Resources

ePortfolios are web-based, student-generated collections of their work and reflections on their learning and growth. They are tools for students to synthesize and integrate their learning, inside and outside of the classroom, by critically reflecting on their academic and co-curricular experiences. I first learned about ePortfolios from George Kuh who visited our campus in the fall of 2016 and mentioned that they were the latest addition to the list of High Impact Practices that deepen student learning (https://www.aacu.org/leap/hips). As Bret Eynon and Laura Gambino note, ePortfolios can facilitate student inquiry into their own learning, reflection on their development and growth, and integration across disciplines, as well as curricular and co-curricular contexts (2017, 20). As repositories of student work, ePortfolios allow students to reflect on their academic learning at various stages of their undergraduate development. They facilitate critical reflection which has been theorized as a four-stage reflective cycle (presence in experience, description of experience, analysis of experience, and experimentation; Rogers 2002) or a three-step sequence (describing experiences objectively, examining experiences in light of learning goals, and articulation of learning that includes goals for future action; Ash & Clayton 2009). In ePortfolios, students can describe their work (research papers, leadership positions, etc.), analyze how it has contributed to their growth and development, and experiment with various future possibilities by tailoring their ePortfolios for different career paths and job opportunities. I have used ePortfolios in several different courses: first year seminars, upper-level seminars, directed individual study, and capstone courses. ePortfolios allow seniors and recent graduates to showcase their work, and they have been shown to improve performance in job interviews because students can readily recall what they have done over the course of their undergraduate career and cite specific examples of their transferrable skills. In my capstone course, I had students create a type of ePortfolio that included pages about themselves, their signature work, their co-curricular activities, their resume, and their contact information. On their signature work page, I had them describe their capstone project for the general public and reflect on what they had learned in their program. ePortfolios can be powerful for first year students as well. Some institutions, such as Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) include ePortfolios within their first-year-experience programs. They have students create ePersonal Development Plans (ePDP) that enable students to increase awareness of themselves and others, set self-concordant goals, develop hope, and shape education and career plans (https://eportfolio.iupui.edu/). When students create ePortfolios in their first year, they can build on it over time, reflect on what they have learned at various points in their undergraduate career, and chart different pathways when their personal and professional goals change. They can generate robust repositories of what they have learned in their academic and co-curricular experiences. Not unexpectedly, the ePortfolios from my first year seminar were less developed than my capstone course. First year students, navigating new terrain and trying to get their bearings, reflected on what they did in high school and what they hoped to pursue in college. Some had clearly defined goals and career aspirations, while others were uncertain and open to various trajectories. But I think the ePortfolio served two important purposes: first, it clearly demarcated their new identity as a college student, and second, it allowed them to reflect on what they wanted to get out of their college experience in a private forum. Although most free ePortfolios–such as Weebly, Wix, and Wordpress–are public, subscription ePortfolio platforms such as Digication, Pebble Pad, and Taskstream allow students to keep their ePortfolios completely private, share with particular individuals (such as their instructors or classmates), share it within their university, or make it publicly accessible. Many students find such privacy to be novel. When I asked my first-year students if they kept journals or did any reflective writing, I was surprised when only one student raised her hand. The rest said that they used social media such as Facebook, Instagram, or Finsta (a hidden Instagram shared among friends). Instead of engaging in private reflection, they were posting and performing on public or semi-public websites. As a result, many found ePortfolios to be unfamiliar territory, because there was no clearly defined audience, with the exception of myself, who would check to make sure that they were completing their pages, awarding all or no credit. For upper-level seminars and directed individual studies, I have had students create ePortfolios that were more closely tied to the course content. A student researching Aikido created one as a public website with an introduction to Aikido, an annotated bibliography of scholarly resources, and reflections on his personal experience. For my Buddhism course, they reflected on what they learned in the course, uploaded their scholarly review paper, and also wrote about their research for a more general audience. Questions to consider: Do you feel familiar with and comfortable using the ePortfolio platform? What campus resources and support are available for you and your students? For what purpose do you envision using the ePortfolio–for students to reflect on a paper/project, learning process, or academic development? Does your course seek for students to integrate their learning across various contexts or over time? If so, how might you use ePortfolios for this integrative learning? What prompts might you include in your ePortfolio to encourage the kind of integration, reflection, and synthesis that you would like to see? For example, you might ask what insights they gained from an assignment, how it connects to other goals, or how it contributes to their understanding of the discipline or their career development. References: Ash, Sarah L. and Patti H. Clayton. 2009. Generating, deepening, and documenting learning: The power of critical reflection for applied learning. Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education, 1(1), 25-48. Eynon, Bret and Laura M. Gambino. 2017. High-Impact ePortfolio Practice: A Catalyst for Student, Faculty, and Institutional Learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Rodgers, Carol. 2002. “Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking,” Teachers College Record 104, no. 4:842-866.

I spent most of my early teaching online trying to figure out how to make key aspects of residential teaching and learning—interactive lecturing, organic discussion, respect for diversities—possible in online contexts. I’ve sometimes wondered: “Will teaching online at some point begin to enhance what I think I already know about teaching well residentially?” The answer is yes. And the scope is surprising. Most educators work out their teaching pedagogy and practices in residential spaces. How educators teach is shaped by how we were educated, mentored, and seasoned by residential teaching practices. So it is natural to picture a one-directional flow of impact: finding adaptive ways to bring the best of good residential teaching into online course design. Yet the enhancements can flow in reverse, making room for fruitful bi-directional cross-fertilization. There is more to say, but here is a big picture view to whet the appetite. Supporting More Equitable Conversations: Teaching online has matured the strategies I use for fostering more robust and equitable conversations in the residential classroom. Discussion dynamics online become more democratic when each student is equally invited and expected to contribute to conversation. In those moments, the peer-to-peer learning intensifies because all voices are heard even in the midst of sometimes hard gender and racial dynamics. In residential spaces, minority, international, and women students frequently aren’t given adequate space to enter into large group conversations. And some of the brightest male and female students process internally or in writing. I know the power of each student’s voice because I read assignments. But the most trenchant student perspectives in a residential course are often not heard by peers. Online teaching has prompted me to experiment with residential teaching strategies that mimic the more democratic online discussion. One successful strategy is to invite every student to write three sentences on a discussion topic; then open the discussion with each student selecting and reading the sentence of their choice. Another tactic is to have a less vocal student “unlock” a discussion with a first word on the topic, and another less vocal student “close” the conversation with the concluding word. Resourcing Complex Life Contexts: Online teaching has also widened my view of the resources students bring to a residential classroom from their own backgrounds and life contexts. Online course assignments and learning activities ask students to connect what they are learning to their professional, personal, or cultural contexts. This makes learning more meaningful and applicable, and expands the contextual awareness of both peers and educators. Residential classrooms are full of the same kinds of resources which often go untapped. I have become more intentional about utilizing free-writing moments in class or pair and share opportunities for students to connect learning to their life contexts. In residential course assignments I am now more explicit about expecting and rewarding innovative connections to life contexts that expand the contextual awareness of the entire class. Prioritizing Desired Competencies: Teaching online has also challenged me across teaching contexts to be more explicit not only about what I want students to know, but what I want to see students be able to do. For example, in an online theology course I want students to learn how to respectfully engage one another online around complex aspects of Christology. I realized I had a similar “hidden” objective in the residential version of the course which is now in the syllabus. Prompted by online experimentation, I have also reframed some residential course objectives as desired competencies a student must demonstrate by the end of a course. For example, I added three prayer competencies in a residential course on Trinitarian themes: a well-crafted pastoral prayer, a memorized scriptural benediction, and an unscripted blessing and anointing. In these competencies, students could see the beauty and pastoral impact of Trinitarian language. And I could celebrate and more accurately evaluate not only maturing knowledge but also new capacities and skills. Respecting Complex Life Contexts: In residential courses I am now more intentional about respecting students’ time by selecting strong but accessible readings, scaffolding assignments with straightforward expectations, and affirming good communication around the life challenges impacting their learning. Online courses are tailored to professional and working adults who must multitask across layered responsibilities: child or elder care, volunteer work, job commitments, full or part-time pastoral leadership, and graduate theological education. I remind students online that my own life is similarly complex. Mutual kindness and reasonable expectations are essential; I do not expect them to be online 24/7 and I deserve the same consideration. This has alerted me to the ways in which all of my students, including residential, are adults with complex life commitments and circumstances. I need to honor time on all sides and promote clear and open communication in both kinds of teaching spaces. These are some of the ways fruitful bi-directional cross-fertilization can happen between online and residential spaces of teaching and learning. There is much more to say. Stay tuned.

George Bernard Shaw, recipient of the 1925 Noble Prize in Literature and award-winning Irish playwright, famously said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” As I reflect back on my years of online instruction, I confess: I’ve made this mistake. I often assumed that students understood a post, an email, or a video I’ve made when they did not. Harder still is letting students know that the instructor is “on their side” and wishes their every success. Born from trial and error, here are my top 5 suggestions on the most effective ways for teachers to communicate with students online. 1. Make first contact and do it early The worst mistake I think I ever made was sending my greetings to students on the first day of class. It’s too late. Students need a few days to get a sense of the course, read the syllabus, ask questions, and carve sacred space in their busy schedules for the hours they need to study. Trying to do all these things and start on the first module when the term begins never works out well. Instead, I contact students weeks before the beginning of classes. I make a video introduction so they can see and hear that I’m a “live” person. In the video (a short 2-3 minutes), I give my greetings, say something about myself, share a vision of the course and why it’s important, and keep “business matters” to a minimum. Strategically, I set up a pre-class orientation module for the students to work through prior to the start of class. There they see the assignments at a glance and get a walk-through of the course shell. When the term officially begins, they are ready to jump into the first module. 2. Have office hours every week and make them consistent In an age when using Zoom, Big Blue Button, Skype, or other video conferencing tools is not only convenient but free, I recommend setting up regular office hours when a student can count on a specific day and time each week that you are online to “meet.” I send out a Doodle poll early so students can indicate their free hours in a given week. I try to pick two 1-hour time slots when most students can join. Then every week, I’m online in Zoom or Big Blue Button waiting for students to drop into the video conferencing session. While I wait, I can grade, write emails, and get tasks done. But as soon a person enters the session, I drop everything and we talk. Someone almost always shows up. Office hours assure the student that the instructor is available and present. It lets students know you want to help. It also gives me a pulse of how students are doing. Are they drowning in, or sailing through, each module? Meeting them through office hours is a quick reality check 3. Receive advice and implement suggestions when you can At times, students have great suggestions. It may be the case that the suggestion cannot be implemented right away, but if it can be done, I try to do it. It could be as simple as extending a deadline on a particularly tough assignment or providing samples of good bibliographies. Whatever the suggestion, implementing it gives a needed sense of ownership to my students 4. If you make a mistake, don’t be afraid to admit it and offer a fair resolution I remember one time when I was not informed that more than half my class would be taking a week off in the semester to attend a conference sponsored by my seminary’s denomination. There was no way these students could attend the conference and complete the next module. I saw no way forward but to contact each student and apologize for not incorporating the conference in the class schedule. I talked with academic services and with their help adjusted the course to accommodate the conference week. I dropped one major assessment. It was messy but the students were graciously cooperative. Whew! 5. Keep it positive Students get discouraged easily. If they are feeling the course is too hard, we work out a plan to move forward, whether it’s extra tutoring or adjusting study habits. The most important thing is to keep it positive. Hope inspires perseverance. Perseverance is what we all need to succeed.

Last year, my university offered online instructors two video tools on a trial basis: Flipgrid and VoiceThread. While VoiceThread’s features did not suit the classes on my schedule, I might incorporate it with advanced students in the future. Flipgrid, a Minneapolis-based educational startup (acquired in mid-2018 by Microsoft), uses an intuitive interface to allow students to create and upload videos on “grids” established by an instructor. First adopted in K-12 settings, the social media savvy generation can navigate the process with ease. It intrigued me enough to use it in both summer and fall General Education classes. As a mechanism for class introductions, Flipgrid is a slam dunk. Although my previous practice of asking students to post a brief introduction with a photo worked just fine, I enjoyed receiving candid video footage of students in their dorm rooms or apartments, as well as with their roommates and pets. The mobility of the app gave the students options and many decided to have fun. Other backdrops included hiking on the Blue Ridge, work sites, or even in the car with friends (no videos were filmed while driving). Moreover, all participants can easily access other classmates’ videos and they got interactive without being instructed to do so.  Another helpful function was as a conduit for questions about the class or the parameters of an assignment. Instead of fielding a number of separate private emails on the same topic, students made video queries and I posted answers for everyone to see. Using Flipgrid as a discussion board produced more of a mixed bag. First, the positives. Even though the videos were graded, I wanted lower stakes assignments than writing, and many students embraced that informality. I could therefore hear a student processing the questions I posed and thinking through the assigned materials. Because I also asked them to engage with the video of another student, I caught glimpses of how they negotiate differences. Additionally, the platform allowed me to build a scored rubric suited to the assignment and I could send individual responses (point totals and comments in writing and/or video). I liked that videos showed the personal. For instance, listening to posts with young children screaming in the background made the challenges of parenting as a student obvious. And Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night contributions, with folks getting ready to head out the door on dates or to parties (or, sometimes, coming back in) taught me a great deal about the social scene as well as fashion in clothing, hair, and jewelry . . . and preferred drinks which were quite visible.    But it did not prove all smooth sailing. Many students carefully curate their online identities and want control over their public personas. Even in Flipgrid’s private and password--protected space, evaluations indicated some students experienced anxiety about their self-presentation in this format. Unexpectedly, one way this concern manifested was through an uptick in plagiarism. While students on traditional threaded discussion boards sometimes cut and paste content without attribution, I never anticipated videos featuring students reading directly from websites as if the words were their own. But they did, and did so in significant numbers. My conversations with offenders about this behavior indicated fear about appearing less than knowledgeable in ways that amplify differently from a typed post. Workload also became a problem. While I thought video posting would prove less onerous for students, I hoped it might equate to grading traditional boards for me. Again, the results varied. Many students appreciated the chance to make contributions in this new format, but others reported choosing an online course because of a preference for writing out thoughts and were disappointed not to have that option. Still others refused to post a video until they thought it looked and sounded perfect, resulting in lots of takes and time sunk into the production. As for me, although I limited all videos to a maximum of 3 minutes, that meant listening to 2 posts per student weekly could run three hours straight for a single class of 30 students–extended, of course, by the need for breaks and to compose and enter feedback. It was the latter that truly took up time because grades assigned in Flipgrid did not automatically integrate into the learning management system gradebook. Instead, I recorded separate grades in Excel and then again in Moodle gradebook for the students (in addition to emailing my feedback through Flipgrid). Many days toward the end of the term, I longed for my old threaded discussion boards I could grade in an hour or so. Still, I do not regret being experimental with a new technological option. Learning how to incorporate a new pedagogical tool effectively always takes time. I will not abandon Flipgrid, but I do plan to modify my future use. It’s certainly a keeper for introductions and class questions. But instead of using it like a traditional discussion board, I am mulling over incorporating grids at the completion of a unit, or perhaps after a reading or a video, in order to allow students space to pose questions about an idea or a theory where they need additional clarification or to push on something I may not have stressed. I can also see assigning a student to make a short video presentation on a given topic where others will ask questions or pose challenges. Finally, using this tool helped me as a teacher. I became less uptight about posting only perfected content made when I was dressed in a certain manner and every hair was in place. In fact, I often posted from wherever I happened to be, including on the treadmill at the gym, while at the grocery store, and even from a friend’s hospital room. My students got to see me as a person with a life, too. That kind of interaction can get lost online. So even when this new toy failed to live up to my hopes, or I failed to use the resource to its best advantage, it nudged me to keep stretching as a teacher, to seek more effective ways to communicate. That outcome is never a bad one.

"We are all wanderers on this planet.”[1] In my wanderings through the written word over the last month, I met the American poet Robert Lax (1915-2000). For a time his greatest claim to fame was his deep and lasting friendship with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, yet Lax’s contributions as a poet are being unearthed. Lax’s work in and of itself did not receive much recognition within his lifetime--with the exception of the poem Circus of the Sun, a reflection on creation from the metaphorical viewpoint of his circus experience. Late in his life, Lax began writing aphorisms, one of which I came across twice in my wanderings. Michael N. McGregor, author of the biography, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax, writes that Lax “sent an aphorism to his friend the artist Nancy Goldring that beautifully summarized how [Lax] had come to see his—and maybe everyone’s—task in life: ‘not so much finding a path in the woods as finding a rhythm to walk in’.”[2] This is indeed food for thought as we each meditate on Whose we are and who we are becoming as Beloved. I think this vital wisdom plays a critical role for us as theological educators and, perhaps even more so, as online theological educators. Many students come to us seeking what they need to know to spread the Gospel and asking what’s the path of Truth. Yet that is not ours to give. What is important is to help students find a rhythm to walk in so that within their journey they can contribute of themselves to building the Reign of God. It is not so much finding a path . . . as finding a rhythm to walk in. At a very practical—incarnational—level, I imagine many can relate to the need and importance of understanding expectations in much of what we do and to which we belong: jobs, sports, church, and family. Having that understanding provides the parameters of our being in those particular ecologies and relationships. However these expectations, while sometimes made explicit, are often communicated in subtle ways: the raising of an eyebrow from a colleague or a side glance at the end of a meeting from a supervisor, or an unscheduled conversation between parent and child in the kitchen over ice cream during the late hours. Without these face-to-face cues and moment-to-moment interactions—such as when we are in online learning environments—setting expectations and developing a rhythm of being is of utmost importance. As a neophyte of online pedagogy what I find most helpful to students, in addition to setting global course and assignment expectations, is to clearly delineate a way of being as community, i.e., to develop an ecology of being or a rhythm to walk in together. By this I mean, setting expectations for their relationships as learning colleagues. To do this, I frame our week in prayer, provide a weekly study guide and adhere to regular time frames. The importance of weekly communal prayer is discussed at length in an earlier blog: https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/2018/09/needling-students-to-authenticity/. Suffice it to say, prayer helps us—myself included—to “hold the tensions [we experience in the learning environment] as we deepen into greater self-awareness supporting one another in mutual learning and growth.” The weekly study guide provides a map for the week’s hopes and learning activities. It includes the weekly learning objectives and delineates step-by-step what needs to be accomplished with prompts such as: view the prayer video, view the introduction video, read X, Y and Z, attend to these questions as you read, online discussion instructions, and begin your research. Yes, I do have the module set up with each piece in logical progression, yet my experience is that students find the study guide itself supportive for learning. It provides a sense of security and helps students find their own rhythm of study within that structure. Finally, adhering to regular time frames is imperative. Regular time frames include the times for opening of a module, for online discussions, and for professor feedback. Our weeks of study run from Sunday at 7:00 pm (Central) to the following Saturday at 11:59 pm. Modules for the upcoming week’s materials open each Saturday at noon. This promotes focus on the week’s topic at hand and allows for students to plan their rhythm of study for the next week before it officially begins. Online discussions usually take two forms—for example, leader/summary or original/final word—and follow regular posting times such as: the leader posts by Wednesday, 11:59 pm; discussion occurs until Saturday at noon; and the summary post is due Saturday, 11:59 pm. Content and length expectations of the various posts are described in the weekly study guide. Expectations are important, and perhaps even more so are the feedback received by the student on her work. Critical feedback from the professor within two weeks provides students the opportunity to adjust their rhythms; perhaps they need to take more time reading, integrating, ferreting out important distinctions, or engaging their peers in substantive ways. Growth can occur and energies adjusted if students are provided regular and timely feedback. It is not so much finding a path . . . as finding a rhythm to walk in. Guiding students to operate from a regular rhythm in the online environment provides the support students need to develop their own rhythm of study. Guiding students to walk in a regular rhythm provides students the freedom to be; to engage ideas and one another—which is where their focus needs to be.  Guiding our students into a rhythm will not necessarily help them find the path of Truth, but perhaps to discover their own rhythm as they wander on this planet and create a path by which they live more deeply into the Truth. [1] Michael N. McGregor, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax (New York: Fordham Press, 2015): 378. [2] McGregor, Pure Act, 381.

I distinctly remember what my husband said when he found me typing an email to a student in the middle of the night, the glow of my laptop illuminating my face in the darkness: “You need to set better boundaries.” Suffering from insomnia–whether it was in the late stages of pregnancy or the first year of night feedings, I can’t remember–I rationalized my behavior by saying that I was being productive since I was up already, and that the student seemed genuinely distraught by the state of their paper in light of a pressing deadline. In fact, his words resonated profoundly with my own sense of being out of balance. Online teaching can blur the boundaries between our work and our lives. People readily remark that online courses take a long time to design and develop, but less time to administer. In other words, they are more front loaded than face-to-face courses. However, communication and interaction with students over email, Skype or Zoom, or even face-to-face can also place considerable demands on our time during the course of the semester. Because we can virtually correspond anytime and anyplace, it is easy to find oneself replying to students during times that one would not even entertain the possibility of a face-to-face meeting. An added pressure is that online students consider prompt responses and feedback from their instructor crucial and an indication that they care. On their evaluations students report greater satisfaction when they receive prompt replies to their emails. Yet we do a disservice when we reply as soon as we see their email, regardless of the time of day. Although this might create a greater sense of satisfaction on the part of our students, it fuels the idea that instructors are constantly “on call” and undermines their own capacity to delay gratification, which is a crucial skill for self-regulated learning. Moreover, when they see that we have emailed in the middle of the night, they may conclude that it’s all right to prioritize other things over sleep, rest, and wellbeing. We lose the opportunity to model to our students a more balanced, mindful approach to our communication and interaction. Mindfulness encourages us to cultivate an embodied presence, receptivity, and awareness of ourselves and our surroundings, so that instead of immediately reacting to what we experience, we can instead create space for a more thoughtful response. We may overlook our bodies as we interface with digital devices and screens, but as Linda Stone has observed through the phenomena of “email apnea” – the temporary absence or suspension of breathing, or shallow breathing, when doing email (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/just-breathe-building-the_n_85651) –our online interactions have physical, emotional, and cognitive ramifications. By immediately replying to students’ emails, I was failing to address my own sleep habits, and I was not giving the space for students to try to resolve their problems by themselves. In the case of students who had clearly procrastinated and emailed me an hour or two before a deadline, one could even argue that I was encouraging bad habits. Aiming for a quick turnaround, I was being reactive rather than responsive. A more mindful approach would have aligned my online communication with the expectations laid out in my syllabus, where I explain that email is my preferred method of contact, and that they should expect a reply within 24 hours. Those parameters allow for balance: one can establish hours to be offline. Admittedly, we may still find the need to accommodate students even when it impinges on our personal lives. Once I found myself emailing back and forth with a student, trying to clarify the expectations of the final project, when he suddenly asked, “Can we talk over the phone?” Although I was at my parents’ house, I felt bad and agreed to call. Bracing myself for the potential of a half-hour interruption, I dialed his phone number. After responding to various questions I hung up and looked at my phone. It had taken less than ten minutes. This made me realize that we should take advantage of multiple channels of communication with our students. In another case, a student asked if we could meet face-to-face to discuss his ePortfolio for the course. We sat together looking at his laptop, and he scrolled through some of the ePortfolio pages to ask about my comments and suggestions. Again, within a very short span of time, I was able to address all of his concerns . . . and meet the student in person. These kinds of interactions with students–over the phone, via Zoom or Skype, or in person–not only show that we care about our students, but they contribute to a greater sense of embodied presence. Although I still have a long way to go, I have found myself trying to be a more mindful online teacher, for the sake of both myself and my students.

In theological education, students who go to school online are frequently students who remain at home throughout their degree programs serving in faith communities they know well. This reality affects their formation and affects how teachers approach it. There are some advantages to the situation. As Elaine Ramshaw writes about teaching pastoral care online: “The fact that many of the students are also concurrently doing what one might call ‘embedded’ parish work, and that some of them are the pastoral leaders of their congregations, can be a plus for teaching in any of the practical fields.”[i] For example, in a class on pastoral leadership I might teach students how to lead decision-making via consensus process. An assignment option for that class might then be to lead their church board through consensus process. Assignments carried out in students’ ministry contexts represent what in higher education are called “authentic assessments.” Defined as real-world activities mirroring the very sorts of tasks students will practice in the professions for which they are preparing, authentic assessments are widely valued for their role in formation. They are also sometimes perceived to be tricky to create. But when online students can simply turn a camera on in the place they already work, authentic assessment becomes easier. I have learned several ways to take advantage of the video camera in assessing ministerial formation. The first thing I tell students is that because it is their development I care about, I will be watching and listening to them, not their congregants. They should train the camera on themselves and not worry about capturing everybody on film. They will upload the video to a secure channel, I will be the only one viewing it, and they can delete it once I have done so. Moreover, I tell them, I’m not assessing their congregants. Activities do not have to go perfectly for me to get a sense of students’ leadership abilities. Whether or not, for example, their board actually reaches consensus on a decision is not the point. These reminders help students help their folks to relax, act naturally, and forget about the camera. The hope is that I will, in fact, see a truly authentic ministry event. It appears to work. The video camera becomes quite literally like a fly on a wall that ceases to be noticed after a while. Therefore, filming has certain advantages over direct personal observation of students, which in face-to-face education is often considered the ideal way to assess student formation. The second thing I tell students is that they must watch their videos. I was surprised when I first started teaching online to discover how often they did not. I appreciate the self-consciousness and even pain associated with seeing a tape of oneself, but one of the best ways to learn how to be a minister is to watch oneself in the act of ministering. Videotaping uniquely allows for this kind of learning. The third thing I tell my students is that by watching a video of them in action, I will learn more about their context and gain appreciation for the challenges they face. The videos give me access, after all, not only to students whom I would never see otherwise because of distance, but also to real conversations being held in real church parlors, basements, and Sunday School rooms. It doesn’t get more ‘authentic’ than watching a bunch of folks sitting around a table sipping Diet Cokes, quieting fussy babies, and occasionally digressing from the exercise at hand to rehash last night’s big game. Watching the videos makes me realize how difficult the skills I’ve taught in class can be when practiced authentically. I cannot help but see what goes on. I see all the distractions and interruptions that come with trying to get church folk to have a serious conversation. I’ve watched my students struggle to manage dominant personalities, deflect obvious attempts at alternative agendas, and finish exercises in time to get to the second service. I have even watched somebody suffer a stroke in the middle of a meeting. A final advantage of authentic assessment via videotape is that teachers come to appreciate the true breadth and complexity of ministerial formation. [i] Elaine Ramshaw, “Reflections on Teaching Pastoral Care Online,” Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry, Volume 31 (2011), 62. This entire volume of Reflective Practice is dedicated to formation and supervision in a digital age.

Course design in online learning juggles a range of factors to produce an effective learning environment. For instance, most of us who teach online must navigate the expectations of our institution. Maybe a requirement to adhere to some external standard, like Quality Matters, exists. Perhaps the learning management system defines what one might do. Some schools require the use of a design consultant, while others throw faculty into the deep end of course development without any support. And, then, of course, we always must account for the students. I tend to boil online class structure down to the following: consistency matters, less is more, clarity in all things, and never lose the personal, and course design is never done. Consistency matters speaks to the basic principle of setting the same pattern week in and week out. The freedom of asynchronous online learning (work on your own from anywhere, anytime) differs markedly from a student knowing to turn up on specific days, at a given time, and in a set location. Many undergraduates still need the discipline built in. Setting repetitive due dates, for instance, allows a learner to integrate the class into her or his calendar and to schedule other obligations (e.g., work, childcare, recreation) accordingly. Organizing the course materials via a weekly agenda in a fixed place enables the students to know where to look for readings/videos and how to determine what to turn in, where, and by when.  Less is more applies in several areas. Only the rare student will read every line of my syllabus, carefully parse my directions, or watch every video. I try to help here. Creating my syllabus using Moodle’s “Book” for example, allows me to generate a Table of Contents. Students then might skip to what they prioritize (like grading) and only refer to policies (academic integrity, disability accommodation, etc.) when needed. I also use this function for the weekly assignments. Students can bypass the learning goals the University wants posted and immediately access the readings/videos and the worksheets.    Similarly, in video presentations, if I can do 2-4 minutes rather than 10 or 15, I stand a better chance of a student listening all the way through. But even when I go long, I cannot waste their time. Good video production requires thinking through what is most important, planning out my commentary and visuals, and speaking at the pace of something like a Crash Course lesson. Students then tend to stick with it and even re-view when they need a second or third shot at an idea because it is not burdensome or scattered. Clarity in all things means avoiding confusion by providing step-by-step instructions for every assignment, a rubric for how it will be assessed, links to technical support for what students might need to accomplish it (such as how to make a video), statements about when precisely to anticipate feedback, and a forum to pose their questions–again with response time being key. Online learning lacks the luxury of chatting face-to-face in class about what I want to see or how the grading is coming along. Instead, I must anticipate, as well as draw from experience, what kinds of questions students raise and plan accordingly to answer them at the outset. Never lose the personal takes me back to when I first started out in online and most of my students brought with them the expectations of a face-to-face environment. They wanted to see my face and hear my voice. They wanted not automatically graded assignments, but my personal comments. I also learned the value of students hearing from me “live” every week, even when everything might be running like clockwork. A weekly note to the class or a quick video about the connection of a current event to what we are doing reminds them I am there and active and paying attention. Sending individual feedback on something as mundane as a discussion board post says I take their ideas seriously. I also, then, get more students making appointments with me to work through issues or to chat about their interests. These interactions make use of my expertise in more areas than content delivery and that is, as we all know, where most authentic learning happens. Finally, course design is never done. Each iteration of a class teaches us something new about what works and what we can do better. Making the time to reflect on the specifics, or to learn new tricks by engaging with other faculty, brings pedagogy to the forefront and that, to my mind, always benefits the learning experience.

In 1998, the movie, You’ve Got Mail, cast an unlikely couple, played by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, who fell in love over email exchanges. The film brought to the big screen the unforgettable computer-voiced announcement “You’ve got mail.” The scenes were classic and represented many email users who eagerly anticipated hearing their computers say “You’ve got mail” each time a new electronic mail message arrived.  The Hanks and Ryan characters would painstakingly compose an email message, hesitate, and then hit “enter” or “return.” On the other end of the dial-up Internet connection was the recipient who sat on the edge of his or her seat, just waiting for something interesting, encouraging, or perhaps inspiring, to arrive from the anonymous love interest. Much has changed in digital communication since the days of dial-up, AOL, and “You’ve got mail.” One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is our eagerness for quick, if not, instantaneous messaging. Whether or not one likes this stage of humanity’s relationship with technology, the weight of this cultural phenomenon falls on each of us. For better or worse, communication at the speed of light has become part of the culture of higher education as well, especially in an online learning space. Picture a married, mother working fulltime for a congregation taking seminary courses online. Her life circumstances offer her limited work hours for furthering her education. While reading through her course module for the week, she stumbles across a reading that is listed as “required,” but the link is broken. She has just a few hours to finish her assignment, and now she feels lost. The student messages the professor and sits and waits for a reply. How long should she have to wait? What expectations does she have of the professor? How well has the professor been communicating with her so far in the course? These questions are the kinds of concerns that speak to teacher-student engagement in online courses. In this blog, I offer a few tips for teachers to consider when it comes to online teacher-student engagement. While much has been written about teacher presence, the importance of communication, best practices of when to respond to students and the like, the primary focus of this entry is the importance of communication, meaningful facilitation, and commitment to making an impact on student formation. Communication Set clear expectations for yourself and tell the students. If you follow the old 48-hour rule—that is, you plan to respond to students within 48 hours of their questions— then let your students know this is your practice. If you are more of a 24/7 kind of online teacher, let them know that too. I personally don’t respond to anything over weekends and holidays, and I tell students my boundaries at the beginning of the course or before major school breaks. Otherwise, I respond to their questions daily and interact within the course on the days I pre-establish with my classes, normally on or the day after deadlines. Tell your students how you prefer to be reached. It’s up to you to decide how you plan to be available, but make sure your students know how you prefer to be contacted. I respond to emails faster than any message service in learning management systems; so I frequently remind them to email me if they have a question. Facilitation Establish a pattern of engagement with online discussions and forums. If you were in a classroom face-to-face, would you let class discussion fill an hour of valuable class time without your guiding the conversation? Probably not. The same is true for online discussions. Interject comments alongside your students’ posts to provide scaffolding, encouragement, and teachable moments. Remember, if you do not post, you are not present. Give feedback on assignments that prompt learning. Whether you use a rubric, points system, letter grades, or a combination of these, make sure your students know why they got the grade they were assigned. Frankly, this tip is just good education and not limited to online education, but without non-verbal glances, after class questions, and hallway conversations, online students feel lost if they don’t hear any feedback from you. Impact Commit to your online students the same way you would commit to a student who is sitting in your classroom or standing in your office. The demands of higher education sometimes cause us to run from one urgency to another. Too often the students at a distance get ignored, “out of sight, out of mind,” or something like that. Resist the temptation to think of them as faceless names. They are individuals who, from their perspectives, want to be connected with your school, the course, and with you as their professor. They are also paying tuition and have a reasonable expectation to receive a comparable experience to those who are face-to-face. Try to get to know them. Pray for them. Memorize their names as you would any of your classes. Offer to assist them with course matters outside of class as you might your residential students. The students want to hear from you, and they appreciate all of your interactions with them. Your level of engagement with students can make or break your course. Communicate frequently and clearly. Scaffold learning through facilitation. Demonstrate how you care about your online students. These three simple tasks will create the learning space your students need for achieving the education they seek.

A pedagogical community consists of at least three elements: the student, the professor, and the subject. The intersection of these three elements has the potential to create what Parker Palmer (1998) calls “a community of truth.” In order to create this community of truth in an online course, the instructor has to consider in the design of the course where community happens, so that students can begin to “know one another.” One of the best, and perhaps most difficult, places to start is at the beginning of the course. For a number of years, the start of my online courses were, quite frankly, boring and not very engaging for students. This, in turn, caused a lot of angst in me, the instructor. As I shared my dilemma with a colleague, she suggested, “Why don’t you make an assignment in the first week to produce a video about you and have each student in the course do likewise?” I started to do that at the beginning of each of my online courses and that advice from my colleague has helped me and my students begin to “know one another.” Below are the instructions that I put in the syllabus for this assignment. I have found that it is doable even for students who have technological challenges. There are many apps/software out there; I use an app/software called Animoto. It’s easy to use, it provides choices of background and music, and it’s free! Purpose:  An introduction is often your best chance to establish yourself as a distinct individual with something unique to offer the world. Most people default to the standard, “Hi my name is . . .  I live in . . . I work at . . .” For this assignment, you will move beyond such a standard introduction and create a 1 minute and 30 second (minimum) Animoto about you. You will also write a short paragraph to accompany the video. While a resume is a professional document, consider how an Animoto can be an innovative way of conveying the same information. What sort of audience would prefer this format? Instructions: Step 1: Start by establishing the essential information you think should be included when introducing yourself to others. Obviously, your full name is important, but you may also include your age, your field of study, ethnicity, home town, hobbies, some details of past experience, accomplishments, future goals, etc.  Step 2: For this assignment you must consider appropriate images and music that will highlight information about you while maintaining a professional look. Draft a few ideas, sort through your photographs, or Google images and arrange the “story.” Step 3: Write a text that highlights the images and/or helps put them in the proper context. Step 4: Select the music that best reflects the image of yourself that you want to send out to the world. You may want to select the music first and let the rhythm and lyrics guide your story. Submission guidelines:  Post your biographical Animoto and paragraph to the Introduction Forum. You must watch all the Animotos and respond to at least three other Animotos (not the instructor’s). Your responses should be thoughtful, constructive, and more than one sentence. Comment on similarities, differences, enquiries, wonderings. What makes this first assignment most interesting for me are the comments from the students to one another’s Animoto and short paragraphs in the discussion forums. The curiosity that students have for one another is gold! The benefit: the course begins on an encouraging note that helps students be more transparent and authentic with one another in a way that  helps build positive momentum for the course. I’m sure there are many good ways to start off a course right that builds pedagogical community—this is just one that has been tremendously helpful to me.   (You can click and watch my academic Animoto (https://animoto.com/play/Zh0oXpqBBZt61q0kvx7h6w) which shows where I went to school, where I teach, and a bit about my family. )