EP 25 - AI Guidance from Oregon State University Ecampus with Karen Watté

In this episode, John and Jason talk to Karen Watté, the Senior Director of Course Development and Training at Oregon State University’s Ecampus about their free tools for AI guidance in higher education and how to humanize online education. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com

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Links and Resources:

• Oregon State University - eCampus AI Tools: https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/faculty/artificial-intelligence-tools/ )
• Michelle Miller’s Newsletter: Teaching from the Same Side https://michellemillerphd.substack.com/p/r3-117-september-15-2023-reflection
• OSU eCampus Readiness Playbook https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/faculty/artificial-intelligence-tools/readiness-playbook/

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!

 

[00:00:01] Jason Johnston: I picture everyone in Oregon in Log cabins and so on. Is that correct?

[00:00:04] Karen Watté: no, not at all.

[00:00:06] Jason Johnston: What?

[00:00:07] Karen Watté: I always say tell our candidates who are coming, I say, we have the best of both worlds. You're an hour from some beautiful ski areas, you're an hour from the coast. And boy, if you wanna see the desert, you just head on a little bit further. And we've got the high desert. So, we've got something of every, for everyone here. I've lived other places too and I come back, and I say, oh, this is, this has got it all.

[00:00:31] Jason Johnston: I grew up in Canada, and sometimes we would talk to people about the igloos that we lived in and having to check our dog sleds at the border and those kinds of things. Sometimes they believed us, sometimes they didn't.

[00:00:44] Karen Watté: Yeah.

[00:00:45] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.

[00:00:48] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.

[00:00:53] John Nash: we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation that 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 a lot that really isn't. So, Jason, how are we going to get to the next stage?

[00:01:08] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?

[00:01:13] John Nash: I love that idea. What do you want to talk about today?

[00:01:16] Jason Johnston: I am really excited to be talking today with Karen Watté. She's the Senior Director of Course Development and Training at the Ecampus Oregon State University. Welcome, Karen. How are you?

[00:01:28] Karen Watté: I'm good. Thank you.

[00:01:29] Jason Johnston: We, connected at OLC, Online Learning Consortium conference as part of their leadership day that they do ahead of time, and it was very fortuitous, I think, because we had just come through this summer where everybody was scrambling around AI, trying to figure out what to do, and while we were, trying to come up with some ideas and so on all of a sudden Oregon State had a full-fledged website built out with resources and stuff like that.

And we're like, this is amazing. Over here at University of Tennessee and it was really well done. So, we got chatting about that at OLC and then we got chatting about being on the podcast. So, thanks for joining us. Cause I'm really excited about talking with you today.

[00:02:10] Karen Watté: Yeah. Thanks for inviting me. Glad to be here.

[00:02:12] Jason Johnston: Tell us a little bit about what you do at Oregon State and your role there.

[00:02:17] Karen Watté: Yeah, as you mentioned, I'm the Senior Director of Course Development and Training with eCampus, and at Oregon State, eCampus is a centralized distance education unit, so we're serving all of the colleges within OSU. We have about 13,000 fully online students that we serve, and that's about one third of all the students enrolled at Oregon State are fully distanced.

[00:02:42] John Nash: Wow, a third of them. Do you know what history is of deciding to do a centralized distance learning unit? I know some campuses do that, some campuses don't, and I'm curious a little bit about that.

[00:02:54] Karen Watté: We've been in online for quite a long time, 20 plus years, and we are, the Oregon State is the land grant institution in Oregon, and maybe 25 plus years ago, we were doing the television based learning, and sending it out to everyone in the state, and that unit, of course, was extremely small, and as online learning developed, it changed and morphed into what it is today.

And it, so it's always been that central support unit and the way that the funding was established at OSU to support that unit encouraged it to remain a centralized space.

[00:03:33] John Nash: I see.

[00:03:34] Karen Watté: It's been a really a nice advantage, I think, for OSU to have that, that centralized.

[00:03:38] John Nash: Yeah, I get the sense that there are advantages to it. my institution isn't so centralized. It still has a unit supports that, but it's not connected to tight instructional design support I'm sure that there's disadvantages to what you said, something that was interesting, which is, I think, we're the land grant institution here at the University of Kentucky, but it's something about funding from 50 years ago that seems to set these things in motion. And so, it sounds like, yeah, that was a centralized sort of ITV unit and sort of things like that.

And then it moved into that. Yeah. It's interesting. More decentralized here.

[00:04:13] Jason Johnston: Yeah, and we're, we are also the land grant here in Tennessee, so I think that we've got a common thread here. And I think as we've talked about, becoming really a modern land grant some of it is strategically thinking about how are we going to continue to serve everyone in Tennessee, right?

And in the olden days, it was setting up their outposts in every county. We've got 95 counties, I think, in Tennessee and setting up Outposts there. And in these days, we're talking a lot more about online learning and about trying to connect there's almost a million Tennesseans who started their undergrad degree and didn't finish it.

And how do we serve those students in 2024 to help them move forward? So that's good. I knew there was something else that probably connected us on a deeper level and it's that land grant, I think.

And you direct the course development and training. So, does that mean both like from a production standpoint developing the courses and then also professional development for teachers?

[00:05:16] Karen Watté: Yes. Yeah. So, my particular team, we have about 45 professionals. We're about half instructional designers, and then the other half is a media development unit. And we have a handful of folks that also focus just on faculty development. But our media unit does videography, animation. We have Quite a number of programmers. And so, we do a lot of work. We're basically the faculty facing side of our, of Ecampus.

[00:05:43] Jason Johnston: And so how many are dedicated then within your 40 some odd with professional development?

[00:05:49] Karen Watté: In terms of just doing faculty development and training, I would say we have about 3 individuals that really focus on that, but all of our instructional design staff as part of their duties, they also provide training, and support that could be one on one, but it could also be in assisting with specialized trainings that we're putting together for faculty as well.

[00:06:13] Jason Johnston: So, did you get to this role like through like a faculty pathway or instructional design or media or how'd you get here?

[00:06:21] Karen Watté: I have a unique background. Years ago in the early 2000s, I was actually, after I got my MBA, I was working in private industry as an operations manager for FedEx Logistics, which was embedded into Hewlett Packard, which If you are aware, we have a huge Hewlett Packard facility here in Corvallis, Oregon.

And then prior to coming to OSU for about seven years or so, I was actually faculty at a local community college in their business technology and computer systems department. And then I went to OSU about 15 years, and I started in faculty development and training with eCampus and really establishing the foundational trainings that we base a lot of our course developments on today.

And then I just moved up as eCampus has grown, because eCampus has grown quite dramatically, and I would say in the last 10 years especially.

[00:07:17] John Nash: What infrastructure was in place for you to come into your role at OSU and start to do that training? Or did you bring your experience from your past positions in and start to develop that?

[00:07:28] Karen Watté: Well, I brought in a lot of my previous experience, and then, when I started, my unit had, I was the fourth person to be hired into this unit. And so, then we hired on an instructional designer who actually is our, is my supervisor right now, Shannon Riggs, and she and I together crafted the foundational trainings that go into what we provide for faculty today.

And of course, there's been many improvements since we've brought on, very skilled people, and then they've added to this suite of trainings, but we started it about 15 years ago when we came in. She had come from a Quality Matters institution. I, of course, had, background in, in training, both in private industry and then at the community college as well.

And together we put this program in place.

[00:08:20] John Nash: Yeah. And then together you've grown it. What did you say? 40 folks?

[00:08:25] Karen Watté: We have on in our team, I have about 45 folks all Ecampus as a whole is about a slightly over 100 staff.

[00:08:35] Jason Johnston: And what's the online population these days at Oregon State? I know you talked about in terms of the number, the percentages of Oregon State, but how many online?

[00:08:46] Karen Watté: So, we have a little over 13,000 fully online students. And like I had mentioned, it's one in every three OSU students now is a fully distance student. But in terms of, how many students do we touch every year? I think our last report showed that we had 29,000 unique students who took an eCampus course because a lot of our campus-based students will also take an eCampus course here or there during the year.

It's, they find it very helpful and allows them to have a flexible schedule.

[00:09:20] John Nash: Yeah. Cool.

[00:09:21] Jason Johnston:

Going back to our earlier note about these AI resources, and we'll put the link for people that are listening into the chat. But I just thought there's a number of things on here and just so people can visualize even without seeing it. You've got some, ethics, and principled kind of statements.

But then you get into an AI decision tree, like when is the a guide to how to incorporate AI or if you should incorporate it into your work, as well as a reimagining of Bloom's taxonomy which is really like instructional design love language, Bloom's taxonomy, there's, we've got a few of them and that's one, it's up there.

And so I appreciated how you wrap that into things. So just to give people a little bit of a landscape of that, but I wanted to talk about, as we're all dealing with AI at our respective institutions, and we're, John and I are both involved with various conversations around that.

How did this come about? Was this in general, like where was the impetus for this? Is this something within eCampus or was this a kind of a provost said, you must do this, or we'd love for you to do this? Or were the faculty rising up and saying, give us AI guidance, or how did this all happen?

[00:10:33] Karen Watté: Yeah, that's a great question. I think back in winter of 23, we realized at that point that we were just really dealing with a situation that It was like none other we had ever seen before, this, here's this digital tool. It's just exploding in capability and faster than anything that we had seen before.

And like many institutions, I think we had. Sessions, talking sessions with faculty where we introduce them to this idea. We wanted to have discussions with them. And certainly there was a lot of curiosity out there, but there was also a lot of fear. And so I know that in the early spring, we had actually had at least one program leader who said, we're waiting for Ecampus to figure this out. And so there was some real pressure there. But I think I, I knew at that point and after having a number of conversations that we were going to have individual faculty coming to us very soon with a lot of questions about, what does this mean? What are the implications of these tools? Should I put them in my class? How can I avoid my students using them?

And so, I, at that point, I, I basically say we've got to, we've got two things we have to do "and we have to do it very quickly. Number one, we have to figure out what is the eCampus stance on these tools, because clearly, we were not getting a lot of guidance from any other tool.

Location. The university did have a small task force and I was on that task force, and we were, looking at what was happening, but there wasn't real action happening in terms of how to, how are we going to support our faculty going into the next year.

And so, number one, we had to figure that out. And then number two, we needed to get some resources in place because we were going to be providing training and support all through the summer and into the fall for faculty who are trying to grapple with this. And so that's really where that came from. And at that point, I said, okay, let's we've got a lot of really great thinkers here on this team. A lot of people have done a lot of innovative stuff. I know we have a lot of folks who were very interested in it on the eCampus team. And so, I handpicked 12 people based on their diverse backgrounds and what they were interested in.

And I said, you are our AI council, and these are the three things we're going to do. We're going to figure out what eCampus thinks about these tools. And we're going to make a stand on it or take a stand on it. And then we're going to secondly, we're going to figure out some kind of taxonomy that will allow us to identify what AI skills are needed. And I had through some other conversations been inspired to think about it in that way.

And then finally, third, I needed some practical. strategies. We needed like a library of strategies that our instructional designers could pull upon as they had questions from faculty. So that's really where it came from organically as we were having conversations and knowing that there was this sense of urgency that we needed to get our house in order so we could help faculty who are going to be coming at us all through this summer.

[00:13:45] John Nash: The, the tool Page and I'm looking at it now is number of reasons from my perspective and that is you start with an ethics statement, but then it follows with some principles, and principle number one of seven is be student-centered. Now, when Jason and I, and maybe you are hanging around having coffee, this seems obvious to us, I'm sure that this ought to be number one, but it's not actually for most people maybe. Maybe I'm stretching. It's not for many people, and at our institution, and as I work also with P 12 schools around how leaders are going to articulate guidelines for AI aren't always first thinking about student centered -that's more administrative, or it's a lockdown attitude, or it's a integrity issue.

Can you talk with us a little bit about the conversations you may have had and why being student centered is number one on the principles.

[00:14:38] Karen Watté: When we were trying to decide, what did we need to do first? And that was, establish this ethical foundation. What are we going to say we stand for and what's important to us? And, Forever, eCampus has always been student centered. So, when we've talked about what, what's important to us when we're evaluating these tools and whether we should use them, we went back to OSU values, but also our eCampus values, which articulate that, the student comes first.

We do things for the student. So that seemed like just a natural. A natural piece to bring over as one of the principles that we're going to abide by when we're looking at these tools. The other principle I think that is very important there on the list is that last one, which was accountability because I think that kind of wraps up the fact that, regardless of whether you're using AI, the human author is ultimately responsible. So, there's all these other issues that we have to, that we want to consider, but we also want to ensure accountability for everything that's being produced here.

[00:15:41] Jason Johnston: And just to read that one, it says, establish this number seven, establish accountability, regardless of how or whether AI is used, emphasize that the human author is accountable for all content produced.

[00:15:54] John Nash: Yeah, that's key. Involved with a generation of a document that's going to help our faculty have productive and developmental conversations about their distribution of effort. going to actually work on your teaching research and service and then relied a little bit on AI to help us brainstorm through some of these conversations that turn up very transactional document into something that's more of a developmental conversation. And yeah, we placed a statement at the, in the end notes about how it was used, but then also that we stand by the facts in the document as and contributors.

[00:16:28] Karen Watté: Yeah, so important.

[00:16:29] Jason Johnston: Yeah.

And your number two talks about demonstrating transparency again, along with that, if it's being used and integrated recommending that faculty are clear in the syllabus that such tools would be used and that's another place we've been talking a lot with our faculty.

Faculty about, which is that transparency, both on the faculty side, but also on the student side to creating a space in which things are transparent. And I think one of the outcomes of that is that you create a more trusting environment.

Along with that, I noticed you don't say anything about AI detectors here on your list. There's no number eight thou shalt use AI detectors or thou shalt not use AI detectors. Do you have any things that you would are willing to put on the record about AI detectors?

[00:17:15] Karen Watté: We haven't been impressed so far. I'll just say that. I think there is a lot of a lot of information out there pointing to the fact that they don't do the type of job that they should be doing, or that they claim to do. And the, often the bias that seems to come out in their results is very disturbing.

So, at OSU we have stayed away from that. That is not the direction we want to go this time,

[00:17:44] Jason Johnston: yeah, we've talked about just how Again, we're good. If you listen to this podcast This will be the fourth time you've heard this, maybe fifth, but about Michelle Miller talks about same side pedagogy and about within the classroom. What are we building together with an AI detector? Are we building a community of trust and co learning together or are we building a community of distrust, and separation between the student and the teacher. And I think the, it's a rhetorical question, the way I phrased it, but I think we know the answer to that, which is, AI detectors do not help with same side pedagogy, putting us on the same side as the students, right?

[00:18:27] Karen Watté: And I think really, I would emphasize just really the inaccuracy of these. And I was just reading some information and from some R1 institutions that have done a little bit of testing in house and they, these AI detectors just don't measure up to what they claim they can do. So just best to avoid them for now.

It's not something you want to get into.

[00:18:51] John Nash: For me, it's almost as though your first principle of being student centered suggests that the AI detectors aren't necessary. That if you're being student centered, doing as Dr. Miller at Northern Arizona says, having a same side pedagogy, not an adversarial for learning, then you're going to be okay.

[00:19:11] Karen Watté: Yes. Yeah.

[00:19:12] Jason Johnston: So, I had mentioned this before, we looked at your decision tree, here at UT, we as we were trying to work as a team to figure out when and when not to use it in our own work, and then when we recommend it as we were talking with faculty because I'm in kind of the same sort of position that you are in terms of working with course production, but also doing professional development with faculty.

[00:19:38] Jason Johnston: It seems like a lot of work to have gotten to this place in terms of decision tree. Did it come easily as you were going through things where did you base it on some other previous kind of work that you had been doing around, even just the implementation of technology, because I think there's some overlap here, or how did this specifically come about?

[00:20:01] Karen Watté: I think all of the hard work and conversation around what our values and principles will be really led naturally into the creation of that decision tree, because you can see each branch correlates very closely with many of the principles that we identified. So, in that respect, that piece of it was easy, but of course it was vetted numerous times among the small work group that created it.

And then with the larger council. And we added that very first question toward the end of creating that, which is, we must check with the department and the program first. That is always that the first step, does the department or the program have a policy in place? At the time that we were creating this, Okay.

Very few had any policies in place. They were still in, conversation, but I think that will be changing over time. So, we'll check there. And then the second one, of course, we're very student centered. So, the second question is how does this how would this impact your pedagogy? How does this lead to better outcomes?

What is the impact to students? And if you can articulate that well, and it makes sense, then you continue on down through that tree. But those first two questions are critical. If you can't get past that then you're not gonna, you should stop at that point, essentially.

[00:21:18] Jason Johnston: Yeah.

[00:21:19] John Nash: The decision tree. For those who are not looking at it right now, it's a guide that was developed by your unit to help decide when and how to incorporate You AI into your work. it's aimed at the teacher or the instructor. Is that fair? Or could it also be for an administrator, an associate dean, or someone who's thinking about using it for non-instructional purposes?

[00:21:44] Karen Watté: Yeah, that's a good question. I think it certainly could be repurposed. When we were creating it, of course, it was meant as a guide for our staff and for faculty who are working on course development, but certainly many of those questions are very applicable. If you're looking at AI to improve a business process at the university, you may want to review some of those kinds of questions.

So, I think it certainly could be applicable to other questions, other spaces.

[00:22:13] John Nash: Have you been approached as a unit, from folks who are looking to, as you advise here, when an answer is no, your recommendation is to pause and seek consultation, and then with an asterisk, you note that would be consulting a supervisor or other person who can provide expertise. When I think about, for instance, my department. We don't have a policy in the unit. I would consult my chair. They would shrug their shoulders. I might look inside my college. They would also likewise shrug their shoulders and say, and I think this might actually escalate up to maybe our center for learning and teaching or something like that.

Are you seeing similar things and how is this playing all the way down to the unit in terms of people's capacity to look at these questions?

[00:22:57] Karen Watté: Yeah, we've used it in a few different contexts. So, for example, a faculty came to us and wanted to create some AI supported materials for their course development. The first question was back to the department and the department at that moment said, absolutely not.

You're not going to do that. So that was the end of that. But then we've had another situation where we had a faculty who came, and they said we would like some graphics created to support this particular concept. And by the way, it's okay if we look at AI image generators to help support this piece.

And so, then we had a conversation. within our team and specifically with our videographer who is helping to pull some of this these images together around, okay, what are the concerns? And let's look at the limbs of this tree that are most applicable here, which of course would be copyright.

How are we, certain that there's not a copyright issue if you use this particular engine to develop a few images to support this particular learning object. And so, we were able to clear those hurdles, but this decision tree gave us that sort of framework for the conversation and to ask those kinds of questions.

And so, I think those are a couple examples of where I think it was useful.

[00:24:14] John Nash: Those are great examples, because I think that a tree like this, it really is less about being a dictatorial policy, but rather a driver to engender conversation around what people want to accomplish, Yeah.

[00:24:28] Jason Johnston: You'd mentioned your media team. Have you found some very, and you've got a pretty large team. Have you found a variety of opinions in terms of the use of AI within your own team? You don't have to name names on the podcast. Or have people tended to get behind the same horse on this one?

[00:24:49] Karen Watté: Generally, I think we have a pretty innovative group of people. So, they've been quite open to it and all of that. Although, I will say that we have a couple of instructional designers who are particularly concerned about privacy issues when it comes to using these and copyright and all of that, which rightfully, you know, rightfully and that's and so we've had conversations around that. That component. They're not quite as excited to start experimenting and putting things up into these systems, which totally makes sense. But otherwise, I would say we're probably a lot more willing to get out there and try things just because of the nature of what we do every day.

[00:25:32] Jason Johnston: That's impressive that you've been at this for a little while here at Oregon State and that you continue to be innovative. Only because it feels and please correct me if I'm wrong on this one, but it feels our institutions of higher learning our land grant established longstanding institutions don't tend to go that way all the time.

They tend to maybe favor the more traditional. And so how do you think that you've kept this going if you've been early adopters when it comes to online, and you continue to innovate forward?

[00:26:06] Karen Watté: I think it's just the culture of the unit. Essentially, it started out as this little skunk works area. We were trying things that no one else would try, and so the university continues to turn to us to do those kinds of experiments when it comes to teaching and learning and then we're hiring people that have that same mindset.

And we're telling them it's okay to take a risk. It's okay to try something. And if you fail, that's all right, because we're learning, I think it's just the culture and maintaining that momentum about innovative but innovating in a careful way. We are, Of course, research based. Much of what we do we experiment with it when we find that there's a research basis for it.

It's not just the Wild West, so in that regard, we, we value research just as much as the faculty, the rest of the faculty at the university, but we do try to push and experiment with new things when we think that there's a valid reason to do.

[00:27:05] Jason Johnston: so, it's been about maybe seven months at the, at this recording since you put these out which is like 20 years in AI years, I think, right? Is there a calculation for that yet, John?

[00:27:15] John Nash: but.

Could take a dog years times cat years and divided by Moore's law. I think we'll get somewhere in the ballpark of that.

[00:27:26] Jason Johnston: Yeah, exactly. I think that sounds, we'll work on that, and we'll get the we'll put the, like everything else, put the formula in the show notes.

[00:27:33] John Nash: Yes,

[00:27:33] Jason Johnston: John?

[00:27:33] John Nash: I was going to ask Bard, but I can't anymore because Bard is now called Gemini.

[00:27:38] Jason Johnston: Yes. We'll ask I've got the advance. Anyways, that's a whole other conversation. So, we'll talk later. Anyways, back to the question. Since the seven months has gone by, first, is there anything that you would change about what you put out there from before?

[00:27:54] Karen Watté: I think, we had made it very clear that what we put out there was really a snapshot in time, that this is what we see today, particularly around that, that Bloom's taxonomy one. This is AI capabilities as they are in the summer of 23. So, we pretty much knew that, We're going to have to revisit this, in a year or sooner, and I, and we will be reconvening our AI council in the spring, to start thinking about, what may need to change, but certainly that tool will have to be looked at again, the decision tree, I think, still probably stands as it is. I don't anticipate there will be a lot of change. But again, this is a conversation we're planning to have here very soon.

[00:28:38] Jason Johnston: Are there other ways that you think that you might expand? Like, what are some of the other gaps that that you're seeing that you would like to help with at your university?

[00:28:46] Karen Watté: Yeah. This fall we had some conversations around helping program leads, department chairs, anyone in a kind of leadership position facilitate conversations around AI. And one of my colleagues, Dr. Katherine McAlvich worked up a short guide, but she calls it a readiness playbook for department chairs.

That's actually posted out there on our website as well. It's about a five page document just to give some starting prompts. So, to encourage them to start speaking with faculty if they haven't already, started that conversation. Because I think we're getting to a point at, very soon that we're going to see some need for curriculum updates based around this. I'm starting to see case studies about industries and how they're integrating it into the, into work. And so that means that what we teach at the university or at any institution is going to soon have to reflect what the reality is out in the workforce. So, I think those conversations, trying to encourage that and get folks to talk about that is probably the next step.

[00:29:51] Jason Johnston: We look forward to more updates. Yeah, we'll be watching that. Thank you for being open handed. We're having conversations here about what goes on the web and what doesn't.

And we strongly advocate for sharing resources on the web for others to. To be able to see because they're helpful, and we've been helped by yours, so thank you for that.

[00:30:12] Karen Watté: You're welcome. And this is a topic that not one institution can answer, can manage alone. It is such a huge undertaking. We look to all of our colleagues too for help, guidance, and ideas around this topic because it's certainly a collaborative effort. It has to be. It's. It's just something that's so unusual at this time.

[00:30:35] John Nash: Can.

We, pivot away from AI a little bit and talk about learners?

[00:30:39] Jason Johnston: I guess so, John.

[00:30:41] John Nash: It turns out we didn't mean to, but about half our talk is about AI. Then the other half is actually about learners, I think...

But yeah.

You did an Interview in 2017 for the Oregon State Ecampus News, and you were asked what your best piece of advice for instructors was, and you said, "Be sure to let your personality come through in your online course. Communicate regularly with your students and provide them with timely feedback. Your interaction with your students is the most important part of the student's online experience." And it feels like that advice never gets old but feels fresh to some. Can you just say a little bit more about why this wisdom is so important?

[00:31:23] Karen Watté: Yeah, but we survey our Ecampus students every year, and it's interesting to note that even to this day, they continue to say that the number one indicator of their satisfaction in an online course is the interaction that they have with their instructor. So, I would say that our data continues to bear that out year after year.

So, instructor presence is just absolutely critical in an online class. And now you even see this reflected in, the Department of Ed's requirements around regular and substantive interaction, which a lot of folks have spent time thinking about as well.

[00:32:02] John Nash: that first part of your response, which was be sure to let your personality come through. What is some advice that you have for teachers who are thinking about upping their game in that area?

[00:32:14] Karen Watté: We of course love to try to get them on video if we can, at least an intro video in every course. We love to have them do, video overviews if they're willing to for each activity. But then, even if they're not able to do that or willing to do that, they can Just infusing their actual personality and their passion for the subject into the announcements that they make, into the content that they're delivering to the students.

So, we really try to work on helping each faculty bring out the best and put their personality into a course.

[00:32:48] John Nash: fantastic. we see That more and more. I know in a recent episode, we had the privilege to record a session with Johns Hopkins University's Symposium on Online and their speaker for that symposium was Flower Darby, and she was very clear about letting your personality come through in your course.

And so, it feels like yellow Volkswagen theory. Once you buy a yellow Volkswagen, then all you see on the road are yellow Volkswagens. And so, once you start talking about letting your personality come through in your course, you start picking up on it every time someone says something about it.

But yeah, that's it's really good advice.

[00:33:24] Jason Johnston: And that feels like a good Oregon thing, too, right? Yellow Volkswagens. You have a lot of yellow Volkswagens out there. Is that another stereotype that I have about Oregon?

[00:33:32] Karen Watté: We've got some on the road.

[00:33:33] Jason Johnston: I've got a few. Got a few. Yeah. Yeah. And along with that too, one of our themes here is talking about how do we humanize online learning, right? As John always eloquently introduces us, you know, we've done a lot of things great. And some of it, not so much. And I think one of our places that we want to grow in this next season of online life, now that we've, we've, we can get content to people, we figured that one out, right?

We figured that one out a long time ago. Now we're learning to maybe make it a little bit more interesting and interactive. But how do we humanize, you know, and I really like that about making sure that Personality comes through in your online course as part of that are there other ways that you as a group or in your professional development or in your course production process that you help faculty to really humanize their online courses?

[00:34:25] Karen Watté: Yeah, that's a great question. I, and I think a lot of that kind of comes down to just ensuring that you're explicitly designing in opportunities for engagement, because, unlike an on-campus course where it's a natural, you have that natural opportunity online. It has to be designed in.

And so, as you're designing that in, you're thinking about, is that channel easily accessible to students? Is it easy for the faculty to use? Is it easy to manage while you're teaching that course? The kind of communication that would allow you to connect easily with your students. What does the feedback look like in the class?

What's the pacing and how can you, do you have enough time to provide the kind of feedback that you'd like to provide so students feel like they're really having a good learning experience and connecting with you? So ultimately, it's, I think a lot of this is also just having to be built in into the course through the course development process in the conversations that the instructional designer is having with the faculty as they're talking about what is this course going to look like when it's actually being taught.

[00:35:34] Jason Johnston: Mmhmm. Yeah, this symposium that John had mentioned, there's a bit of a common thread. One of them was talking about intentionality, ..And that's one thing I really like about course design, instructional design, and the process, so that, we just don't expect faculty Just to arrive in their online course and just everything to be there and just to work We shouldn't know side note We shouldn't expect this in their face to face classes either, but there's not always a lot of concentration on that However, we're talking about online here. But I think that there's an intentionality about design that I love, and I think that if we can take a step back and think about what it is.

We're intentionally trying to do here. We can really move the needle.

[00:36:17] Karen Watté: Absolutely. Yeah, it's really thinking ahead And, the lovely thing is that we ask that online courses be entirely developed prior to the actual launch of the class. So, we're not developing them on the fly as the course is underway. And I think that really lends itself to some thoughtful kinds of activities, communications, and it, and I think it just makes for better, a better opportunity for the instructor to teach well, better opportunity for the students to learn well if you have everything ready to go, and then they're not worrying about, whether the content's up and ready and available.

[00:36:55] Jason Johnston: This has been a great conversation. I think that's a great place to land. What do you think,

[00:36:59] John Nash: I think,

It's, yeah, perfect place to land. Yeah, I think that was very intentional of you.

[00:37:04] Jason Johnston: It was not so much intentional of us as much as thank you for the yeah, for landing there. I think that's a that is a great a great place for us to think about this intentionality and the design and the students being student-centered, being humanized, and all that we do as we think forward.

Karen, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. We really appreciate it.

[00:37:25] Karen Watté: Thank you. I enjoyed this.