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Evaluations of faculty, both peer and student, can be a valuable part of the teaching landscape. Without doubt, faculty peers see strengths and weaknesses an individual instructor might not otherwise notice. Similarly, asking students about their experiences yields important insight into how learning happens--if one poses the right questions. Well-designed instruments interpreted with a critical eye by employers should be standard. For online instruction, however, particular downsides emerge that often prove dicey for faculty whose merit pay, tenure and promotion considerations, and, most especially, contract status depends, even if only in part, on the results. Online faculty must proactively design processes that handle the challenges of the online environment appropriately. While I have by no means mastered making evaluation of my online courses helpful, I do have observations about what I have tried and what I am planning to do to negotiate this required process more thoughtfully. When a peer evaluator lacks experience with online learning, or does not have familiarity with best practices for creating, mounting, and running an online course, the utility of the evaluation can come into question. Too often an idealized imagination of the traditional classroom remains the model by which a course is judged, rather than looking at the online experience for what it offers. If a university employs a given standard, like Quality Matters, for online course development, having peer evaluators look through that prism can be useful (https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources/rubric-standards/higher-ed-rubric). The elements outlined provide clear criteria for assessment. Additionally, affording a faculty member the opportunity for peer evaluation from other online instructors or learning technology designers, even if they are not subject matter experts, can also be valuable. My university is now doing “teaching squares” for online instructors where we get together and work through one another’s courses. Seeing how other online faculty structure learning, and hearing feedback about my course format and assignments generated new ideas and helped me see where I needed to improve. Indeed, I would welcome a combination for peer evaluation that blended the insights of other online instructors with respect to the medium and what departmental colleagues would note about content. In the end, these options all stress one thing: that the purpose of peer evaluations ought to be to improve student outcomes by focusing on pedagogical practice. Regarding student evaluations, online instructors already know what studies demonstrate: online courses tend to yield lower ratings for faculty than face-to-face courses. This result likely stems, in part, from the lack of personal contact built up in weekly face-to-face meetings. Relationship mitigate against harshness in evaluation. But this also serves as a reminder that faculty presence, however it is accomplished in online classrooms, is important. While faculty members cannot completely alleviate the electronic remove, students still need to see faculty members in videos and engaged in discussion. They continue to want personal interactions, whether it be through email, text or video messaging, or phone calls. Structuring that contact into the course is vital. Returning work and inquiries promptly also proves important. The urgency of our online lives drives expectations here, so faculty must set up precise standards for communication and stick to them. Students might not be able to get an answer to a question posted at 2:00 a.m., for example, but it is not unreasonable to expect an answer to come within the next 12 hours in most cases. Many students evaluate faculty based on expectations about online courses and they often anticipate online options will be easier than face-to-face classes. Institutional messaging around online options can plant that idea. “Learn anytime, anywhere” our promotions might say, as if students can successfully navigate a class while strolling the aisles of the grocery store or pausing briefly between serving customers on the job.  Faculty, therefore, must establish detailed instructions for assignments and specific rubrics for grading that can help learners understand what they need to accomplish. Still, disappointments in this arena can lead to frustrations expressed via end of term evaluations. More helpful options might include evaluations geared to each assignment, perhaps even completed when the assignment is turned in. What did a student learn from completing that task? How did the assignment relate to the goals of the course? If faculty include these elements in their course design, it can alleviate problems along the way and serve to remind students at the close of a term about what they achieved. Likewise, making students partners in their own learning asks for a higher level of reflective awareness. Foregrounding why a student enrolled in a course, what the student wants to gain by completing it, and how it might relate to overall academic goals can be a great starting exercise because it makes students clarify expectations. Instructors get a snapshot of why students show up and the opportunity to engage in discussion of where faculty expectations may correspond to those of students, where they may differ, and why. Modifications, even if only mental, can happen through this exercise and students can come to see faculty as partners and guides in learning as opposed to obstacles. In the end, we must acknowledge that evaluations will remain a fact of faculty life. How to make them less punitive–not focused on faculty shortcomings or “consumer satisfaction” measures–and more formative, aimed to achieving educational purpose, should always be a goal for faculty and administrators. Adapting the evaluation form to the delivery method of a course is a part of that process.

I titled this post after Trevor Noah’s introduction to the Black Panther film at the 2019 Oscars when he cited the Xhosa proverb, “Abelungu abazi uba ndiyaxoka.” Trevor translated it to mean: “'In times like these, we are stronger when we fight together than when we try to fight apart.” It turns out the proverb was an inside joke among South Africans who knew that he really said was, “White people don’t know I’m lying.” Ha! He got me, even though I’m of Korean descent. Nevertheless I still like the mock translation and the concept behind it. It is better to fight together. Some courses are a real challenge, and study groups are a strategic way for students to succeed. Here are some ways I think they make a difference in online education and some suggested practices. 1. Set up open virtual study hall hours online Many learning management systems (LMS) like Canvas integrate Zoom, Big Blue Button, or other video conferencing tools that allow instructors to create virtual rooms which are open 24/7. At any given hour during the day, a student can log into a room online and meet fellow classmates in a virtual study hall to collaborate on homework, prepare for quizzes, exchange notes, and discuss any aspect of the course. Even if one’s LMS does not include video conferencing as part of its platform, instructors can have students form their own Facebook or Google groups. The first step is to provide the virtual space for study groups to meet. Second is to help students organize. The easiest way is to coordinate groups based in the same time zones. It takes a bit of work, but using scheduling tools like Doodle can help manage competing calendars so everyone eventually finds common times to work together. 2. Assign group presentations where students collaborate and teach one another There is no faster way to have students learn from one another than to assign a presentation by small groups. In my New Testament courses, I often schedule student presentations on diverse topics on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I put a sign-up sheet online using the discussion forums and lay out guidelines for the presentation in the syllabus. A week or two before a group presents, I meet with them through video conferencing, coach them on the topic, suggest readings, and ask them to meet on their own using the virtual study hall rooms. The presentations usually last about 8-10 minutes. Students use PowerPoint or Google Slides to video record their presentations using the tools provided by their LMS or with third-party programs like Screencast-O-Matic, and upload their video presentation onto the discussion forum for the class to watch. The rest of the class comments on the presentation by posting replies. Alternatively, if the course is synchronous, the group live-streams their presentation when we meet online. 3. Scaffold research projects and have students review one another’s work Especially with final research papers, I often “scaffold” the assignment by breaking up the paper into different parts and spread the due dates across the semester. I ask students to choose a paper topic, submit an initial bibliography, read the secondary literature and outline key points of debate, and step-by-step work on major sections of their paper until these sections are ready to be compiled together into a cohesive whole. Along the way, in small groups, students are asked to review one another’s work and receive suggestions for improvement. Peer suggestions cannot replace the feedback given by the instructor of the course, but I often find they offer a friendlier and easier way to receive critique. 4. Leave room for the random lone ranger and alternative assignments On occasion, a student might have such an unusual schedule that meeting together to do student-to-student collaborations is simply not possible. Such situations do not happen often, but when they do, I try to provide a fair alternative. I might, for example, ask a student to submit a short paper instead of working with other classmates on a video presentation. Whatever the substitute assignment, it’s important to be flexible. Successful student-to-student interaction requires that I take on a role other than “teacher.” The students teach themselves and one another. I plan, coordinate, and set up ideal virtual spaces for students to meet. Along the way, I learn from my students as well.

My most recent tweet (of almost ten thousand) was 40 weeks ago. My most recent Facebook status update (except for a brief "thank you" for birthday wishes in July) was 46 weeks ago. The previous three years, however, I have taught my main introductory course, "Introduction to the Hebrew Bible," as an open, freely-available, online event built almost entirely on social media, especially Twitter, WordPress blogs, and Google Docs. This was the Open Old Testament Learning Event, or "OOTLE." My use of social media in higher education was based on a belief in the power of making for learning, and on a utopian vision for the internet that was based on my own experience. Eventually, the failures of the major centralized social-media platforms to proactively account for systemic abuse of marginalized users led me to abandon our pioneer outpost of open learning, and to retreat with my students back into the familiar confines of "the devil I know," the closed learning management system or "LMS." Many educators will have some familiarity with the learning theory "constructivism" (sometimes "constructionism"). According to this model, learners do not simply "acquire" knowledge, but rather always "construct" knowledge by synthesizing their existing understandings with new information or insights. Less well known, however, is that according to a constructivist model, this knowledge-making is more likely to occur where learning happens socially and where learners collaboratively build artifacts that are publicly shared. As the internet age took hold, and learners began increasingly to build their knowledge in a world of information excess rather than a world of information scarcity, it was often remarked that content on the internet was composed by perhaps 1% of internet users. Perhaps 9% of users interact with this content, and some 90% only passively consume content. This is sometimes called the "1% rule" or the "90/9/1 rule." From computer science to the humanities, educators began to embrace the power of "maker culture" to unleash the potential of constructivist learning in individuals, and to remake the internet in the image of the whole body of its users. It was in this context that the use of social media in higher education began to spread like fire: classroom Twitter "back channels" or weekly synchronous "Twitter chats"; blogging assignments on open web platforms like WordPress; presentation or digital storytelling on YouTube; and Facebook groups and pages. Then in 2014 came "Gamergate," a campaign of organized harassment against female game designers and game enthusiasts, including frequent credible threats of sexual violence and murder. Gamergate provided a playbook for white supremacist organizations and eventually, it seems, even for Russian interference via "troll farms" in 2015-16 U.S. political discourse on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. ("Trolling" describes skillful, media-savvy practices in derailing or redirecting discourse, whether for pleasure, malice, or profit.) Even among social-media users apparently uninvolved in these large events, in became clear that the codes of conduct and anti-harassment policies dictated by the young, white "tech bros" of social media (Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook), could not provide marginalized users anything like the safe environment enjoyed by privileged users less likely to be targeted. This remains the case, skewed as these policies are toward favoring "free speech" in an absolute sense and leaving users to block malicious actors as best they can . . . only possible, of course, after the malicious acts have occurred. Even we relatively privileged users became accustomed to weary acknowledgements that "of course Twitter is a cesspool, but . . . " Eventually, "But. . . “ became for me, and for many educators in my circles, "But what?" and then "But nothing." It had become impossible to offer my learners a reasonable guarantee that they would enjoy equitable social-media experiences, regardless of how they chose to present their race, gender, sexual self-understanding, class, or other differences. As I consider shepherding learners again into the social-media space ("not yet, not yet"), I remain optimistic about decentralized platforms like Mastodon. It is clear that the "one size fits all" approach to codes of conduct and anti-harassment policies (as on Twitter and Facebook) is untenable. On Mastodon, a radical free-speech, no-holds-barred community can have its minimalistic code of conduct, while a more proactive, highly-moderated community can choose to federate with that group, or not. I have not given up on a commitment to learning via collaborative construction of publicly available artifacts, but I am once bitten . . .and will twice be shy of any monetized, centralized platform.

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.

In the late 1980’s, the church I served had a large staff and a sanctuary worthy of rental for the filming of a professional TV Christmas special. On an otherwise humdrum day in March, word that Stevie Wonder was in the sanctuary spread like wild fire around the staff offices. Along with the gossip, came the foreboding reminder that staff were not to enter the space since it was being rented. Never having been one to follow foreboding reminders, I used my master key to make my way down the back stairway and into the sanctuary through a little known and rarely used door. The sanctuary was abuzz with a TV camera crew, producers, musicians, and many persons I could not identify. I made myself invisible and sat in a pew behind Vanessa Williams. I looked at the chancel–sure enough, Stevie Wonder was at the keyboard. The Harlem Boys Choir was gathered around the piano and sprinkled in the pews and chancel area. I was wide-eyed and amazed. What a moment! In not-too-long, the men Stevie Wonder was talking with left the chancel. Stevie Wonder started playing the keyboard. He looked up from the keyboard and called over to the church’s organist who was seated on the organ bench. Stevie Wonder said, “I feel like Malott’s Lord’s Prayer.” This piece of music is considered one of the music standards of African American church musicians; every church musician worth his/her salt knows this piece. The organist paused, called over to Stevie Wonder and asked, “Do you have the sheet music?”    A nervous hush-your-mouth fell over the enormous room. It was one of those rare moments when the shock was so great things seemed to go into slow motion. Some of the shock came from the fact that a professional musician asked a blind man for sheet music. The rest of the guffaw came from the pronouncement that a professional church musician could not play this standard without reading it from sheet music. As providence would have it, the director of the Harlem Boys Choir had heard Stevie Wonder’s request and the organist’s embarrassing response. The Director pointed to one of the boys who was standing on the chancel steps. The boy, dutifully and without hesitation, ran to the piano and began playing Malott’s Lord’s Prayer. As soon as Stevie Wonder heard the piano sound, he joined in on keyboard. That afternoon, I sang Malott’s Lord’s Prayer with Venessa Williams, Stevie Wonder, and the Harlem Boys Choir. A few camera people and producers sang too. It was a triumphant moment of Christmas in March! Gardner Taylor, considered an extraordinary preacher, would leave his sermon manuscript, which he had spent the entire week poring over, in the middle of his desk, then go into the pulpit and preach. He would preach his sermon relying upon his preparation and the movement of the Holy Spirit. The reason we know this to be the case is that he never entered the pulpit with anything but a Bible in his hand and there are reams of Dr. Taylor’s sermon manuscripts. My former colleague, Otto Maduro, would lecture from post-it notes–only 3 or 4 for an hour lecture. Never did I see him stand and read aloud from a manuscript and always did he give an impassioned and informed lecture. About ten years ago I decided I knew the materials in my introductory course well enough that I would no longer use a manuscript for lectures. The first couple sessions, I was afraid I would forget something or leave out some vital aspect of theory. What I discovered was that rather than reading to my students, I began to talk with my students as I lectured. Without a manuscript, I was able to be present with them in a significantly different way. Being untethered from a manuscript allowed me to come from behind the podium; allowed me to watch their expressions and pay closer attention to their breathing; allowed me to think fresh thoughts as I talked. My glitch then and now is when a student wants me to repeat something verbatim. I say, “Hmmmm . . .  I was not listening to myself.” Then a student (there is always one) who takes copious notes repeats what I said and we move on. Teaching without a manuscript allows me to gather-in previous conversations, items in the news, and the temperament in the room. I can have moments of scripted thoughts and I can have moments of improvisational musings which ground the discussion in the here-and-now. When I am free from a manuscript I can help students in meaning-making with the inflictions of my voice, the gestures of my body, based upon what I know of their own life experience. It makes me more agile, more dexterous, more in-tuned with a conversation between us rather than information from me to them. Lecturing without a manuscript has changed the tempo and rhythms of my teaching. I linger over notions when students signal they need more time and move quickly through items for which students signal they understand. I feel I have a better rapport with them because I am not focused on the page in-hand. I feel more free to teach. After doing this for ten-plus years, I am convinced that by the end of the semester I have covered as much or more intellectual terrain as I did when I had a manuscript. Like the piano-playing boy in the Harlem Boys Choir–there are some intellectual standards that I know, and letting go of the manuscript makes me better able to perform what I know with conviction and percussion. I can play it on cue, not in a mechanical or rote fashion, but in the moment and for the people who are also there to play. We learn, in these moments, to listen for each other. Highly respected musicians make it their craft to read the notes as printed, as intended by the composer, as expected by the listening audience when they are knowledgeable and ridged. The great work of composing music or writing a manuscript is not to be overlooked or belittled. Playing the music without interpretation, without deviating – trying to get it perfect--is a respected form, discipline, practice. Even so, there are genres of music and kinds of musicians who lift their heads from the sheet music and dare to interpret, dare to make the music their own in every moment. I want to teach, not toward the illusion of perfection, but toward authentic expression of my own voice, my own “take,” – exposing my students to my own spiritual authenticity. I suspect the boy who played for and with Stevie Wonder that day is now a man who still remembers that remarkable moment. I hope he is a man who still knows how to say “yes” to improvisation and the grace which comes with letting go.

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 celebrating the 50th anniversary of Paulo Freire’s magnificent book Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the Wabash journal, Teaching Theology and Religion, has published a Forum to  to celebrate the book and Freire’s legacy. Very few books in recent history have made their way around the world expanding the ways people think about education and learning processes. Freire’s legacy is one that will always be developed and challenged. Developed by those who care for deep, critical thinking and challenged by people and governments who see the danger of Freire’s thinking. Regarding the latter, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, where Paulo Freire is from, sees a danger in Freire’s work and legacy. While campaigning, the new president said that he would go into the Ministry of Education with a flame-thrower to burn anything associated with Paulo Freire. Even though Mr. Bolsonaro most probably has never read any of Freire’s books, he claims that Freire offers a sectarian and socialist education whose Marxist teachings undermine the education of the student. Along with Bolsonaro, the Brazilian new conservative movement called “Schools Without a Party” also blames Freire for making students receptacles of ideologists who want to put socialist interests before the love of Brazil and threaten the “Christian values” of family, property and church. It is with good reason that the president of Brazil and conservative sectors of society are all concerned with Paulo Freire. Freire’s education helps people to figure out their own lives more fully, to develop critical minds, to engage into social mobilization, to gain their own sense of liberation, and become subjects of their own history. This process helps people to see, judge and act, challenging all forms of power. Education for Freire is the unfolding of worlds for the one who is learning. It is a way to gain conscientization of one’s own life and the environment in which one lives. When Paulo Freire is teaching a village of fishers, he starts by asking people “what is a fish?” Then he asks what is the meaning of the fish to the community, and how fish and fishing are connected with their own ways of living, as well as how they relate with other fishing villages, the environment, and even big fishing companies. Through pursuing the meaning of the word “fish,” the fishers describe several power relations around their lives. In the end, people learn not only how to spell and write “fish,” but also how “fish” tells people about their lives, their world, and the other worlds with which they are connected. Done this way, education is a path from being oppressed to become free. Education is a way of giving voice to the voiceless and gaining conscientization that unleashes the struggle against the domination of those in power, of realizing that everyone has the strength to organize and struggle to change their lives. This form of education is everywhere in the world and as educators we must go where transformation is at work. In order to continue to honor Paulo Freire, we must acknowledge that popular education is present in the movements of resistance and emancipation. For us to get a better sense of what Freire’s pedagogy can do, we should listen to those who are at the bottom of society trying not only to survive, but to thrive. It is from those places that we gain a much better sense of what Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed means. As Oscar Soto says: The popular education of Paulo Freire is the possibility that workers, peasants, landless workers, excluded and marginalized people will think and re-invent themselves in the transit from being spectators to become genuine creators of the material conditions of life. It is not in vain that the language of the pedagogical rebellion of the oppressed is spoken in the popular movements, in the base communities, in the theories of dependencies, the sociologies of exploitation, the liberation theologies, the Latin American socialisms, the research/activism, participatory action and so many traditions of resistance in Our America.[1] On the other hand, Freire’s pedagogy can also be relevant for teaching contexts with privileged students in elite universities. It can help students gain a sense of vincularidad[2] or deep relationality, of unbalanced power, exploitation, and class struggle. By gaining consciousness of our lives in the relation with others and larger societies, we learn how to act towards somebody else, and move from protecting our own groups into seeking common justice for all. This opening of the world of oneself into the world of another brings a demand with it, namely that we engage in each other’s worlds. What happens then is that I have to check how my own ways of thinking and living are related to other forms of thinking and living, how my habits of eating fish relate to fishing villages and the massive destruction of the sea life by big corporations. This consciousness of our common situation and the fundamental sense of vincularidad challenge teachers and students in any school, poor or rich, to engage in uneven exchanges. Freire’s education for consciousness is the beginning of the unfolding of a vast world of wonders and imperfections that need to be engaged. For instance, if we want to deeply honor Paulo Freire and his legacy, we must respond to one of the most fundamental challenges of our times: patriarchy/fascism and the “masculine mandate.” Rita Laura Segato calls our attention to the war against women and how the new forms of fascism are aimed at the destruction of the women.[3] How can we engage pedagogies of liberation that help us engage and relate with this those being oppressed by it? How can we find tools, together, to understand it and create conditions of possibilities for transformation? Our lives, and the life of our planet, depend on forever-expanding forms of conscientization that keep demanding freedom, and justice for every person. In this way, the work of Paulo Freire, developed by the work of women, indigenous voices and popular movements, can reach any and every school and community, connecting us deeply with the work of Martin Luther King who said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (Letter from Birmingham Jail) [1] Oscar Soto, Freire, Mariategui y una educación popular campesino, Noviembre 22, 2018, http://contrahegemoniaweb.com.ar/freire-mariategui-y-una-educacion-popular-campesina/ [2]  Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Durham:  Duke University Press Books, 2018). [3] Rita Laura Segato, La Guerra Contra Las Mujeres (Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2016).

"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.