Service

Fan Xu elected as a new Officer for AECT Graduate Student Assembly

Fan Xu has recently been elected the new Social Media Officer for the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Graduate Student Assembly (GSA). Fan run for this office because of her passion for serving her peers and contributing to the GSA community.

After years of study and research in learning technologies, she is pretty familiar with various social media platforms. Fan worked as a social media manager for a student association while attending the University of Hong Kong as a graduate student.

The GSA mission is to provide its members with opportunities to engage in professional leadership roles, improve networks and develop the skills and resources for solving complex problems that may arise within instructional technology. GSA members engage with research and practice-driven topics, extend their professional networks, and evolve as scholars.

Prepare, respond and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic

In an effort to support our colleagues in China to respond and recover from #COVID19 pandemic, the LED research group created a TOOLKIT for Online Teaching and Learning / 线上教学工具箱

PDF available here.

Given the disruption caused by the #coronavirus #COVID19, the LED research group hopes that these expert-curated resources on online learning and teaching may add a sense of normalcy and social interaction for both the online teachers and learners.

TEACHING ONLINE

8 Tips for Teaching Online- Spoiler: It Gets Better with Time
By Bill Schiano & Espen Andersen (March 2019)
It offers eight intuitive but important tips for preparing, maintaining, and teaching online.

Take your teaching online
By the Open University (OpenLearn) free course

Teaching Online Simplified: A Quick Guide for Instructors
By F. D. Yusop & Ana-Paula Correia (2017)
University of Malaya Press, 110 p. ISBN: 978-983-100-948-2
This book intends to serve as a practical guide or “handbook” for those who have limited or no prior knowledge in teaching and/or education but are interested in online teaching or have to teach online.

TRANSITIONING FROM CLASSROOM TO ONLINE TEACHING

Tracing Successful Online Teaching in Higher Education: Voices of Exemplary Online Teachers
By Evrim Baran, Ana-Paula Correia & Ann Thompson (2013)
The findings of this study indicated that when teachers described their successful practices, they often linked them to their changing roles and new representation of their “selves” within an online environment. Their portrayal of the teacher self, both built on a plethora of previous experiences and reformed with the affordances and limitations of the online environment, went through a process whereby teachers were constantly challenged to make themselves heard, known, and felt by their students. This study showed that it was critical to listen to teachers’ voices and give them a participatory role in the creation and use of their knowledge and experience in order to form their online teacher personas. As a result, programs that prepare faculty to teach online may need to encourage teachers to reflect on their past experiences, assumptions, and beliefs toward learning and teaching and transform their perspectives by engaging in pedagogical inquiry and problem solving.

How to Be a Better Online Teacher ADVICE GUIDE
By Flower Darby (2020)
Discusses 10 essential principles and practices to teach online.

CREATING ONLINE ACTIVITIES

Specific Activities to Promote Online Discussions
By Rhonda Dubec (February 2018)
It provides useful teaching strategies to promote students’ online discussion with several video examples and detailed instructions.

20 Collaborative Learning Tips and Strategies for Teachers
by TeachThought Staff (February 3, 2020)
It offers strategies for collaborative learning that can be used in face to face or online class interactions.

Authentic Online Discussions: A Narrative Inquiry into Sharing Leadership and Facilitation Among Teachers and Students
By Ana-Paula Correia, Cara A. North, Ceren Korkmaz, Vicki Simmerman & Karen Bruce Wallace (2019)
International Journal on E-Learning, 18(2), 165-189.
The literature has tended to focus on the instructor’s role in moderation and facilitation while paying less attention to more student-focused strategies that foster meaningful dialogue and engagement on their part. Centering the learner, this study presents an innovative approach for online discussions, examining a case where online students created and facilitated online discussions for a graduate-level course at a Midwestern research university. The study offers reflections from four graduate students, between the ages of 20-55, who took the course over the past two years, and who have analyzed what they gained from creating and facilitating discussion. These students’ reflections foreground how, by participating in this process, they experienced an authentic sense of connectedness and collaboration, as they had the opportunity to bring their perspectives and priorities to the course and take responsibility for their own and their classmates’ success.

Live synchronous web meetings in asynchronous online courses: Reconceptualizing virtual office hours
By P. R. Lowenthal, J. C. Dunlap & C. Snelson (2017)
Online Learning 21(4), 177-194.
This article discusses how to successfully implement online office hours.

Making the Most of Virtual Office Hours
(2019, January 22)
Austin Community College Speech professor Tasha Davis, Ph.D., shares her experience with hosting virtual office hours and ways to maximize your one-on-one time with students.

QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION

Quality Assurance
By The Ohio State University’s Office of Distance Education and eLearning (ODEE) (2020)
To support instructors and academic units in creating high-quality courses, the ODEE instructional design team has developed a set of internal standards that capture university policies, recent scholarship on student success and feedback from Ohio State faculty collaborators.

DESIGN GUIDELINES

The UDL Guidelines
By the Center for Applied Special Technology Universal Design (2020)
Learn about learning guidelines for Universal Design.
Available in Traditional Chinese
Available in Simplified Chinese

ONLINE TEACHING TOOLS & RESOURCES

Online Teaching Tools and Resources
By Yale University Center for Language Study (2020)
This resource contains a list of free tools and resources for language teachers to use in their classrooms.

Live presentation platforms available in China without VPN
网易云信 https://netease.im/livetool
轻课云 http://www.qingkeyun.cn/

For more information

e-Education Research
The Chinese Journal of ICT in Education

Articles in these high-quality Chinese journals explore teachers’ behaviors when teaching online, teachers & learners’ feedback about online courses, strategies to improve learners’ engagement in online learning, teachers & learners’ role in online learning contexts, among other topics.

“It’s Not Just About Research” says Erin Clarke-Dorrell

By Erin Clarke-Dorrell (dorrell.11@osu.edu)

Erin’s goal after finishing her doctoral degree is to obtain a faculty position somewhere in academia. Her work in the LED Research Group is a great resource that has helped her find her voice and learn how to research collaboratively with others. While that is one component of obtaining tenure and working as a professor, there are two other vital components to the role. Teaching and service are crucial in becoming well-rounded in the realm of academics. For Erin, she has always enjoyed providing service and making a difference in her community. So, she decided to jump into service as a Ph.D. student since she is already working on the research part and soon teaching.

Service in academia looks like many different things. Instead of doing things like walking dogs at the local animal shelter, it is serving on a hiring committee or planning college events. Currently, she serves as the co-chair for the Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology’s Department of Educational Studies Equity, Diversity, and Global Engagement (EDGE) Committee. As a committee, their work focuses on supporting and encouraging critical thinking about issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion across the Department of Educational Studies. Right now, she is spearheading an awareness campaign to bring to light ways in which faculty in the department can support their diverse students.

Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC).

As Erin said, she enjoys being active, so she also was elected and took on the role of chair of the Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC). The Dean, Dr. Pope-Davis, created this council, and its primary function is to support and provide a voice for graduate students across the College. However, they are still trying to navigate how they want to serve the college since the council was just formed this academic year. Additionally, Erin has recently been invited to join the College of Education & Human Ecology first Dean’s Advisory Board. This board is bringing together students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, community advocates to advise the Dean on important matters to the college.

Overall, in being active on a service level, Erin wants to make a difference and leave Ohio State a better place than when she started. Also, she feels privileged in that she can represent the LED Research Group through her service. Working together, for our future, is what it means to connect service and life in a research group.