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Click Here to Read Part 1 Somewhere along my life’s journey, I learned to play an Australian Aboriginal instrument called the didjeridoo. The didjeridoo is a percussion instrument, said by the Aborigines to be older than the African drum. They use the didjeridoo for meditation, rituals, and rites. A didjeridoo is a long, usually wooden instrument (looks like a rain stick) which is played by blowing into one end. Any didj plays only one note. By manipulating the breath into the didj, the player can shape, prolong, and play-with the one note to create different kinds of sounds. The sounds are often described as basic, primordial, ethereal, and other-worldly. As if the ability to play the didjeridoo is not quirky enough–I can also circular breath. Circular breathing is a technique used by players of wind instruments to produce a continuous tone without interruption. This is accomplished by breathing in through the nose while simultaneously pushing air out though the mouth using air stored in the cheeks. I can circular breath with my dijeridoo. I play my didj for my own meditation. I have, over the years, played two or three times in our seminary chapel services. I have never thought of playing in concert–until March 20, 2019. On March 20th, five-time Grammy award winning, renowned jazz bass player Victor Wooten came to our campus for a day of teaching and to give an evening concert. Wooten, author of the book The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music, is a master teacher. He infused his lessons with wisdom from his mother and stories of how he started to play the bass at age 3, then, by age 5, he and his four older brothers were on tour as the opening band for Curtis Mayfield. Wooten coupled his life stories with his vast knowledge of music theory and his ability to play the bass in innovative ways. He is a creative genius. At some moment during the day, Victor asked me if I played an instrument. I told him that I play the didjeridoo. He said, “Good–you’ll play with me at the concert tonight.” The moment of emphatic invitation was that spontaneous, that casual, and that unexpected. Reflecting now upon that moment, I suspect I routinely do that to students. I hear that they have an ability, a capacity, a talent and I, without hesitation, incorporate that/them into the band that is our classroom. I am accustomed to being the band leader–I was surprised, on this day, to be a member of the band. I had confidence that I could do what Victor asked me to do because I knew I could play my instrument. What I did not anticipate was my own nervousness and stage fright. Near the end of the Wooten concert, I sat in the green room knowing my song was next. I could feel the shallowness of my own breath. I was self-conscious. As I sat, my feet began to cramp. I told myself, “Since I don’t play with my feet, all I have to do is hobble out on stage and sit down, then I can play.” I reached for some water to calm my cramps, but then reasoned that I would need to use the bathroom . . .  I was panicking!  Inside my head was a voice of confusion and terror. I knew enough to make myself take a few deep breaths and that calmed my fear, if only a bit. As Victor ended a song, I left the green room and went to the wings to wait. The panic rose again–this time my feet were not cramping, but instead I could not focus. I felt like I had lost control of my body. I heard Victor call my name and I stepped out on stage–smiling and terrified. I retrieved my didj which had been pre-set on the other side of the piano and took my seat in the band. Mark Miller was on piano, Elias Aponte-Ortega was on cajón and Wooten was on bass. The music started and I realized I could not hear–I was deaf! I began to play my didj but all I could hear was air and not a note from my didj. I grew more panicked. I closed my eyes. With eyes closed I could hear myself playing, but I was not playing well. Then I heard Victor say “yeah.” I looked up and Victor was looking at me, smiling and bouncing his head to the rhythm of the song. When I saw Victor, I relaxed–just a little bit. I reminded myself to keep looking at the band leader. Victor, with bass in hand, walked over closer to me and kept his eyes on me and kept smiling at me. As I played, I grew stronger and more focused. He turned and walked back to the middle of the stage. As we had planned, Victor and the other instruments brought their part of the song come to an end and I, on didj, extended my part so the last sound was the didj. I played solo for several moments then ended. The crowd erupted with praise, applause and wonder. I stood, raised my hands above my head, and basked in the surreal moment of it all–still terrified!  By all reports, no one knew I was terror stricken. I, from the vantage of the audience, had played brilliantly (thank God and thank Wooten!). One week later, I recounted my experience of stage fright and terror to my class who had studied Wooten’s book. My story surprised them. I asked if they had had such experiences. The majority of the students yelled “YES!” then some continued–“here, with you, every week!” One student said she had been in terror since having received her admissions letter (she’s graduating this spring). I told them I knew nervousness and butterflies, but this kind of terror was new to me. They looked at me silently as if to say, “Welcome to our world.”  Another student asked if there was a moment that I calmed down. I thought–and remembered the moment I heard Wooten’s voice. His voice brought me back to myself–just a little. Then, when he walked over to me, I was able to restore a bit of my own confidence. I told the students that when I got in touch with the fact that I had a band leader who knew what he was doing, I could believe in myself in that moment. New experiences make for better, more empathetic teaching. My experience of terror and stage fright, as well as my experience of having had the band leader lead me through the moment has made me more aware of the depth of students’ fears and the power of the band leader, in the midst of that fear, to create a beautiful and innovative song. Instilling confidence in students to move to higher accomplishments and supporting that confidence through the presence of an expectant and knowledgeable teacher is my renewed focus. And, if Wooten ever needs a didjeridoo player in another band–I’m available!

Anyone who has been teaching for a while knows that stress is normal for our vocation. When stress is prolonged over a long period of time, we experience exhaustion. Online instruction can compound the effects of mental, emotional, and even physical exhaustion because of course design that extends the time for planning, preparing, and implementing a course. Managing Your Online Instruction I don’t feel like an expert on self-care, but I have learned some healthy habits to keep teaching online not only manageable, but rewarding. Here is what I have learned so far. 1. Plan ahead and give yourself ample time for course design in online instruction. The largest and most long-term online project I have tackled is, by far, reinvigorating my institution’s distant learners Greek language program. From designing and creating a two-course sequence to implementing and teaching it online, it was a project that lasted a full year. When I started, I had already taught beginning Greek in a traditional F2F on-campus classroom setting for over 10 years. Converting my existing F2F class into a new asynchronous course on the Canvas learning management system (LMS) was a challenge. I had a head start since I had already laid out the course content in my traditional F2F class. This spared me the extra stress and work of trying to plan the course from scratch. Instead, I focused on understanding best online instruction pedagogical practices and implementing new technology. I had to create and produce over 80+ instructional videos, learn how to use the video-conferencing technology for Greek tutoring, and design assignments that made use of Canvas’ full features which included online quizzes. The course design took the entire summer. 3 intense months. It would have taken longer if I had not the experience and past resources of having taught the class beforehand. Whatever you do, plan ahead. You need at least a month to plan out a course and another three to create it on your institution’s LMS. If you don’t give yourself ample time for course design, you will exhaust yourself from creating the course and not have much reserve to teach it. 2. Set aside a no-work day for yourself while implementing the course. Pick one day a week and let students know that on that day, you will be offline not answering any correspondence. We all need a Sabbath space in our weekly schedule to pull away from our work and rest. I have found Saturdays to be the best day off. It affords me time to spend with family and friends. Sundays never worked for me. They tend be days when students scramble to finish their assignments online prior to deadlines on Monday. Know what days work and don’t work for your schedule. Pick a Sabbath day and make it sacred. If you let students know ahead of time, they will honor your day off and expect a response to their queries later. 3. Recharge your motivation for teaching. What makes online instruction a rewarding experience for you? Some of my colleagues enjoy the research and reading that comes with preparing a class. Others, like myself, need a personal connection with students to stay motivated. Whatever the source of inspiration, turn back to it periodically to recharge your enthusiasm for the course. Take the opportunities to stay inspired as they arise. When I was attending an annual denominational event during the Winter break, I learned that a number of my online students would be attending the conference. We met at a local Starbucks simply to connect. We talked about all things Greek and New Testament. But I also learned about their stories and ministries. I heard what they loved about the course and why they wanted to learn the biblical languages. What they shared that day renewed my desire and motivation to teach. Mental exhaustion gave way to rekindled inspiration. I was ready to tackle the rest of semester. 4. Practice the spiritual disciplines faithfully. Here I’m writing to theological educators. We all have our favorite spiritual disciplines: a daily devotional, times of prayer, morning or mid-day offices, or walks for reflection and meditation. I have found walks an important way to reflect on my vocation and pray for students. Whatever your spiritual tradition, observe it faithfully and experience the grace to persevere through even the toughest of semesters.

Students are always already being "formed" in our online classes, whether we mean to have incorporated "formation" into our course designs or not. In this ineluctable process of formation, do the communities of inquiry designed into our online classes align with the norms and values of the communities into which we mean to form our learners? By "formation" in this post, I do not particularly mean "spiritual formation," but I also do not exclude it. If "spiritual formation" involves the practices and conditions for becoming transformed into the community of disciples to Jesus Christ so too is the instructor of (say) Hebrew Bible, Church History, or Theology also forming learners toward the norms and practices of their respective disciplinary communities. Even before that, however, we are already forming learners into a prior community: the communities of inquiry fostered in our course designs. Some readers will already know that from a constructivist perspective learning always involves a creative synthesis, accomplished in the learner, of the experiences and insights she brings to the learning moment, with the new information she encounters there. Crafting within herself this new thing, she is changed in the process of constructing for herself new enduring understandings; that is, she is transformed. Moreover, again from a constructivist standpoint, this creative enterprise of making meaning happens most reliably in collaboration with other learners and in the generation of public projects; that is, the learner is transformed among and via community. Learning, then, is always a matter of transformation in and into community. What, then, will be the norms, practices, and ideology of this learning community, or community of inquiry? To what extent will these be intentional or accidental? How well or poorly will they align with the communities into which we mean our learners to be formed: the community of disciples, or of biblical scholars, or of chaplains, or historians, or theologians? For example, one enduring understanding that I mean for learners to absorb in my Hebrew Bible courses is that biblical studies grounds its claims in publicly available evidence and explicit lines of reasoning, rather than in private revelation or sectarian dogma. Documentary hypotheses for the composition of the Pentateuch are not "alternative dogmas" to an unassailable sectarian claim that Moses authored the first five books of the Bible. An archaeological conclusion that Jericho had no fortifications during any possible time in which one can posit an emergence of Israel in the land is not an "alternative dogma" to an appeal to tradition that Joshua made the walls to tumble down. In this context, with what sort of cognitive dissonance do I set a learner if I refuse to make transparent my rubrics for assessing his exegesis paper? ("It just feels like a B minus.") If my appeal is to the inscrutable and unquestionable authority of my disciplinary expertise and teaching experience, I signal a very different kind of norms for the community of biblical scholars to that which I have been at pains to illustrate in my course design. Do my syllabus and other communication documents direct learners toward institutional policies regarding accommodations for medical issues, disabilities, neurodivergence, and so on? An explicit commitment to reasonable accommodation signals a community norm of inclusion. If I want my learners to imagine the community of disciples as one marked by radical inclusion, then the community of inquiry fostered in my online class is the place to start. Do you find that your institutional policies regarding accommodation are difficult to locate, or hard to understand, or implicitly overridden by instructor whim? It may be time to escalate the matter (to a dean of students or academic dean, to a faculty council, even to a student council). Accommodation in the online class is at least as challenging as in the face-to-face class. How does one accommodate "extra time" for a collaborative assignment that begins and ends over the course of a week? Have I crafted my course documents (syllabus, assignment instructions, feedback) such that they are legible to a "reading" computer program used by a cognitively or visually impaired learner (or my audio-visual resources for the hearing-impaired learner)? It's a tough standard by which to evaluate my online course design, but one that takes seriously the facts that 1) I explicitly describe to learners the ideals of the disciplinary community in which my class seeks to form them, and 2) my course design is forming them into some kind of community of inquiry with its own values . . . intended or not, planned or accidental.

My journey into online education was indirect. I started out as a missionary-graduate student who was working on a Master of Arts degree from overseas. My first distance learning class was on cassette tape, but soon after our school developed online courses in which the primary interaction was through listservs. A few years later we saw the emergence of learning management systems (LMS) such as Embanet, WebCT, and Blackboard. Remember those days? In spite of the primitive digital medium we used, the courses worked. I attained both a broad and deep level of knowledge of Christian thought in these courses because our professor grounded his assignments and email discussions on good educational theory. At the time I hadn’t studied the literature of educational theory, but as my own post-missionary career began to overlap significantly with online education, I was determined to gain a better understanding of what kind of theory leads to effective online courses. While combing through the literature, I noticed that there seemed to be a philosophical connection between constructivism and distance learning. I kept digging to find out the reason behind this affinity between the two; at one point, I pulled philosophical layers back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. What I found was that there have always been advocates for “learning by doing” and there have always been those who have regarded experiential learning as anathema. Emerging from the cross-fire, however, was John Dewey and his integration of the scientific method with social science research during the Progressivism period in the early 20th century. In Experience and Education (1938), Dewey described what happens when one’s life experiences intersect with new concepts or skills. He called this intersection the “learning situation” (pp 42-43). His book did not provide a diagram, but I imagine that if Dewey had sketched out this phenomenon it would have looked something like this: Note that the horizontal axis represents the continuity of past, present, and future experiences. The vertical axis represents a continuum of interactions ranging from personal reflection to interaction with people, places, and events. The two axes can move up and down and side to side depending on the connecting point between experience and interaction, but where the two meet is where the learning situation occurs. The metacognition swirl is a bit anachronistic, but I wanted the diagram to indicate the place where deeper reflection about one’s learning experience might take place. This simple “learning situation” as described by Dewey illustrates well the dynamic between student experiences and learning new concepts and skills. As I considered how to translate the learning situation into online education, I wanted to design courses that made use of learners’ past experiences and current contexts as resources for learning. Steve and Mary Lowes (2010) also contributed to my thinking for how to see the individual contexts of students separated by time and space as unique and relevant learning laboratories. (See also Bronfenbrenner 1979).  The thought world of experiential learning and my applications of it to online course design and facilitation led me to the next step of my quest when McGaughy, McDonald, and I (2018) completed a qualitative research project based on the following research question: “In what ways does the interaction of past experiences and present community impact learning online?” We selected an online course used for study abroad programs at our institution, and through a triangulation of course evidence and a survey, we looked for common themes that addressed experiences of the students and their learning environment online. Three salient themes emerged: flexibility, travel, and communication. The theme flexibility represented both time and space. Students in the online program were empowered to study when and where it was most beneficial to their learning experiences. Although flexibility did not describe how experiences directly impacted learning, the participants’ descriptions of their flexible study times and locations shed light onto the intersection of context and learning. Travel tied directly into the research question. Participants reported how previous travels helped them relate to the topics of their online course. They also mentioned how encounters with people overseas opened their minds to intercultural communication concerns as well as recognizing variations of worldview. Expressions like “really made me think” and “my eyes were opened” related evidence for real-world experiences that had a direct impact on learning. Communication provided the bridge between the online medium and context of the student. As participants discussed matters related to communication, they would reflect on discussion boards, interactions with their professor, as well as face-to-face conversations with people at their sites. Interactions with students online led to “new insights” and “different points of view.” Conversations with people outside of class in their context also contributed to students’ learning new ideas and perspectives. This study provided evidence of Dewey’s learning situation in an online course, and the implications for distance education are important. As we imagine how to design, create, and facilitate online courses, we need to eradicate from our minds the mythological student who has been closed off from human contact and is unable to make cognitive connections between what they are learning and how it applies in their contexts. Rather, imagine our students as individuals who are surrounded by a learning laboratory, but also connected to a network of classmates in a shared digital learning space. Students who take courses online deserve creative course designs that maximize the online tools as well as point them to real-time, face-to-face learning experiences. As we envision the road ahead in the age of education without walls, consider these words of Dewey, “. . .  it is not of new versus old education nor of progressive against traditional education but a question of what anything whatever must be to be worthy of the name education” (1938, p 90). Works cited: Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Touchstone. Lowe, S. D., & Lowe, M. E. (2010). Spiritual formation in theological distance education: An ecosystems model. Christian Education Journal, 3, 7(no. 1), 85-102. Westbrook, T. P., McGaughy, M., & McDonald, J. (2018). An investigation into the implications of Dewey’s “Learning Situation” for Online Education. NET: An eJournal of Faith-Based Distance Learning, 2.

Click Here to Read Part 2 Spectacles create excitement. Experiencing the excitement of spectacle used to be reserved for such moments as the circus’s annual appearance, bringing elephants, lions and clowns. Or it happened on the rare occasion of a World’s Fair, which was considered one of the most exciting events to visit a place in a lifetime. Now, we live in a world where spectacles are available to be viewed or participated in on a daily basis. Bigger-than-life stories flood the internet. Our senses and sensitivities are bombarded through the 24-hour news cycle. Personal participation in social media keeps our imaginations revved-up and our cell phone cameras at the ready. Movies and video games have special effects so keen you think you are inside the action. Virtual reality headsets invite persons to meet up with friends from around the world at live sports, concerts, or just to watch a favorite TV show together. We can now, on a daily basis, dial-into excitement. In comparison, our classrooms, filled with lectures, discussions and the occasional field trip seem humdrum, ho-hum–just plain boring. Even our on-line courses typically replicate the patterns and learning modes of brick-and-mortar classrooms inviting adult learners into lecture and discussion in digital classrooms. We merely recreate a digital version of incarnate passivity. The change in season from winter to spring usually helps make the semester seem longer and more boring. By April in the spring semester, we are not close enough to the end of school year for a sprint to the end, and we are too far from the beginning to still be eager and anticipatory. It is a dangerous moment in the semester that could, if not tended to, derail the best course. Since there is no calendared spectacle, and since mid-semester is a low energy moment in our community, I planned something that I thought would be EXCITING. I planned something I thought would wake up, shake up, and get learning juices flowing. I invited renowned jazz musician, Victor Wooten to our campus to teach and give a concert! It is a worthwhile question to ask–“How did you get five time Grammy Award winning Victor Wooten to teach an entire day at Drew Theological Seminary, and do a concert?” Our day of teaching and conversation with Victor Wooten had everything to do with his graciousness and accessibility. Victor is a humble and kind soul. It also had everything to do with my want to make learning exciting–to create a spectacle of teaching–at least for one day. Armed with a grant from the Luce Foundation, I described my want to my colleague and friend Paul Myhre at Wabash Center. Paul is an amateur bass player and lover of jazz. I asked if he knew anyone to recommend who understands their artistry as a vehicle for social good and who would bring excitement to our community. He said the perfect artist would be jazz musician, Victor Wooten. Paul said that what distinguished Wooten, for our purposes, was his book The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search For Growth Through Music. I was intrigued. I said, “Ok, but how would we get him? I can’t just cold-call Victor Wooten.” Paul said, “Victor is on Facebook!” Then he simply reached out to him. In less than five minutes, Victor replied to Paul and provided his manager’s name and contact information. I called Wooten’s manager and the rest is history! On March 20, Victor Wooten re-energized and re-inspirited our Drew University community. It was a spectacle of the best kind. In preparation for our day with Victor Wooten, the faculty read and assigned many courses to read The Music Lesson, published in 2006. The book is a fictional account of how Victor learned to play the bass better. While talking with our faculty at brunch, Victor said about writing the book, “I wanted to write a book that would allow me talk about my particular approach to music theory and freedom without having then to defend my approach. It took me a long time to figure out the way to write it was as fiction. Since it is fiction, people read my story, enjoy the characters and get my meaning. If they do not like the story, they do not attack my music theory because it is my story.” Several faculty persons reported to Victor how much our seminary students resonated with his book and teaching philosophy. Students, even those who know little about music, were strengthened by the liberative pedagogy and life lessons woven into the book. The first of two classes Victor taught after brunch was an undergraduate Music Theory class. He talked with the students about the meaning of the musical term “key” and explained techniques for a better, more agile understanding of keys and key changes. A student asked Victor how to avoid writer’s block. Victor told a story which illustrated that the way to overcome writer’s block is to write as many “bad” songs as you can in order to get to the “good” songs. The second class of the day was Prof. Mark Miller’s Musics of the World course. Victor delved deeply into his book, answered questions about such things as the meaning of mistake making, what it means to hear music all the time, and the spiritual journey of becoming such an accomplished musician. A highlight of the session was Victor’s conversation with Tiffani Wheatlley, a first year student who said her sons were taking drum lessons and she wanted to learn to play. Victor brought her to the drums. With a few instructions and coaching, Tiffani played along with Victor Wooten and Mark Miller–and it sounded great! It was a pleasure to watch Victor’s lessons on teaching be embodied, enacted, and demonstrated before our very eyes. The evening concert was magical. Mark Miller played the opening number on piano, then Victor–now at home in our community–joined in. Wooten continued wowing the crowd with both jazz, blues, and gospel pieces. After an hour or so of solo bass performing, Victor announced “a friend is joining me on stage.” That friend was faculty member Elias Ortega-Aponte, who accompanied Wooten on the Cajón. The next faculty person to join Wooten on stage was me! At some point in our day-long conversation, Victor asked me if I played an instrument. I have been asked this question hardly ever in my life. My answer is one that usually is unsatisfying to the asking person because I play the didjeridoo–and few people know what that is. When I responded to Victor–he of course knew what a didjeridoo was, and instructed me that I was going to play with him in the concert that night. OMG!  During sound check, Victor listened to me play, announced that my didjeridoo was in the key of “D” and asked what song we should play together. I looked at Mark. He said “Wade in the Water.” Victor said–“Good, we’ll do that.” When we finished playing the piece during the concert the audience erupted! Just imagine–the very first time I play my didjeridoo in concert and it is with renowned musician Victor Wooten! The finale of the concert was an original arrangement which moshed-together the two songs “Halleluiah” and “Amazing Grace.” An improvisational genius, Victor led his band, composed of Drew musicians and the audience, to the highest heights. The piece was magnificent. The audience, rising to their feet to sing along with the moving and soulful rendition, cheered wildly at the end.   The day of teaching and performing ended in typical gracious Wooten style. Victor lingered more than an hour after the concert signing books and CDs, taking pictures and talking with students, faculty, and fans. It was an historic day of joyous excitement and improvisational learning! 

I have just experienced a new first in my teaching career: This week I had to re-design a course for a face-to-face format from an online format. I recently switched jobs. After teaching for half a dozen years in a school that exists primarily online, I am now back in a residential context, working for a school that exists primarily on a brick-and-mortar campus. I have been invited to teach a course next year, and I thought it would be a simple matter to adapt one I had offered at my previous institution. So, without hesitation, I accepted the invitation. Then, the Registrar asked me if I could teach in the school’s evening program—one class session per week for 2’45”. Two hours and forty-five minutes?! I realized with a gasp that I no longer knew what I would do with such a sustained block of time. Lengthy lectures are a thing of my distant past. When I first started teaching online, I had to work to pare my presentations down to twenty minutes. Recently, I attended a workshop where I learned that the average student attention span--before the mind starts wandering--is something like nine minutes. “Limit your presentations to twelve minutes, max,” the leader admonished us, “and even then, make them funny or catchy in some way.” Discussion, of course, can use up a lot of minutes. But there, too, I have become accustomed to disciplined time management. I developed the habit of checking in to my online course discussions daily, spending only about thirty minutes monitoring and guiding each thread; an hour, max. Online courses have so many elements to attend to that online instructors learn not to get sucked too deeply into every discussion. I forced myself to recall what I used to do in the old days of classroom teaching because I had a vague memory of class sessions flying by with never enough time before students were stuffing their books into backpacks and dashing out the door. Oh, right: Debates. Case study exercises. Role plays. Problem-solving. Guest speakers. In-class writing. All of which, I realized, I had at one point modified for the online environment. Versions of these learning activities still populated my syllabi; it was just that they happened in smaller chunks, spread throughout a week rather than concentrated in an evening. In addition to how differently time gets used in online vs. face-to-face teaching, my conversation with the Registrar also brought to mind the difference between virtual and live presence. I realized that I would once again have to muster up the energy to regularly face a room full of live bodies. Would I have to stand on my feet in front of them the whole time? Would they sit there and stare at me? I recalled the adrenaline rush that always made my palms a little sweaty before walking into class and the dissipation that left me feeling drained for several hours afterward. For six years my body had been spared all that. You don’t get particularly nervous sitting in your familiar, quiet office reading discussion posts, watching videos, and answering emails. And if for some reason you do, you can always take a break and leave for a walk or a snack or even some errands, with no one becoming the wiser. Speaking of quiet, I started recalling how noisy classrooms could sometimes become. Or, worse yet, pin-drop silent. I sighed, remembering the dual agonies of having to cajole speech out of taciturn participants and having to serve as traffic cop during swift-moving exchanges where everyone talked at once. Like all students, online students naturally vary in terms of their participation levels, but the format makes it possible to require that all of them contribute at least the same minimum to every activity. As another blogger in this series put it, “Discussion dynamics online become more democratic when each student is equally invited and expected to contribute to conversation” (Miriam Y. Perkins, “How Teaching Online Enhances Residential Pedagogies: The Big Picture,” Online Teaching, Online Learning, February 12, 2019). I am confident that come next year when I am teaching again in a traditional classroom, I will re-adapt, and eventually relish the immediacy and liveliness and spontaneity it affords. But I am also reasonably confident that I will miss the steady, measured egalitarianism of my former online world, and the kind of teaching it made possible.

As an online instructor who understands the rigors of course design and management, I often wonder if it would be easier to livestream a class through video conferencing, rather than prepare an asynchronous course module by module. In a Hamlet-esque way, I ask: “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the outrage of course design, or to storm through a sea of troubles by streaming?” In this post, I talk about the perils and advantages of video conferencing a class each week.  First, the challenges and in conclusion, the draw. One, I’m terrible at multi-tasking and with video conferencing, the instructor has to teach the course content and manage the live stream. On my debut day of teaching a live-streamed course for 25 seminarians, several could not log in . Some had audio, but no video. Others had video, but no audio. I spent the first 30 minutes of class trying to get everyone functional. I called IT for help. It was rough. My recommendation is to meet with students a week before class starts to work out technical problems. Help students log in correctly and explain the essentials of video conferencing, such as how to mute the microphone or share their video screen. Make it fun! Prepare ice-breaker questions, ask students to take turns muting and unmuting their microphones, hear everyone’s stories, and share family photos from your desktop. Getting the kinks out of video conferencing in a pre-class session is far less stressful than managing tech hiccups on the first day. Two, how do you manage discussion among 25 people or more in a live-stream setting? If your video conferencing platform does not have a ‘breakout’ feature, then establishing an etiquette for dialogue is crucial. Everyone should have a headset-with-microphone set up to prevent hearing each other’s feedback when speaking. The more people in a session, the more likely one will hear static feedback and background noise. Ask students to keep their microphone on mute and only when someone is speaking should one enable the mic. If your video conferencing session has a ‘breakout’ feature, use it! When I was teaching at another institution last fall, the school paid for the full features of Zoom, a popular business conferencing platform. Zoom had a nifty feature: with a click of a button, it would divide the class into small groups. Zoom sent the students out of the main session and into their own private video-conferences. The instructor can set the number of groups and for how long they meet. When their breakout session ends, students are sent back into the main class. Then I had each group share briefly what they discussed and we continued our time together. Finally, with above two challenges alone, even the casual observer can understand that livestreaming a class is hard work. There is no flexibility in the delivery of the course content. Most of the course is delivered during the three hours the class meets each week. If the technology fails, that day’s session is lost. So are there any advantages? A few. With streaming, less work is done on course design. Some instructors might prefer to spend most of their time teaching the class during the term than designing the course module by module before the term begins. Most important, I do think that video conferencing provides a more immediate relational connection between the instructor and students. It helps me to see the students, talk with them face-to-face, interact with them each week, and watch them enjoy what they learn. I experience the same with an asynchronous class, but the process is slower. To stream or not to stream? I’m still deciding which is better. For now, it might be a tie.

Like so many aspects of the online course, we must pre-plan student interaction and incorporate it into the course at the design stage. I find it helpful to distinguish between organizational interaction (exchanges that help learners understand, and thrive in, the structures of the course) and social interaction (ways that the instructor mediates social presence to learners and helps them do the same with the instructor and with one another). Here, I focus on organizational interaction. In a later post, I will focus on mediating social presence online. A running theme animating the following suggestions is "What do we owe our learners?" It's easy to get caught up in easy bashing on "entitled students," and it's true that learners are sometimes unskilled in knowing reasonable from unreasonable expectations in higher education (it's a weird environment!). But in our more measured moments, instructors acknowledge that we have obligations to our students, among which I include clarity of expectations and a willingness to admit the imperfections of our course designs. Pre-Term Communication: Interacting with learners online begins when class registration opens, months before the term begins. Learners considering your online course have a right to know what they are getting into. A syllabus for the online class is a learner's first chance to discern whether the class is a good fit. Before registering, a learner should know: information about required synchronous sessions: Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. the shape, or "flow," of a typical week or unit; for example, "Readings are due Mondays," "Discussion forum posts are due Tuesdays with replies to peers by Fridays," "Short written assignments are due at the end of every three-week unit." the planned assignments and activities; these may be in brief "draft" form but must be reliable policies: participation policies, late work policies, disability/accommodation policies, academic integrity policies, instructor contact policies Don't stop at the registration point: email registered learners a month before the first day of the term, directing them to the syllabus and reminding them of first-week activities and requirements. Do it again at the two-week mark, and once more the day before the term begins. This is the time for potential students to weed themselves out. If your online class is not the right fit for a learner, better for everyone if they realize it now, rather than in the third week of your class! Weed now, or pay later. Which brings us to . . . Squeeze them out! This is a tough interaction, but necessary. If I am confident that all my registered learners have received the information they need about early-term expectations, then with a clear conscience I can employ a draconian first-week participation policy . . . and I do employ a draconian first-week participation policy. My reason for this is that (at least in my experience) there will be a few students who sort of drift in around the middle of the second week, or even later, now ready to start getting involved. Without exception (again in my experience), these learners will not prove to be a good fit in terms of meeting deadlines and accomplishing work according to instructions. By requiring learners to have participated in all activities during the first week (on penalty of an immediate withdrawal), these students are spared a likely failing grade, and these students will now NOT soak up a disproportionate block of the instructor's time and attention at the expense of other learners. Those who show up have a right to our time and attention, and students not yet prepared to succeed have a right to be dealt with honestly. Squeeze them out. Mid-term evaluations: In this instance, I mean "learners evaluating you." (Hopefully, your learners have been receiving early and frequent feedback on their own work from the instructor.) By allowing learners to evaluate their learning experience mid-term, and by responding promptly and honestly, you communicate to learners that their experience matters. Even small "mid-course corrections" in response to learner evaluations can pay off large dividends in the form of student goodwill . . . right at the time in the calendar when learners and instructors alike are prone to grow frazzled and, shall we say, disenchanted with one another. Of course, also designed into the course will be the modes and means of interactions: emails, video or audio lectures, remote office hours, possible synchronous sessions, social media, and so on. I will address these in a later post on mediating social presence in the online course.

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 frontloaded 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_b_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.

Justice is one of those ideas that has captured our imaginations for generation upon generation; yet it is still a contested notion. Collectively, systemic racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, white supremacy, and a judicial system that is lenient on “white collar/white male” crime, while vengeful upon the poor and minoritized people, provide ample evidence that justice for some is not justice for all. For these and other reasons, I need my students to be articulate about the notion of justice. It is not enough to “believe in” the idea. It is not enough to agree with it intuitively or “in your heart.” Education as a practice of freedom, as a practice of transgression, as a practice of re-humanization, is the theory I teach in my graduate level introductory course. This course insists that the ability to articulate the theories of justice, regardless of personal experience or personal belief, is a pedagogical necessity. It is the rare student who enters my introductory course able to speak the language of liberative pedagogy or to talk about the connection between education and social transformation. This is why they are learners–there are important things which they do not yet know and which they cannot articulate, but which we can teach them.  My pedagogy of justice is not so interested in teaching skills of “critical thinking.” Most of my students have families, are gainfully employed, and have responsibilities in church as well as community. Many own their own businesses, provide support for several generations in and beyond their households, and are looking to religious leadership as a second or even third career. By the time they reach my “Introduction to Educational Ministries” course they have demonstrated considerable ability to think critically, to problem solve, to engage successfully in tactics of survival. Rather than “critical thinking,” I want to teach my adult learners methods of power analysis necessary for the summoning of moral courage in a society steeped in body politics, violence, and systemic hatreds. I want my students to be praxis thinkers, able to analyze injustice and articulate justice in an unjust society. They must be able, in their own communal context, to analyze white supremacy and patriarchy in its myriad expressions. The healing of their community and the restructuring for a more equitable society depends upon their ability to articulate justice. What I stress in my course is the ability to articulate what justice actually entails in the world. Simply feeling it, believing it, desiring it, hoping for it–just won’t do.  The power is in speaking it. Have you ever known something but could not articulate it? You thought you understood it, but did not know the words, the vocabulary, the way to convey the basic concepts with depth? Sometimes, as a consequence of complex experiences, you may find your ability to describe the learnings of that experience to be limited or incomplete. In order to give full voice to your experience, as well as the insights gained from that experience, drawing on the collaborative power that emerges from sustained conversations is a key. Equally, having a firm grasp upon basic theories of justice making and moral courage are imperative. Being able to articulate theories of justice provides a hermeneutical mirror for analysis of, and meaning-making from personal experiences and perspectives. Finding ways to assist my students with articulating theory and helping them order the learnings of personal experience entails exposure to new vocabulary and interrogation of basic concepts. Personal experience can provide new insights, new understanding of the age-old problem of injustice when communal-reflexive habits are incorporated as a way to animate and elucidate theory. Because, of course, theory and practice are two-sides of the same coin. On the first day of the course, then reinforced in each subsequent session, I tell my students to pay attention to the argument of the authors we are reading. The focus of reading is not so much deciding if they “like it or not,” but noticing the authors’ use of vocabulary, basic concepts, and illustrative examples and narratives. I tell them to learn these funky words and use them in and out of class. Once new vocabulary is mastered, the ability to conceive the basic concepts and the ways these concepts create the theory is more evident. I tell them to be able to map the basic concepts of the theory because all basic concepts do not function in the same way to create the theory. When they look puzzled, I teach them concept mapping. Learning to play with theory for praxis is a mighty challenge. I have, over the many years, devised this mid-term learning exercise to assist my students in articulating the basic concepts of the theory we study: Step One - I email, before the class session, and instruct my students to be able to access in class all the readings, all their notes taken, and all the assignments graded thus far. In other words, bring all you stuff! Step Two - Once we are gathered in class, I tell them to get out all of these materials and base any group participation upon our conversation since day one of our class. In other words, do not talk off the top of your head, focus upon what we have been discussing all semester. Step Three - I divide the class into small groups. I inform the groups they have an hour to collaboratively write 10 basic concepts of the theory of liberative pedagogy. When the anxiety in the room spikes, I inform them that they are to use all the materials they brought to class. Sometimes the anxiety lowers and sometimes not. Step Four - I say, “On your mark–GO!” I do not tell them it is a mid-term exam, but it is. Step Five - While the groups are working to articulate their lists of basic concepts, my teaching assistant sets-up the computer so there is a blank page projected on the screen for all to see. The teaching assistant, during the report-in by the small groups, will record each of the concepts I approve to be written on our class list. Step Six - After the hour, I reconvene the groups for our “round-robin report-in.” Our aim is to take the lists from all the groups and create one list of basic concepts that we can ratify as a class. We refine the concepts during the group report-in through our conversation and through my editing. A member from one of the small groups reads aloud one basic concept from the list they created when it is their turn. Groups will have multiple turns but will report-in only one concept at a time. If, when the one concept is shared aloud, the concept sounds reasonable and resonates with our collective understanding (and my listening ear), then the teaching assistant records the draft of the concept as read for all to see. Once that concept is typed on the screen, I ask if any other group has a similar concept. If so, we use the other group’s work to wordsmith the concept on the screen until it is clear and strong. If not, we wordsmith as a class. Once a concept is refined to my satisfaction, we move to the next group to read aloud one basic concept from their list. We continue with the “round-robin report-in” until all the groups have exhausted all the concepts they recorded during their small group collaboration and until we have one common, sound list of basic concepts refined on the screen. This takes about an hour. Step Seven - I provide a list of basic concepts from a previous course as a final way to strengthen our collective work. I invite the class to look through the list in order to add, reword, or strengthen the new list we have just drafted. There are always additions, edits, and re-wording to strengthen the list we have just created. Students like seeing the work of other classes as it lets them know the complexity of the task of articulation. Step Eight - I ask, referring to our list on the screen, “Does this list of basic concepts articulate the theory we are studying?” If yes, we celebrate our hard work. If no, we continue to work until we are satisfied with our articulation of basic concepts of emancipatory pedagogy. Step Nine - I email our list of basic concepts to each student. Of course, my students’ ability to excel at this exercise varies from class to class. Most fascinating is that, from year to year, no two lists of basic concepts have ever been the same while still capturing the crux of the theory. Every class has found their own way of articulating, from their own unique perspectives and experiences, the basic concepts. I am not looking for an essentialist or universal list of basic concepts. I am looking for their rendition. We say a learner-centered education nurtures, kindles, and coaxes students into voice. With voice comes the responsibility of agency and service. Teaching toward voiced students is teaching the ability to speak articulately, eloquently, and intelligently about the issues of oppression, hegemony, violence and captivity–and not just passionately, without substance. Coming into voice is hindered by class sessions riddled with self-centered, pseudo-psychological moments of students filibustering through personal stories and anecdotes. Learner-centered teaching focuses upon the learner being able to articulate new ideas, new theories, new concepts, new vocabulary and hopefully, newly refined visions for a more just and equitable society.