting experience or a good experience and they would like to stay there cuz they found the flexibility of the platform but maybe weren't satisfied with the way in which the teaching and learning transferred from the former face to face setting.

I think I said I had three and then there those have just, yeah, who did not have a good experience and probably are wondering whether they can maintain quality in there if they don't have a place to go back to if they're not going back into the classroom.

[00:05:25] Jason Johnston: Yeah. And as we think about the second half of the online life different from our own human lives. There is not necessarily a foreseeable end to this.

We can't say in 40 years that we'll be laying this entity into the ground and saying our goodbyes. It's difficult to understand and even believe right now that we're at this kind of really turning point that has been happening for the last 25 years maybe, and now is really opened up in a new way, even over the last couple of years that now is hard to imagine a future without online learning, at least a future where humans are existing.

If we want to get that far into it without some level of online learning.

[00:06:16] John Nash: No, it's very hard to imagine that. We may, we've taken the convenient handle of the second half of online learning's life from Hollis's work, but we may be in the first one 10th of 1% of its life. And but there, I think there's always going to be inflection points where we, or and reflection points where we can think about how it can improve.

[00:06:38] Jason Johnston: and depending on who you're talking to, it feels a little bit like we're at a turning point a midlife crisis in some levels of thinking about online learning, but it may very well be that all we've seen is adolescence so far.

And now we've hit our first crisis, and we are now thinking about, what is the next thing?

[00:06:59] John Nash: Yeah. And so, as you talk about that first crisis, like going into the pandemic, and particularly as I think about the P 12 space and how they definitely threw themselves into a panic mode of using online learning for ill or will.

I was thinking about how much of the progress that has been made in improving online learning in the, say 10 years up till the pandemic and how the platforms have changed. Blackboard was the leader and then now Canvas came in and did some disruption.

But I still find that most of what we do is confined by the constraints of the affordances of those platforms. And so, I'm wondering what the next thing will be. Canvas for all its improvements over Blackboard, my personal opinion, still is a fairly didactic module driven, structured platform that lends itself well to someone who teaches in a module based didactic fashion.

So, it lends itself well to shovel wear. It also lends itself well to someone who's has aspirations to create a more constructivist approach with maybe some participatory things, but that's not so obvious out of the box to someone who's just coming to use online learning as part of their daily toolkit.

[00:08:18] Jason Johnston: Yeah. And in, in recent years as I've been trying to reflect a little bit more on online, Learning and the student experience and as you said,

a shovel wear, thinking about some of the

critical approaches to education specifically Paulo Freire Yes. And thinking about his idea well before online learning, the fact that too often we use this banking model of education where we imagine these empty minds of our students and we are making deposits, one-way deposits into their brains.

And I'm afraid that our online learning platforms have guided us. Technology is not neutral. I think you, do you agree with me with that technology is not neutral. Agree with you.

[00:09:01] John Nash: Yes.

[00:09:01] Jason Johnston: And I'm afraid that the way that our technology is set up, it has almost guided us. To recreate this again, like a way that we can just one way

make these deposits into our students who are logging on.

And I think there's other technology though, at the same time that recognizes this and is trying to do things to mix it up a little bit. But

I think that it's a difficulty. So, I hear you talking about that technology, which is be another protruding nail probably, right?

[00:09:31] John Nash: And you're right because I think it's easy to be lulled into a false sense of complacency actually a false sense of advancement

[00:09:40] Jason Johnston: yeah.

[00:09:40] John Nash: Just by realizing how easily we settled for poor standards with Blackboard and other platforms. It's almost like I remember somebody using a term, scaling up direct. So, we've just got a better way to mechanize the efficiency of the learning.

I think canvas does that well. I like using Canvas, but if we're really honest about it, you're right. Technology is not neutral. And what it does well is it allows me to, what does it allow me to do really well? It allows me to port last year's class into this year's class. And repeat the stuff. And yeah. As we think about trying to humanize education further and use, let technology and online capabilities be a resource for that and a, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. We're not there.

[00:10:29] Jason Johnston: No, we're not. Yeah. We are really; we have really perfected the shovel wear the banking model if we choose to use that.

And I think there's a few people that are trying to break out of that, some of the new innovators, but they're, as much as I also like Canvas they're not there anymore. They're not in an innovation stage right now. They are a, in a stage of continuing what they've already done. Yeah. And so, we're not going to probably see as, my guess, a lot of innovation from Canvas moving forward because they're going to have to really support and cater to the status quo that we've already created with it.

[00:11:06] John Nash: Yeah. Yeah. So, as we think about trying to, I think we have some hurdles in front of us. An overarching desire, I know at least on your, my part to more humanize maybe even democratize. Educational experiences that occur online by involving the learner more in the design of the experiences and to make sure they're aligned to what the learners want in their own lives.

And that in and of itself is a challenge, even if we're not teaching online. To have a professor or an instructor or lecturer or teacher do that in their own classroom face to face is also, sometimes it's antithetical to their own notions of how teaching ought to be done. Power differentials the politics of teaching involving students in their in the discussions of their destiny as learners.

And then add that online component to that. Then, you've got, so you've got professional development and bringing along folks to think about how they can be more humanistic and more of a co-designer with learners about that experience. And then to what extent can that be done with the affordances of the tools that we have that let us do it online?

Yeah. There are two nails that are protruding.

[00:12:17] Jason Johnston: So, what do you think from an online professor's standpoint, if you could blank slate it and you're coming into this for the first time and you're going to teach online, what would some of your aspirations be?

[00:12:30] John Nash: I don't know why that question is so difficult for me to answer. That's interesting. I didn't expect that.

I think maybe I've become so accustomed the tools that have been handed to me that I haven't thought about. I'm constantly thinking about how to innovate inside that box. I just, so let's talk about Canvas again. I'm thinking about ways to do assessments that don't involve, a multiple-choice test.

I'm thinking about ways to provide video and other, non-didactic sort of, not publishing a PowerPoint and having them read that and figure out something from that. Avoiding straight up lectures. And so, what would it be? Maybe I would ditch the platform altogether and we.

Go in the direction that we were just talking about what we wanted for ourselves as learners, which was how would I create a learning community around an important outcome I wanted students to attain in the course and then backward map out of that to think about materials and topics. But if I think there would probably be synchronous components to it, maybe more than we typically think about.

And they would be on Zoom or some other, video platform where we could commune and talk and solve problems together. I think that's I think there are ways in which one can have enriching asynchronous threaded discussions, but ultimately those are it's that discussion in the moment.

I think that can. Really drive a conversation to a point where new outcomes can be attained, new solutions can be attained that you wouldn't otherwise get.

[00:14:10] Jason Johnston: I wonder if professors would be in the same boat of not necessarily knowing what's good for them. I know that'd be hard to admit for maybe some professors, but I feel like what instructors maybe want also is convenience when it comes to teaching online. Yes. They like the flexibility as much as the students, like the flexibility asynchronous is super convenient because it means that I can take my dog to the vet this afternoon and I don't have to be stuck in class, and then I can come back to it later on and respond to people or whatever.

But I wonder about just that personal. Satisfaction of being part of a learning community, that it's not just about the students, but for professors and instructors to have a sense of satisfaction and a desire to really be learning alongside of the students or connecting with the students. It maybe we need to just start planning on more of that synchronous time to really make that connection, even though it's inconvenient to have an hour a week to plan it out, which sounds ridiculous as I'm saying it, what do you think?

[00:15:19] John Nash: I think that's interesting because what I'm realizing now as we're talking is that part of what I've come to appreciate in a, say in a 16 week course that I teach at my institution is I'm interested in understanding the student's trajectory of growth from the beginning to the end, and how they've changed themselves, how their thinking may have changed, how their attainment of the key outcomes, knowledge, skills, and that we're interested in having them attain.

And I like learning about that trajectory from them themselves in a series of conversations. And in an asynchronous course, one might attempt to get that by having a reflective 3, 4, 5 pagers at the end about, tell me what you've learned in this course and what resources you relied upon to come to those conclusions.

That's fine. And that tells me a little bit, but it really doesn't tell me about how you changed as a person and how you're leaving

differently and you're thinking differently as you'll apply these things in your future endeavors. That's what I'm thinking about.

[00:16:25] Jason Johnston: Which I guess if we're going to bring it all down here, thinking about those early optimistic, could we call them almost naive hopeful feelings we all had as we started as teachers that we would at the end of the day, we would change lives, right?

That they would leave the other end of the semester different than they entered. Yes. And I, I found very few teachers that's not still the hope. And yet I find ourselves also stuck in this Assembly line, it almost feels like sometimes, right? This almost industrialization of education that again, continues in online where we're stuck in these modalities or these ways that it's difficult, feels difficult to help the change happen.

And it feels difficult to see the change happen. You're not going to see that, as you mentioned before, through a multiple-choice test.

[00:17:23] John Nash: No. And it's hard to see also when the say the degree program or the overarching curriculum across the program is so compartmentalized that each course stands upon its own as just a chunk of learning and the connections across them are not as clear.

I can feel good that I don't have to remember that stuff anymore, because I'm going to go to the next class and do that. And I think that's fights like that's fighting against our desire for this. And that's rooted in an overarching deep system of, credit hour production and how many hours are needed to create a degree and how many transfer credits are allowed in, and all of that fun stuff.

[00:18:01] Jason Johnston: Yeah. And reminds me of something you said before too in our conversations where that it's easy to kitchen sink things online. We can just throw everything in there that we want to throw in there. So, whether it's the disconnected classes oh, I want to do something on this, I want to do something on that.

And maybe from a student perspective as well, but even within our classes, it's so easy just to, there's so much available and we're all drowning in the sea of information. So much available. It's so easy just to want to. Put everything in the kitchen sink in there. Yes,

[00:18:35] John Nash: I do remember saying that, and I, because I had fallen victim.

Sure. And teaching a class, I see a resource. I'll make a canvas page, and I'll drop it in a module. And now they'll, and now they'll go do that and they'll be smarter now. And I'll fall victim to that. Recently taught this term a course face to face that I've been teaching online for several years.

And I, this really, that whole thing came home to roost because there's, in a face-to-face class, you don't have the luxury of just throwing everything at them. You have to be very conscious about choosing the right learning resource lecture help session. What. That is going to advance the learning outcome.

And just that there's no time to do anything else. You can't. And so, I think, yeah, it's taught me a lot about going back to teaching this course online. Again, I'm going to be very careful about what I select to go in those sections on those learning outcomes. Very much I've been thrown so much in there.

Yeah. Kitchen synced it. Yeah. And I just want to add, I want to say canvas, is it's a double-edged sword. They're helpful in this regard, but it's also a problem. But I you can drop in these plugins. So, any number of the vendors that have come along that'll let you either add videos or badge things, or you name it it's a dropdown menu and a plug and play away from adding yet another resource that you think will help things along.

. I just think we have to be, we have to be critical consumers of what we think we're putting in there to advance the learning outcomes.

[00:20:06] Jason Johnston: Yes. And as we're looking to absolutely to what we think is a problem solving with our technology we're faced with the shadow side of these limitless possibilities, within our screens here. And yeah. And sometimes that can be just trying to give everything at once or see everything at once or provide everything at once.

[00:20:29] John Nash: Yeah. Look, if I drop this down in front of them, they'll consume it and then they'll be smarter, right? And I fall in for that as well. You, yeah. You have to be very thoughtful about what you're putting in front of learners and why you want them to do it, and what, where it takes them next.

I think it has to be a building journey.

[00:20:45] Jason Johnston: I really think we hit on some pretty big topics here. And this is a great time to also invite other people into the conversation. So, if you're listening, we would love to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, the online learning podcasts, a LinkedIn group, and you can. Let us know what you want to talk about as well as jump in on the conversation on these various podcasts.

[00:21:07] John Nash: Yeah, absolutely. And also find us online at our website for show notes and all other things Good. About the podcast. That's online learning podcast.com. Online learning podcast.com.

[00:21:23] Jason Johnston: Yes, we'd love to hear from you. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:21:26] John Nash: Yeah. See you later, Jason. Yeah.

[00:21:28] Jason Johnston: See you, John.