Mary Loder (00:00): Before we start the episode, course stories is going to be at O L C Innovate this year in Tennessee. We hope you'll join us. Here's the dates and times that you can see us, Ricardo, and myself, and join conversations and be recorded in a live episode. We'll be in a discovery session on Thursday from one 15 to 2:00 PM in the presidential lobby, and we will be in the Jackson D Room on Friday, the 21st, 9 45 in the morning. To start everything off for the last day, please join us, join the conversation. We look forward to meeting you in person. Welcome to Course Stories produced by the instructional design and new media team of Ed Plus at Arizona State University. In this podcast, we tell an array of course, design stories alongside other ASU online designers and faculty on today's course story. Deanna Soth (00:49): What the workshop purpose is, is to showcase the magic of online learning and how teaching is personal. And we're not taking away that creativity whatsoever. In fact, we're encouraging that personal, unique perspective from each faculty member for that to shine through in their online courses. And that's what we're promoting in the workshop. Mary Loder (01:10): Hi, I'm Mary Loader, an instructional designer from ASU Online. Ricardo Leon (01:13): I'm Ricardo Leon. I'm a media specialist at the same place. Yeah, Mary Loder (01:17): We work together. Ricardo Leon (01:17): Let's get on with the show. Mary Loder (01:18): Okay. Mary Loder (01:21): Hey Ricardo. Hey, Mary. I'm excited about today. Why? Today's episode is going to be me talking to my friends, Ricardo Leon (01:27): . So who, who are your friends? Who are we gonna be hearing from? Mary Loder (01:32): Well, Deanna Soth, she's our associate director. Know her. Archit design. Yep. Know her, love her. Also, Meredith savis. Uhhuh . Know her, love her too. Uhhuh and a fan favorite. Tamara Mitchell. Also know her and love her. Yeah. So very excited. We're gonna be talking about the masterclass. Historically it's been called masterclass. We'll see what happens after this episode. I think we're getting some insider information on rebrand. Oh. But this is like the flagship course for ASU online. It's very well known internationally. It is a fabulous course. Ricardo Leon (02:05): What is the course? What, what's, what does the course entail? Who's it for? Mary Loder (02:07): It's for faculty and staff. So instructional designers take this course all the time and as part of their onboarding at asu mm-hmm. , it's mostly for ASU online faculty, but we get faculty from all over asu. And actually during Covid it was open to like the HBCUs and a couple of other community college and universities across the nation. It's a lovely experience because the faculty get to experience Canvas and previously Blackboard from the student perspective. Ricardo Leon (02:32): Awesome, awesome. Mary Loder (02:33): Yeah, it's great. They get to try the tools out. They get to see why we use the tools that we do, come up with ideas for their courses and generally just understand the pedagogy of online learning and designing for online. Ricardo Leon (02:44): Very cool. I can't wait to hear you talking with your friends who are actually my friends too. Okay. Mary Loder (02:49): Agreed. Agreed. It's like a big friendly combo today. Oh, Ricardo Leon (02:52): Fun Mary Loder (02:54): Sing. Ricardo Leon (02:55): We'll save that for after the show. There we Mary Loder (02:57): Go. Mary Loder (03:00): All right. So, well, like I said, I'm very excited because I'm joined by my friends today. So we'll just go around and introduce you guys, even though I already introduced you guys cuz I was excited. Um, but please tell us Deanna Soth (03:10): Who you are. My name is Deanna Soth. I am associate Mary Loder (03:14): Director Deanna Soth (03:14): Of Instructional design at ASU Online Ed Plus. Meredith Savvides (03:18): My name is Meredith savis. I am a senior instructional designer with ASU online Ed Plus, happy to be back again. Mary Loder (03:26): Yes, welcome back. And also, uh, back again. Tamara Mitchell. You wanna introduce yourself? Tamara Mitchell (03:31): And that is my name, . Thanks for reminding me. Mary . I'm sorry, I'm gonna settle down now. . Um, I'm Tamara Mitchell. I'm a senior instructional designer with ASU Online as well. Mary Loder (03:49): Welcome ladies. Tamara Mitchell (03:49): , I felt like I was a question . I was asking you , can I be Tamara Mitchell today? Meredith Savvides (03:55): The simplest question. Can we get onto the real hard question? We can answer Tamara Mitchell (03:59): Those Mary Loder (04:00): . Okay. Now to the meat of the conversation. Tamara Mitchell (04:03): . Mary Loder (04:03): Okay. So I will say that the course we're gonna talk about has been a longstanding course, ed Plus, does anyone know how long this course has run at Ed plus years wise Deanna Soth (04:12): It must be at least 10. Dang. Um, because when I joined Ed plus they had just ran their first session and that was 10 years ago. Mary Loder (04:23): So Amazing. Yeah. And I know that the chorus goes through revisions because we're constantly editing things to stay on the top of pedagogical changes, but who were the original creators of this course? Just give them a, an official nod. Do you remember? Deanna Soth (04:37): Oh, Markman Horn and Vicky Harmon were the leads on this workshop and so I think they still shine through. Yeah. In many ways. Um, still in this workshop. Mary Loder (04:48): Absolutely. The organization for sure with Vicki. I mean ma'am, we miss her. Mm-hmm. And Mark too. Okay, so, uh, let's get to the normal core stories, questions. Who wants to take the first one? It's gonna be tell us about this course and what excites you about the course. And actually we can just go around round robin and talk about what excites you guys about doing this each time. Deanna Soth (05:07): Obviously Meredith and Tamara you can add to this, but masterclass for teaching online is a two week fully online workshop for ASU online faculty. They're participants as students in this workshop. So if they don't have any experience as an online student or an online instructor, they get to experience it as a student. Um, playing around with tools, they have assignments with due dates and so they get to empathize with their online students with the stresses of of having due dates. Um, they get to network with other ASU faculty and they get to talk about what works and what doesn't work for teaching online. So what Mary Loder (05:43): Excites you guys about doing the course? Cuz you offer this how many times a year? We Deanna Soth (05:46): Offer the workshop four times a year, and we get to practice what we preach in the workshop. We're discussing a lot of teaching best practices and we get to show what that looks like. So not only are we giving theory, but we're showing the application of that theory within those two weeks. That's what excites me about Mary Loder (06:07): The workshop. Ladies, how about you Tamara? Tamara Mitchell (06:09): I think for me, uh, the fact that there's a continual course improvement process, the updates that we make in the course are not only suggested by those who go through the course, but they're also actively implemented. I think that the fact that we use intentional updates based off of survey feedback and we regard the fact that there's a changing educational landscape that folks are involved in. I mean, look at what just happened with chat G P T and AI coming out. We are very intentional about the needs of faculty and how the faculty can meet the needs of the students. And that's one of my favorite Meredith Savvides (06:43): Parts. And for me, it's just new people in all the time. We have instructors from all over the world, all different disciplines and what they bring. I take to for my other faculty many times. There's so many amazing ideas and perspectives shared in the workshop and unique to every single workshop. It's absolutely amazing. We've had different cohorts. We had a veterinarian cohort come through nurses, we have biology instructors, lots of language instructors and just diversity of what they teach. We can take so much out of that to provide to our faculty instructors that we work with, but also again, uh, enhance the workshops. I'm always excited to see who's in there. Sometimes people will sign up for the workshop and then sign up for the workshop and a year later and for them, you know, it's different because we've made changes. They're collaborating and interacting with different instructors again, so they have a good experience even if they've just taken the workshop. So the people for sure. Mary Loder (07:52): Yeah, the people make it. I've noticed through, um, facilitating a, a few times myself that it's like depending on who is in the course will drive, where the conversations start to focus. And it's really neat to have interdisciplinary participation because what someone's doing in the math department might also be relevant to somebody who's in the English department. And the interactivity and sharing that takes place is quite meaningful. Tamara Mitchell (08:16): And I think that's an important intentional part of the course where there's that student to student interaction throughout the course so that it is a little bit like everything in the course is instructive. So if they want their courses online with their students to be different, this is the experience that you went through and this is how you do that. So it's kind of a nice train the trainer approach. Meredith Savvides (08:38): Yeah, and I wanted to just pee back on that idea. I think we have had lots of questions about, you know, can we do the workshop in more of an on demand sort of setting? And we always respond and I think this is essential that the experience, the workshop is largely about your connections and your interactions with other people in the workshop. So while we have curated an amazing list of materials and we have best practices in there and tools in there that are available to use, and we've explained those, the interaction and engagement with the other people in the course and the instructors and the facilitators in the course is really almost like the best part of what you get out of masterclass. Deanna Soth (09:21): Yes. We've been asked to allow lurkers in the workshop and we do not allow lurkers , you have to be a participant Meredith Savvides (09:29): No lurks to Deanna Soth (09:31): Get the full effect to get the experience. Mary Loder (09:33): Well certainly to get worried, Deanna Soth (09:34): Right? Absolutely. Mary Loder (09:35): Yeah. There's some definite requirements. It really is like a true course with learning objectives. And if you could just speak, uh, maybe to a couple of the learning objectives that you find most critical. Deanna Soth (09:44): So I wanna talk about the topics that we include in the workshop. So that's online student success. So who are our student, what is it like to be an online student? Is a topic that we discuss effective interactions. So what makes an effective and engaging discussion? And what other types of interactions can you include in online courses? We also talk about course quality and instructional alignment. So that's the learning objectives using Bloom's Taxonomy or another taxonomy. Typically using backwards design with the goal in mind for what you want students to accomplish at the end of your course, we go over course design and content development. So how to develop content for global audience for a diverse audience, how to create engaging media and that sort of thing. And instructor presence is the last topic. What it means to be present in an online course. What does that look like? What are examples of that? Those are the topics we cover in the workshop. Ricardo Leon (10:52): Okay. So I wanna join in the friends conversation too. Yes. Uh, I have a question. So I, you know, I hang out with IDs, I lurk in ID bars, , what I've heard this brought up a lot. Bloom's taxonomy. What is Bloom's Taxonomy? Anybody's welcome to answer. What Mary Loder (11:06): Is a taxonomy? Let's start with a taxonomy. There you go. In general, because it doesn't have to be blooms, so it's just a way to organize different things. Mm-hmm. for IDs, it's active verbs. Mm-hmm. . So we're looking at what, how do you describe the learning that's taking place? Deanna Soth (11:20): Taxonomy according to Google, the branch of science concerned with classification. Mm-hmm. . So a way to classify a set of anything. Right. Ricardo Leon (11:29): I I hear taxonomy a lot, uh, in terms of the animal kingdom, right? Sure. That's the taxonomy, the different, uh, phs that everything fits into, right? So Bloom's taxonomy specifically Tamara Mitchell (11:39): Basically the hierarchy of learning. So at, at its lowest level you just understand, you know, you remember something and then you move up all the way through. And I, Mary, I think you were gonna talk about the highest level where you create something. So if we can classify something, we can pinpoint where students are at so that we can map where they need to be and help lead them there by using these wonderful action verbs to spell out what level a student should be at the end of a module or at the end of a course or at the end of a learning experience or an assignment. That's kind of how we use Bloom's taxonomy. The goal is to get them to a certain point and the taxonomy is the map for how we figure out where they're at right now and where they should be. We Deanna Soth (12:23): Do once in a while have participants in the masterclass workshop who just don't resonate with Blooms for whatever reason from their own experiences. And that's fine. If they are familiar with the different taxonomy in education that they're welcome to use that as their frame of reference for their deliverables in the workshop. That's totally fine. Most masterclass participants have not been exposed to any sort of taxonomy in this way. And so this is just a basic one for them to at least start their learning about education. Tamara Mitchell (12:53): And the six levels of Blooms all focus on the cognitive domain. Sometimes the taxonomies deal with different things, but we focus on cognition or what our students are learning and what they're understanding. Not necessarily the effect of domain of learning or, you know, their motivation or the psychomotor domain of learning, uh, which are skill based and action based. So physical action based. Meredith Savvides (13:16): And also if you do look up Bloom's Taxonomy, we do have discussions about the graphic that's used. It's a simplified version of what is actually taking place in learning. You know, we don't just say that students will only get to identify level throughout a lesson. They could go through identify, they could go all the way up to create down to application. Students are different. They learn at different levels. And what we expect from them at the end is typically what we're asking for when we say, what verb are you using to define how you will evaluate students and what you want them to be able to do. But the ebbs and flows of learning are throughout the taxonomy. Ricardo Leon (13:55): Excellent. I'm completely caught up. Mary Loder (13:57): Thank you. And if you need anything else, we'll put it in the show notes. We have some great articles that teach online on learning objectives and so we'll put some highlights there. I'll check them out. Perfect. , back to the conversation. And your faculty actually need to describe the outcomes, right? Like, I can effectively design a discussion question or I can describe the impact of my presence and its effect on my students, right? So it's like really showing them not only like topically, but also action based through your assessments, how you apply those learning objectives that you're having them cultivate in your Deanna Soth (14:32): Course. Yes. And they're giving feedback to each other on that as well. So they're giving their peers examples of discussion prompts perhaps that they might use in their online courses. And they're giving each other feedback of what might work and what might be challenging for that prompt. So it's good for them to hear from each other in that way. Tamara Mitchell (14:49): I think just to build on that, we recently, we've got an activity in the course where to show instructor presence. We have the faculty participating develop a video script. And it was really, really neat to see. I feel like I learned constantly in that course you, you, you do, you continue to grow even as you're facilitating it, co-facilitating it. But the faculty started developing video scripts and one had a very D E I B type focus where you had this wonderful diversity and equity valued in the script and that tone kind of caught on to the other video scripts and you saw this wonderful thing happen where they just kind of paid attention to each other, saw what each other were doing well and kind of lifted each other up. I think that's just kind of how the course works, right? Mary Loder (15:37): Yeah. Influence through, uh, example. That's wonderful. Yeah. Meredith Savvides (15:42): And I don't think there's many opportunities for faculty or instructors to do that in other spaces. I think we onboard them and you know, they teach and so I know we get feedback from instructors who have taught for years and still come away from the workshop with new ideas and different perspectives on, you know, lots of, oh my gosh, I can't believe I've been doing it like this for so long. I've shifted my thinking. This has really reframed my thinking around X, Y, Z. Ricardo Leon (16:15): So when you are done with your scripting, as we've just heard in this conversation, please come into the studios. We have two studios, one on the Tempe campus and one of the Sky campus. And we, we support all the ASU online courses. Uh, so if you wanna make a video, reach out to us, ID and m dot ASU ed Mary Loder (16:32): Or boom boom again, boom Town. There are some frequent flyers that come and take this at least once a year, if not every session, . And it's really interesting to see them come away, like you said, each time with something new and contribute in ways that are meaningful in those discussions and in the feedback that takes place. Meredith Savvides (16:52): Yeah. Not surprising because as facilitators we do as well. I know we always, in our debriefs and in prepping for the upcoming course, we always talk about, oh this was such an interesting idea that somebody shared like new things all the time. Mary Loder (17:09): That's great. And this is no cost to the unit at asu, right? This is a course that's offered for free for all faculty and the instructional design staff that desire to participate in this space. So it's quite accessible as far as that goes. You've already talked about what students are gonna learn and how they could apply this in their course in some ways, but are there, are there any other like, deliverables that come out of this beyond the script you were talking about? Tamara Mitchell (17:31): I do wanna say that this course is distinctive from other courses. I, I've seen masterclass type courses done in different universities and I've seen it done in different colleges. And this one to, to put it pretty plainly, this one is not painful. people enjoy, people enjoy this experience. It has this nice balance that it maintains between giving you some very technical and important information but making that information palatable and actionable. And so I think that because we have things that people can implement, they've got some practical takeaways. They enjoy their time in the workshop, which is probably why you mentioned there are frequent flyers. They come back. Deanna Soth (18:13): Yeah, there's no busy work. Yeah. Mary Loder (18:14): Oh that's a good point. There's no busy work. It's all meaningful. Deanna Soth (18:18): They can take what they're doing and apply it immediately. Mm-hmm. if they're teaching, even if it's not online. We have a lot of faculty who are new to teaching online, but they've taught for years in person and then they tell us that the masterclass has made them better face-to-face instructors too. Mary Loder (18:35): That's beautiful. I love seeing that Bleed through mm-hmm. to the other side. Meredith Savvides (18:38): Yeah, I think our use of tools is something that they often take away. I know that when I've had faculty who have gone through the course, they are very specific when they request tools in their courses. Can you set things up exactly like it was in in Masterclass? Can I get the, you know, can I get the instructions for students exactly how they were in Masterclass? I think that because they were able to use those instructions or use our process or they went through that, the way we set it up, they felt very comfortable using those tools, uh, and wanna sort of recreate that experience in their own courses. Mary Loder (19:14): So what are the tools that the faculty have access to and, and interact with? And maybe talk about the type of interactions that are framed around you, the use of those tools. Deanna Soth (19:23): So we can list them. There's quite a few and we've played around with the amount of tools in the workshop. We've found that there's a threshold because if there's too many within two weeks only, it's too much. So we have them use Perusal, yellow Dig, voice thread, zaps, zoom, and then the l m s tools. So the Canvas discussion, canvas assignments, canvas quizzes. Mary Loder (19:50): Well there's some like content wrappers that are in there. Like there's H five P for some of your content Deanna Soth (19:56): Play posit, Mary Loder (19:57): Play Posit, right? But those aren't necessarily assignment oriented, but Yellow Dig, voice thread, perusal, zap, those are more assignment related. And then Zoom as well. So what do you guys use Zoom for? Cuz this is an online class. Deanna Soth (20:10): We offer optional Zoom, uh, meetings. We call 'em coffee chats. We used to call them office hours, but then we found that we had more attendees when we changed the name to Coffee Chat. Mary Loder (20:22): Good tip. Mm-hmm. Deanna Soth (20:22): . And it's optional. So if they wanna meet with us live, they have some opportunity to to do that. And then they can talk with each other on Zoom as well. From Mary Loder (20:31): My past facilitation, those are my favorite conversations. Like those who come are enthused to come and they wanna share what they've done and they wanna ask questions to really get good advice. And so great conversations take place in the coffee chat. And how about Yellow Dig? What do you guys do with Yellow Dig? Meredith Savvides (20:46): So we Yellow Dig. Hopefully the way Yellow Dig was intended to be set up, you know, canvas has a discussion space and we were very purposeful to move away from the Canvas discussion space because we wanted this to be student driven, you know, our faculty driven, it certainly is. They are posting questions, articles, conversations about things that matter to them and sometimes responding to, you know, we give some open prompts. What are your thoughts about this? Where do you see this useful? Please make connections to student success or course design. They really take those prompts and run with them. We have so many cool things shared in the space. I don't think anyone has ever held back on a, on opinions about anything, um, including Yellow Dig itself. So that's nice to see, you know, that academic get discourse back and forth, uh, in that space. Tamara Mitchell (21:40): And I think Yellow Dig is an example of a technology where faculty might have never heard of it before. They might be hesitant to use it because while you're making the discussions a little looser, you're giving students more choice, you're giving them more responsibility to be active participants in it, but they're pleasantly surprised with how much more enjoyable it is to have a discussion, put things in the discussion that you care about related to the topics of the course, and not have to worry about the whole post once reply twice, stick that we all get into. And so I think it kind of re-energizes a lot of faculty to show that there are new possibilities and new tools for meeting the needs of their courses and the way they teach for their students. Mary Loder (22:22): And what a great way to model the different ways Yellow Dig can be used, right? Like the at feature, you can talk about it, but until you've experienced it, you don't understand how impactful it is to be able to have students self sort information using the like hashtag or call an instructor in by adding them or another colleague. Um, and the emojis are fun, although I think we've disabled a couple of them beyond the suggested for Meredith Savvides (22:47): For for good reason. Mary Loder (22:49): Yeah, I mean you find that, you know, emojis mean different things to different people. So yeah, it's interesting to see that happen. And let's talk about perusal. So how do you guys use perusal? Deanna Soth (22:58): Perusal is a annotation tool. So you can upload a document or a webpage and have students earn kind of participation points based on how engaged they are in the document. And so they're annotating and having discussion on the document or webpage itself. And so we have a reading uploaded to Perusal and have those faculty have conversation about different elements about online course design and Mary Loder (23:23): Is it just the faculty participating in that discussion in perusal or are the facilitators also part of that? Deanna Soth (23:29): So we don't wanna step in too much and disrupt conversations, but we will go through and ensure that questions are answered or that the correct answers are given. Mm-hmm. . So we are monitoring, but we don't necessarily need to reply to every single comment being made in perusal, in Yellow Dig or in Canvas discussion. Really this is their space to learn from each other as well. So we don't wanna take that away from them. That Tamara Mitchell (23:56): Is the distinguishing point of all of these tools. It allows the people who are learners to take responsibility of their learning to drive things forward. And they actually do, I mean in peruse all, if someone doesn't understand something, they can highlight a bit of text and ask up here or they can summarize something and someone can come and build on that summary. So it's a very, I guess I would just say active learning approach to instruction that we hope all faculty will take because it gives students more responsibility and also a bit more engagement in their own learning. Deanna Soth (24:29): What the workshop purpose is is to showcase the magic of online learning and how teaching is personal and we're not taking away that creativity whatsoever. In fact, we're encouraging that personal unique perspective from each faculty member for that to shine through in their online courses. And that's what we're promoting in the workshop. Meredith Savvides (24:48): I was just gonna mention, and I don't even know if this is pertinent to this conversation, but I do like in terms of that's the ultimate goal with these tools, that we do want people to take charge of their learning, but I also think we do show a nice way of scaffolding by jumping in. So like Deanna said, if this conversation in perusal is going down the wrong path or students all, you know, on top of each other is saying yes, A equals B and the instructors has the ability to hop in and say, no, no, A equals A everybody and put them back on the right path. And that can happen in Yellow Day and it can happen in perusal. So the amount of support and focus that instructor can give in any of these tools depends on their group of students and the instructor, which is awesome. Tamara Mitchell (25:35): And I think an important part about that is the whole A equals B is happening anyway. This just gives you a place to make learning transparent and say, oh, that's what's happening. This is how I can make that course correction. Because that's what real teaching is figuring out where students are misunderstanding a concept and providing that information at the right time to help them get back on track. Meredith Savvides (25:57): Yes, and it's definitely things that we don't typically feel like we can see in online learning. We can't watch them learn and it, these are like you said, a place to have that learning be more transparent. I Mary Loder (26:09): Love that. And I think that's a really good point too. Here's where your efficacy is in teaching online. It's not in creating new lectures every single time and doing them at an hour and a half in front of a classroom, which has its place and value, but in the online world, it's making the learning experience tailored to the learners that are in front of you at that time. And these tools do give you that. It's awesome. You were talking about using Yellow Dig and I was, uh, I know what the class is, so I'm, I'm feigning that, I don't know, but Canvas discussions is also used. Why, and do you make the decisions to use Canvas versus Yellow Dig? Deanna Soth (26:46): I see Canvas discussions as a, an assessment tool versus Yellow Dig as a participation and engagement tool. I think that's the main difference. And so in Canvas discussion we use rubrics and we showcase what a rubric attached to a discussion looks like. And we use that for grading. It helps show these faculty how streamlined that can be. So they literally click the boxes in the rubric, it adds up the points, we can add a comment and then move on to the next student in the speed grader. Not that they see that process, but I want them to know at least that that's an option for them if they want to use Canvas discussion Tamara Mitchell (27:23): And with Canvas discussions. I really like that what you just said, Deanna, about using a rubric. I think that we wanna make sure that students understand that there's a certain benchmark that they need to be able to get to in a discussion and it provides you with very clear tools to help students understand why did I earn this versus why did I earn that? What are those things that I have to show in a discussion that, um, especially for those writing intensive courses, canvas discussion can be excellent tools because you can still meet those writing standards and still have that student to student interaction. Mary Loder (27:57): So it sounds like traditional type discussions happen in Canvas where it's for assessment purposes, non-traditional social media esque formative experiences that don't necessarily need to be right or wrong, but more an expression of value and passion can happen in those other spaces. Tamara Mitchell (28:14): It even means that Canvas Constructions can be a form of, uh, summative assessment and then Yellow Day can be a an initial form of formative assessment. So you're just trying to get people involved, you're trying to get them to start thinking about the concepts in Yellow Dig, you're trying to make sure that the concepts are accurate in Canvas. Deanna Soth (28:33): Okay, Mary Loder (28:33): So going back to voice thread cuz we did skip it and I think that actually this is a really impactful tool and Deanna, you love grading this one at the end of every single masterclass, so I do know that. Why And what is it? Deanna Soth (28:43): Voice Thread is a presentation tool for students to use to either comment with audio or video on an instructor's presentation or create their own presentations. And in this workshop we have faculty doing both of those. So they're commenting on a voice thread we've created and they can use audio and video or even just typing out comments on, on that. And then at the end of the workshop, we have them make their own voice thread presentation to tell us what they're going to do moving forward in their teaching based on what they've learned in the workshop. Mary Loder (29:18): And we may pull some audio with permission from some of the most recent voice threads to just share with that is like, Speaker 7 (29:29): Hello, here is part one my reflection. What surprised me the most about online teaching and learning? Well, I was most surprised that online courses are typically condensed into seven and a half weeks. I'd like to read more about why the usual 15 weeks is less suited for online versus in-person courses. Next question. What would you consider to be one of your strengths in teaching online? I think one of my strengths is that I'm an instructor at Arizona State University, number one in innovation ahead of Stanford and m i t I think other institutions might abandon me to, for example, upload bad videos of full length lectures. But I hope that I can simply follow all the great advice and all the great resources to organize a learner focused class. And part two, the action plan, I have four action items. First, I will find out who my instructional designer is. Second, I will review my learning objectives, break them into subparts, and start designing assessments that map to all those objectives. Three, I will record my course videos at an a s u studio so they're high quality, even more high quality than my home studio here and four and last I will be the greatest instructor ever. Mary Loder (30:43): Speaking of comments, Tamara, you curated some really nice commentary from our survey results and I would love to have you guys just like pick one and read one. We'll see how many make the cut because there's a lot here. Pick one. What's your favorite one? We'll start with Tamara. Tamara Mitchell (30:58): Um, I like the one that mentioned the engagement I experienced in the class. Seeing the class through the lens of a student and learning from the course facilitators and peers was priceless. Also, now I have a different expectation of my own engagement as an instructor. So you see it change that process of the learner? Mary Loder (31:16): Yeah, the modeling. Mm-hmm. , I really like the, um, I really appreciated learning about using new techniques and I have not used a lot of technology in my class, but after this course I have more confidence about trying new ideas and also to be frank with so many options I didn't know where to begin. And you've given me some great sources and I love that because technology can be scary and to have it modeled for you is so important. And then to have a faculty member know that it's easy to implement is even more important for them to adopt it. So I love that comment. Meredith, how about you? Meredith Savvides (31:47): You stole my top two and so now I'm reading more Tamara Mitchell (31:50): , Meredith Savvides (31:51): But as we mentioned, somebody said, I found that connecting with other teachers in the online field, uh, helped me see different perspectives and gave me new ideas to implement, which increased their enthusiasm for the upcoming semester. So we see that, we see that people get excited about going into their new course with new ideas. Oh, I can't wait to change my intro video or even do a video. That's one quote from one person. But I think this sentiment is echoed in every single class that we have. Tamara Mitchell (32:21): I think that's what we're always talking about in our masterclass debriefs, that at the end of the day, people are always, they teach how they were taught. And so it's really great for them to have a new experience where they were taught in a very different way. And so it kind of, um, that modeling again is so important. Mary Loder (32:38): Well, I do like what you just brought up, which was that you guys debrief this class every single time it runs. This is not like a fake out. When we send a survey out, like it's meaningful, it is reviewed in detail, the comments are taken to heart, some are implemented as changes in the course. And this is not just like a half hour meeting. You guys take like sometimes an hour and a half, two hours to go through your experiences and talk about how to improve the experience for faculty. And I just think that's an exemplary way to run a course and then to really tie the loop back up to improve it for the next session. So kudos to you guys. Meredith Savvides (33:12): I w I just wanna add on, not just at the end of the course, throughout the course, we're constantly communicating about, you know, someone asked this question, what are your thoughts on this sort of response? Or somebody posted this, we found a broken link. Can anyone fix this? Throughout the couple of weeks that it's running, we are very responsive and hoping to ensure that the experience of students is, is the best it can be throughout the course. Mary Loder (33:38): And not to touch on tech again, but what technology do you use to make sure that that instant communication can happen? I mean, it's called Starts with an S Slack. There we go. Deanna Soth (33:51): , do I get a prize? Good job, Dean. Yes you do. Mary Loder (33:55): Gold star, you do. Deanna Soth (33:56): I will send you a gold star emoji via Slack. Mary Loder (34:00): Deanna, you've had some time. Have you found one that you liked? Deanna Soth (34:02): Okay, so this person said thank you to all the facilitators, instructors, moderators of this workshop. You all obviously put a lot of work into this and I, for one will be a better instructor for it. While I won't be teaching online until 2023, I could put many of my learnings to use for my fall on campus class as well. Mary Loder (34:20): I love that. So really preparing, which makes a good on online instructor in general. Okay, I'm gonna end it with one more, which I think will lead into why the rebrand might be happening. But it's a great quote. I love that I got to see everything in canvas like a student. It's refreshing to be kickstarted into the online mindset as well. And so kind of touching on the rebrand, the course has been called Masterclass for over a decade now. And we have more that goes into mastery, right? So this is kind of like for some, it's the first time that they've been introduced to online pedagogy and maybe the first time they've worked with technology. And so mastery's not really what's accomplished at the end. It's certainly a passion, it's certainly a desire to explore more and to apply what was learned. But there could be deeper things that we go into. So the rebrand is happening, right? Do you guys know what you're gonna call it? We Deanna Soth (35:16): Have a few ideas, but we're open to anyone's ideas. There's a lot of folks who are really creative with branding and like naming. I am not one of those people . So Meredith Savvides (35:28): We're gonna focus on pedagogy. There Mary Loder (35:30): We go. Know your strengths. Deanna Soth (35:31): Yes, Mary Loder (35:32): . But if you're a marketing person out there and you know what this course should be called, you can email course stories@asu.edu and let us know we are taking callers, emailers, slackers. All, all ideas will be welcomed through all venues. Just get 'em to us. . Tamara Mitchell (35:50): I don't think the slackers will participate . They Mary Loder (35:52): Might, you never know. Those lurkers are learning something sometimes Tamara Mitchell (35:56): . Mary Loder (35:59): Is there anything else that you ladies want to say about the class, about the workshop? Tamara Mitchell (36:05): I never mentioned, but I I think it's really important as a new instructional designer with the team, I actually took this course and it's changed since I've taken it because people even took my feedback into consideration after I filled out the survey. But seeing as a student the course and feeling the connection with the other faculty. As a matter of fact, there were a couple of people still in the course and we still send each other Slack messages because you build those relationships. I'm an ASU online employee that works remotely. And so I value relationships very much. And so the fact that that was real for me, and now as I'm part of the facilitation team, I can see all of the work that's put into it. But again, I think it comes back to the facilitation team. We all have really great relationships as well. And I, I think that that's why, unlike other online opportunities, there's a lot of warmth in this workshop that hopefully is brought into real online classes. Can you imagine if online classes focus more on the humanity of learning, um, how much people would enjoy their courses? Mary Loder (37:09): I think we're gonna get forced into that space soon with ai, right? Like , all the recall activities aren't gonna be as effective, gonna need to get into human spirit and what makes us unique as human beings and how we add value in the learning process. That was great. Ricardo Leon (37:28): Okay, so I've got a group of ID professionals here. Uh, if there's people out there who want to become IDs and want to be, are interested in this field, what's a good place to start your career path? Mary Loder (37:39): We all came up different ways. I'll say that. Oh, mm-hmm. . There's not like one defined way to become an id mm-hmm. , but you definitely need experience, certainly to work at a s u Meredith and Tamara. You can go. Tamara Mitchell (37:49): I started, uh, teaching online and I taught online for a good number of years. And then someone asked me, how do you know if learning has occurred? it. I went into a dark place. , how are, are my students really learning? I've been teaching for like five or six years online. Are they learning? And uh, what that question brought me to was a graduate program and, uh, information technology and instructional design entered the door the second time through the graduate program and then I could articulate what I kind of always had a sixth sense that I was doing right versus doing wrong. And so it gave me kind of a marker and a language and it expanded my world. And so a lot of my experience has been both hands-on and practical and educational. And it worked for me. Mary Loder (38:38): How about you Meredith? Meredith Savvides (38:39): Let's see, my background is in K-12. Uh, I was a special education teacher for six and a half years and then moved into a role of an instructional coach supporting teachers in designing curriculum and really, you know, with my special ed background curriculum for all students, I was about six or seven years in that position and then got my certificate in instructional design, jumped into higher education. And I do miss kids, but have not looked backed in terms of, you know, the job and the role. Um, feel like I have a huge impact on learning here and that's always what I've been, uh, interested in. Made my way up to Ed Plus and in a role of an instructional design associate. Still use every bit of information that I did as a classroom teacher and as an instructional coach. Mary Loder (39:32): You've moved up the ranks. So instructional design associates, instructional designer, now instructional design, senior Meredith Savvides (39:37): Moving and shaking and couldn't be in a better spot. Couldn't be Mary Loder (39:41): Happier. Dean, I know you have a whole story. Deanna Soth (39:44): Well, in a previous life it seems like now I, I went to school to be a K-12 teacher. I went through all the schooling, got to student teaching and died basically. It was way too embarrassing to be in front of those kids. Oh. Um, it just really, it was not for me. I had no idea. Um, and then I realized that there was this field instructional design where you're kind of in the background and you're kind of behind the scenes and that spoke to me and resonated with me. And that's how I got into it. And the rest is history, I suppose. Mary Loder (40:15): Yeah. You've been doing instructional design for well over a decade. It's Deanna Soth (40:19): Probably been 12 to 15 years at this point. I've seen a lot . Yes. Mary Loder (40:23): What would you say about those who wanna get into the Deanna Soth (40:25): Role? No, that's, that's a such a hard question for me. Well, Mary Loder (40:28): Certification's important, right? You need to have some classic training. I think, I Tamara Mitchell (40:32): Think one thing that is an absolute requirement of an instructional designer is you have to love learning. You are constantly learning. So what I learned when I taught versus what I learned in my graduate education, I've learned so much more since then. And you have to be able to understand the theoretical and practical side of it. You have to see the forest from the trees and be able to articulate why a change should be made without just saying, Hey, take my word for it. And for me, that's what works. When you're actually looking at the larger perspective and the the drive behind why you become an instructional designer, it's because you like to learn. Meredith Savvides (41:10): Just along those lines of, you know, you like to learn. I feel like we are all such advocates for our learners and keep our users, our learners, our students, uh, at the forefront of every decision we make. And, and it was like that as a classroom teacher. And it's like that today when I think of, oh, I have faculty as my students, I have global students as my learners. We are advocates for others who wanna learn as well. So Ricardo Leon (41:33): It sounds like there's no prescriptive path to becoming an instructional designer. Sounds like the field is kind of open to a lot of different types of people in education. I Tamara Mitchell (41:41): Would definitely go job shopping and figure out what requirements each organization has because I think that the job requirements are unique. You'll see some that require an education, some that require teaching experience, but most all require some sort of a portfolio or evidence of your work. So I would say that if nothing else, you have to have evidence of your work. Mary Loder (42:02): And there are plenty of opportunities out there, nonprofits that are constantly looking for those to come and help them do instructional design. So if you can't get into higher ed for whatever reason and you're looking for a place to start applying your skills and build your portfolio, look to those who are looking for free work in the beginning to start showing what you can do unless you're lucky enough to be in a position where you just get to start designing in a realm that, you know, which was kind of my way. Yeah. Ricardo Leon (42:30): And the private sectors. Yeah. Always looking for instruction designers as well too, right? Oh Mary Loder (42:33): Yes. Meredith Savvides (42:34): Well, and I would say like if you are, don't have those connections, think of what you're doing. And I try to explain this even to my mother about my job because it's still a bit nebulous to her. Like, what I do think of a way to solve a problem, typically a problem in learning. And those are the things that we do on a daily basis. We solve problems. I Tamara Mitchell (42:55): Don't think anybody really understands what an instructional designer does. And I think what Meredith said about we are there to solve problems with learning and to ensure that students learn. I love that we're improving the educational experience for students and for faculty. Mary Loder (43:09): That's why we have the, uh, instructional design infographic. Mm-hmm. because no one really knew what we did. And so we were just like, okay, generally these are the things we do Ricardo Leon (43:18): and that's why we have, uh, core stories as well. Absolutely. It's shine a light on what is that you guys do? Back to the show. Mary Loder (43:27): Okay, so this course is a serious amount of work. Let's not joke around like two weeks. It seems like, oh, it's just two weeks, but it's work. There are due dates, there are deliverables. And when you finish it all up, is that it? Like, or do you get something on the other side of it? Deanna Soth (43:43): So similar to an actual class, there's a minimum grade that you have to receive in order to earn the credit. And so for this workshop, we require a grade of 80%. And when you get that 80%, you get a badger Mary Loder (44:00): Badge. Nice. A certificate, a micro credential. Yes, you can display everywhere you go. And when the rebrand happens, and that will likely happen in the next year or so, the badge will change your experience and the things that you came out of it with won't, the description of what you put into it won't change. That work is still meaningful, but you might see your badge change a little bit. But they also get a certificate if they want to. They can print one from Badger. So you can go in and print a badge certificate. And prior to micro-credentials, which are now the new new, but prior to that it was like a printed certificate that were like highly coveted, still Meredith Savvides (44:38): Have mine on my desk. It's gold, it matters. Thanks Vickie. Maybe we'll put a little Vicky, Vicky, a little gold Mary Loder (44:44): Floss on the badge. Now , little sparkle . First of all, this was really great. It's, uh, fun to talk with my friends, uh, and just hang out for work. That's great. But also to learn about your experiences over this last year in facilitating masterclass, the changes that are coming, the meaningful, um, outcomes that happen for our faculty and for our staff. As Tamara mentioned, this is not just for faculty, um, and how it really helps build community at asu. And if you do complete masterclass, you were also added to a Slack Max Masterclass workspace, um, that is dedicated to those who have taken Masterclass. And that includes not only those at asu, but as we mentioned before, over the time of Covid, we had individuals from all over the world that were really looking for assistance. And so some of those individuals that are in that workspace as well. And we'd love to have you join us. Anything else you guys wanna plug? Doing? Any webinars coming up? Any cool projects might be coming up in future episodes? Anything you wanna say? Meredith Savvides (45:44): I'm shy. Oh, said Deanna. Never . Ricardo Leon (45:56): Mary, this has been a great conversation. We know we got a lot of busy people here in the room. Uh, but what can our listeners do for us? Mary Loder (46:02): Subscribe, Ricardo Leon (46:02): Subscribe. Like, like Mary Loder (46:04): Go follow us on all of our socials review, send it to your mom, Ricardo Leon (46:08): Send it to your mother . That's the neither catch catchphrase for the show. Send it to your mother and come and see us at O L C. Oh, Mary Loder (46:16): Do come see us at O L C. And if you have an opportunity and you're a faculty member at asu or a new instructional designer or an old instructional designer and you just wanna come join the community at masterclass, sign up. Eventbrite, there are multiple opportunities that remain this year for you to be part of the masterclass community. Meredith Savvides (46:32): Do you wanna say what O L C is? Ricardo Leon (46:33): Online Learning Consortium? Yeah. Mary Loder (46:35): Online Learning Consortium. We have like a whole other episode. Tamara, thank you for your help with that one. Uh, where Tamara and Liz actually explain their O L C experience and we're just gonna keep plugging it every single episode. Hope you guys don't get sick of it. Uh, April 20th. April 21st season. Ricardo Leon (46:50): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go check that out. Listen to that episode. And we gotta let these people go back to their jobs because they're so busy. Thank you everybody. Course stories is available wherever you listen to podcasts. You can reach us at core stories@asu.edu. Course Stories is produced by the instructional design at New media team at Ed plus at Arizona State University. If you're an instructor at ASU online, tell us your core story and we may feature it in a future episode. Thanks for listening.