Key Challenges in My Work

At Colorado School of Mines, we are just now launching our online program. This makes us late to the game, but with the luxury of benefiting from others’ struggles and successes in online learning. One of the biggest challenges my team faces is managing the massive culture shift to accept online learning as a valid medium alongside the traditional face-to-face courses at a STEM school. Change is slow in higher education and I must always remind myself of that. Plus, this truly is a benefit to the students at the end of the day.

In my 12-week long collaborative builds with faculty, I spend a fair amount of time at the front of the build persuading faculty that online is a valid modality and how to manage the pace and expectations of the build. My ID2ID partner, Lucy Wolksi from Arizona State University, also spoke of wanting to get to the actual work of the collaboration sooner.

Strategies for Tackling Those Challenges

At first we wanted to set up a taxonomy identifying where faculty fall within motivation and building skills, but upon consultation with my institution’s Senior Assessment person, we realized the error of our ways. We were trying to put relationships and personalities into boxes, which is a very black and white way of thinking. Collaborations and relationships are rarely so easily identified and labeled and there’s lots of grey space. In truth, every faculty member we work with is an individual bringing various levels of motivation, concerns, and technical skill to collaborative builds. Our original goal lacked empathy.

Our goal and strategy to not waste precious time in the collaborative build kick-offs shifted to more of a faculty survey. This survey allowed faculty to self-identify what motivated them, what concerned them, and what online skills they possessed. Having this information early-on would allow us to focus on the strengths and build from this place. Now, if a faculty member shared that they didn’t know how to use a computer, we’d be in trouble, but that usually isn’t the case. I recently identified from the survey that a faculty member is motivated by deadlines, so I knew exactly how to motivate this person. We put those dates on our calendars and so far, all deadlines have been met.

Insights

There are three main insights gleaned from this experience. 1) It’s always wise to bring in additional support and critical thinking on a project. Inviting an assessment expert into our ID2ID plan helped us expand our thinking to be more empathetic. 2) It’s important for me to understand my faculty collaborators to the best of my ability. By addressing their motivations, concerns and skill levels up-front, valuable time can be saved. This also allows us to get on the same page faster because 12 weeks isn’t much time with a full teaching load or research agenda. 3) I appreciate my institution more now. Though it’s hard to be on the front-line of an online culture shift, I really do enjoy working with faculty at my school. They are brilliant and by honing my ability to meet any faculty member where they are, I can become more effective in my work.

Special Thanks

Thank you Penn State ID2ID program and Educause for this amazing, free PD opportunity. I has allowed for me to continue my self-guided professional development in a very meaningful way.

PD Focused on Faculty Motivators and Barriers in Online Teaching

Instructional Design, Learning Experience Design, Penn State

Susannah SimmonsJanuary 9, 2020

ID2ID Goal

Our ID2ID goal evolved yet again after completing our first ID2ID Event Synopsis. We learned that in order for faculty to confidently and competently teach online, they needed to be prepared in course design, course communication, time management, and technical competence. Another piece of the puzzle we wanted to explore was faculty motivation. This information would be invaluable to know before partnering on a collaborative course build and thus, led to our desire to read about faculty motivators and inhibitors.

Motivators & Inhibitors

The article, Literature Review – Faculty Participation in Online Distance Education: Barriers and Motivators by Macquire (2005) gathered perceived barriers and motivators across thirteen studies over 10 years. This literature review opened our eyes to the fact that we had been missing the role an institution plays in faculty’s perceptions. Institutions can provide additional motivators for faculty, while simultaneously creating barriers for faculty. These pieces added a whole new layer of complexity in how we might craft our faculty survey.

My New Awareness & Development

This review taught me there may be ways that an institution can motivate or inhibit online growth. Multiple avenues of potential motivation need to be provided because not all people are motivated equally. Some faculty want recognition, while others might want compensation or course load buy-outs. Conversely, institutions can create barriers that prevent online growth such as not providing enough support or not allowing faculty intellectual rights over their courses. I realize now that faculty motivation and inhibition does not lie solely on themselves, but in tandem with how the institution is shaping the landscape. Many of the faculty I work with are extremely busy so a missed deadline might be due to a lack of motivation, but rather a lack of institutional support.

PD Focused on Faculty Perception of Online Teaching

Instructional Design, Learning Experience Design, Penn State

Susannah SimmonsJanuary 9, 2020January 9, 2020

ID2ID Goal Morphed

Our goal for the ID2ID program was to create a taxonomy of faculty types, but has changed over time. We realized that rather than putting faculty into various boxes to help us manage our expectations, we simultaneously realized that it’s not that simple. We decided that we wanted a meaningful way to learn more about faculty before partnering in a course build. In turn, our goal morphed into creating a self assessment that would allow faculty to self identity their motivations and competencies in online course facilitation and design. We started looking at the research and see if anything existed about how faculty perceive online teaching and learning.

Faculty Perceptions of Online Teaching

The article, Examining Faculty Perception of Their Readiness to Teach Online by Martin, Budrani, and Wang (2019) started to uncover what we were really after; research about faculty perceptions and motivations. The study measured faculty’s attitudes about online teaching competencies and perceptions of their ability to confidently teach online. We learned that in order for faculty to confidently and competently teach online, they need to be prepared in course design, course communication, time management, and technical competence.

My New Awareness & Development

One of the biggest realizations I had from reading about faculty perception is that my expectation of faculty has been biased and unrealistic. In striving to meet aggressive course build deadlines, while also forming a trusting faculty/ID partnership, I had begun to subconsciously label faculty partnerships based upon their ability to produce or build a course. If faculty couldn’t meet their deadline with me, then I couldn’t fulfill my deadline to the institution. However, this limited view doesn’t allow for me to fully understand the faculty member I’m working to form a healthy working relationship with. By taking a step back and looking at where my partner is coming from and how they perceive online teaching, I am better able to meet faculty where they are. This is a stronger place for beginning an online course collaboration.

My Digital Identity in a Time of Killing

DigPINS, pedago.me, pedagome

Susannah SimmonsMay 12, 2019January 9, 2020

Inevitably… I have limited time as I’m working on my professional development over the weekend. I keep trying to keep my mind on the assignment of #Identity in digital spaces for #DigPINs, but I realize…

I… just… can’t… focus….

I’m ashamed to admit that my stance on #guncontrol has been very reserved until the #IfIDieInSchool plague affected a member in my community’s family. Why did it have to take a shooting in my local area to make me wake up? BECAUSE shootings in schools DOES NOT compute in my brain. However, it’s not going away until a real change happens. I know many people who use their guns responsibly, but couldn’t we start with a law that bans semi-automatic weapons. It’s a start.

How long before my nephew and niece experience gun violence in their schools?

#KendrickCastillo Thank you for your big heart, bravery and smarts. May I have the courage you did Kendrick, #IfIDieInSchool

I work at Colorado School of Mines and recently attended an Active Harmer training (because that is the world we live in). The point of the training is this: keep your hands up when you see the cops, run like hell if someone is shooting and fight only if you are backed into a corner. #KendrickCastillo saw his moment to stop evil and he pounced. He was a phenomenal human being and my heart aches for his parents, family and friends.

I was born here in Greeley, Colorado (though I claim Nebraska for the other half of my adolescent development). Colorado is the birthplace of publicly broadcasted school shootings AND of the #LegalizeIt movement. How will my state reconcile being a such a “violent,” yet “open-minded” state? Perhaps we’ve all become complacent or perhaps we just don’t know how to cope. Let’s all smoke a tree, take a pill or fortify our personal fortresses so we can pretend like nothing is wrong.

I’m pondering my social #Identity in digital spaces right now and I thank #DigPINs for giving me a reason to blog/write today. Otherwise I might have busied myself with mundane, everything’s-fine thoughts rather than taking the time to process a REAL tragedy in my community.

I’m… so… sorry….

As I envision how I wield my social media power today, I must ask, “Who do I want to become?” I would like to be digitally literate enough to affect change in social, political and professional realms.

Tall order, I know.

I love my country and believe in its innate goodness of its #people. I am grateful to have had #access to my grandparents that survived the #GreatDepression and taught me the value of looking out for each other and living within our means. My maternal side homesteaded in Dalton, Nebraska and I find that very grounding.

This is MY country. This is OUR country.

How are we shaping it?

My ancestors took astronomical risks to make a life in a new land. I believe we are in a time of charting new territory because old paradigms and assumptions no longer work. We need each other more than ever and I believe that we can all help each other to #daregreatly and challenge the norms. May @BreneBrown be proud of my latest attempt to live whole heartedly.

Reflecting the Penn State ID2ID 2018-2019 Program

accessibility, Blind Institute of Technology, Community, pedago.me, pedagome, Penn State

Susannah SimmonsJanuary 23, 2019January 23, 2019

By Erin McCully and Susannah Simmons

As we noted in our initial reflection about the Penn State ID2ID Program, we were fortunate to have been randomly paired together in a wildly successful, worldwide program. We would likely never have met given our geographic locations (North Carolina and Colorado), but have learned a great deal through our collaboration. This collaboration grew to include LaDawna Minnis and Sam Coulson, other ID2ID participants, who we connected with via the pedago.me instructional design community.

Accomplishments

The outcome of our multi-leveled collaboration was an accessibility webinar that took place after months of weekly meetings and work with Mike Hess and Ethan Twisdale of the Blind Institute of Technology. These connections have already resulted in an invitation from them for us to present at an accessibility conference in Denver in the spring. Not all of us may be able to attend in person, but there may be the possibility of a virtual component.

Addressing Obstacles

Group meeting times proved difficult given family and other work obligations. There was also the challenge of keeping taskloads manageable for each person. However, the group was able to work through some panic moments. This required clear communication with the team so that others could pick up some of the load. A prime example was when Susannah expressed the feeling of overwhelm about figuring out the webinar platform or lack thereof. The group stepped in to form a work-around plan. We ironed out the wrinkles in how the technology would/should work and created a timeline detailing. By doing a dry run, we were able to find possible pitfalls to avoid.

Future Plans

The accessibility webinar was attended by 14 people and the responses to our follow-up survey generated ideas for topics of future webinars in this series leading up to the Accessibility Symposium.

Erin intends to remain a member of the pedago.me group and become more active in slack to network professionally with other instructional designers. (This group is a gold mine of experiences, ideas, and tips!)

Susannah will continue to pursue opportunities learning about accessibility in higher education. It seems that accessibility will only grown in importance and could expand into a speciality instructional design role.

Erin’s Personal Reflection

I am so very grateful for the ID2ID program – while the original plan to get an instructional design mentor through this program didn’t work out, being paired with an instructional design “buddy” was wonderfully helpful. The ID2ID program has provided me with connections and free professional development that has already helped me grow as an instructional designer. I look forward to assisting with more accessibility webinars as well as other projects ahead!

Susannah’s Personal Reflection

I no longer fear the word accessibility. Hearing about schools getting sued for accessibility issues has had a haunting effect on my work. Faculty often looks to me as an expert, but I’m learning alongside everyone else. However, this experience has removed my fear. The more I talk about accessibility with other designers and pursue new skills in this arena, the less intimidated I feel. Like with anything else, it’s a matter of deciding to learn and following through. The accessibility webinar was a fantastic opportunity to learn directly from an expert as well as expand my network to include those I would like to emulate.

Mini Capstone Project: Accessibility Webinar

accessibility, Blind Institute of Technology, Community, Penn State

Susannah SimmonsJanuary 23, 2019January 23, 2019

The Penn State ID2ID Program Deliverable

By Erin McCully and Susannah Simmons

Overview

Our project for the ID2ID program was an Accessibility Webinar hosted by pedago.me and the Blind Institute of Technology. This webinar was the product of much multi-level planning effort between ourselves, which expanded to include two other ID2ID participants, LaDawna Minnis and Sam Coulson. Then Susannah took a chance and reached out to the Founder of the Blind Institute of Technology, Mike Hess, on LinkedIn and asked if he would be interested in creating an accessibility training for Instructional Designers and Educators in Higher Education. Mike generously agreed to help in our efforts and offered up his Chief Accessibility Officer, Ethan Twisdale as our expert and guide in the training.

Intended Audience

The webinar was promoted on Twitter, LinkedIn, within the ID2ID discussion boards and pedago.me slack group to reach our intended audience of instructional designers, which quickly morphed to include faculty in higher education that wanted to hone their accessibility skills.

Erin’s Institution

Disability Services staff said that this webinar could be shown to faculty as a means of helping them understand how students using a screen reader would experience a word document that was not designed with accessibility in mind.

Susannah’s Institution

The event was not promoted to faculty as a strategic move. The hunt for the institution’s next Disability Services coordinator was still underway and Susannah did not want to be considered an accessibility expert on campus. At least, not yet.

Missed Opportunity

The intended outcome was to fill in the gap that screen readers are for accessibility/disability service departments only. We aimed to demystify and provide the experience of navigating a document without sight. Our hope was that the webinar would allow instructional designers and faculty to walk away with the knowledge of how screen readers generally work and the ability to create an accessible document.

Webinar Details

The webinar focused on using a screen reader and creating an accessible Word Document. This required participants to download NVDA on a PC or familiarize themselves with the VoiceOver program on a Mac. Once registered for the webinar, participants received a confirmation email that provided instructions for both types of screen readers.

Note: We were not able to access an official webinar platform, so we used Susannah’s basic Zoom capabilities and enabled settings that provided barriers to trolls from the internet. All participants were set to mute, no personal videos could be shown and the chat room was facilitated by LaDawna and Sam. If someone was inappropriate, they were going to be kicked out immediately.

During the webinar, Ethan demonstrated how the screen reader worked on an unaccessible document (bad example) followed by the experience on an accessibility document (good example). He explained what made the accessible document, such as descriptive links, alt text for images, and proper use of headers and text. Then he gave participants the chance to try using their respective screen readers with those same demonstration documents. Participants asked great questions in the chat room and there was even enough time for Ethan to demonstrate how cumbersome websites can be to a screen reader.

Takeaways

We understand that faculty can be very concerned about the time and effort it takes to create accessible documents and learning materials for students. We wanted to help demonstrate that not only is it very important to take the time to do this, but also it doesn’t take much effort to create an accessible document. As instructional designers, our confidence to create such documents has increased and we are better able to help the cause by teaching faculty how to create such documents.

ID2ID’s Influence

Our experiences in ID2ID allowed us to meet other instructional designers and to discuss among ourselves some of the gaps in our own knowledge. With accessibility being such an important conversation, we decided to help ourselves and others feel less intimidated by the topic. The timeline of the ID2ID course allowed us to design backwards to set mini milestones in order to host the webinar. We had weekly meetings to ensure a flawless webinar and feel very accomplished in making it happen.

Next Steps

The Blind Institute of Technology asked all the IDs in this collaboration to present at their Accessibility Symposium in May 2019. To ramp up to the event, there will be two more webinars in February and March. These will walk participants through the user experience for multiple LMSs and the click-by-click experience of working through a module. Since we worked so diligently on the first webinar, the following two should be much easier to execute because we follow the process, roles and responsibilities from our previous webinar. Bring it on!

Penn State ID2ID Program: Reflecting on our accomplishments and challenges thus far

Blind Institute of Technology, Community, IndieEdTech, Info & Learning Tech, Instructional Design, pedago.me, pedagome, Penn State

Susannah SimmonsOctober 9, 2018

By Erin McCully and Susannah Simmons

Initial thoughts on the Penn State ID2ID program

We really didn’t know what to expect when starting the ID2ID program, but one thing was clear. We were fortunate to have been randomly paired together in a wildly successful, worldwide program.

The open structure of the ID2ID program has allowed us to choose our own topic of interest. We decided to explore accessibility online education and set the lofty goal of hosting an accessibility event that focused on the “how” of accessibility, rather than the “why.”

As an added benefit, Susannah introduced Erin to an online ID community named Pedago.me. Their slack group connects instructional designers across the country and helps IDs discuss current challenges and offers an outlet for brainstorming new solutions with like-minded professionals. This was particularly helpful for Erin because her work could sometimes feel isolated.

Accomplishments

We have determined the type of event we will host, the date, and the audience for the event. We have also teamed up with another ID2ID team, La Dawna Minnis and Sam Coulson, while Susannah has made connections with Mike Hess and Ethan Twisdale from the Blind Institute of Technology. Ethan will be our guide in creating an accessible Word document that can be read by a free screen reader.

Next Steps & Progress

We need to do the following:

Determine the roles each of us will take during the event
Create and distribute marketing materials
Find a webinar platform

Unanticipated Obstacles

It isn’t always easy for the four of us IDs to get together once a week via Zoom, but we are managing! We originally thought one of us would have access to the Zoom webinar feature, but that is not the case. We are currently looking for a webinar solution.

Might the ID2ID program be able to help us find a webinar platform?

Addressing Obstacles

We are currently reaching out to members of the Pedago.me group to see if someone has access to a webinar platform for our event. There must be someone out there who can share their resources, especially for such an important topic. We will keep shaking trees until we find a platform and the event isn’t until November 15th, so have through October to secure a solution.

Future Plans

We will continue to meet at a regular weekly time and whoever is unable to be present can catch up using the Pedago.me slack channel or the shared Google doc. We are hopeful that this first session with Ethan may turn into a series that will help instructional designers and others become more familiar with how to create accessible materials and address other issues of accessibility in education.

Updating my resume

Community

Susannah SimmonsAugust 13, 2018August 13, 2018

It is an interesting place to be in when you realize your resume is too long.

For so many years, I worked to fill up the white space and wished my resume showed a clear career path. Fast forward to now. I tweaked my resume over the weekend and realized how “old school” it appeared to be – page of positions with even more bullets. I realize it’s time to get current (even if it’s a pain).

Everyone is busy, especially people on hiring committees. If my resume doesn’t immediately catch their attention, then I’m not a good designer. I’m on the back side of the game now and I get to forge my career path now. I choose to move forward with confidence. #livelonglearning

The Right Design Solution Isn’t Always the Most Glamorous One

Instructional Design, pedago.me

Susannah SimmonsNovember 1, 2016November 1, 2016

For my instructional design internship, I worked with the nonprofit, Project C.U.R.E. in the analysis and planning of a warehouse operations manual. It was a bit of a reality check after steeping in an educational technology master’s program where creativity is king. In the real world, practicality rules. However, I must say a job well planned and done is highly satisfying.

Although an operations manual was not my first choice for real world experience, I relished the opportunity to work with Denise Farrar. She has her doctorate in instructional design and I managed to pick her brain on our industry whenever possible. Denise’s management of the massive project from an instructional design perspective was both practical and inspiring.

To learn more about my experience, check my internship website below. The internship report details my experience from start to finish.

Openly Presenting Pedago.me at COLTT

pedago.me, pedagome

Susannah SimmonsAugust 9, 2016August 26, 2016

The sole purpose of my Pedago.me presentation at the 2016 Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology (COLTT) conference was to see what instructional designers and teaching assistant technologists thought of the idea of an online community created specifically for them. In this article, I will attempt to share my experience akin to the notion of teaching in the open. The practice of openly sharing one’s experience in teaching, annotating, or “insert verb here” is important for the larger community to learn from one another. I will walk through the planning, delivery, and key takeaways from presenting Pedago.me at COLTT.

EdTech Tools

Since the conference focused on education technology (edtech), I assumed that all participants would be utilizing Twitter as a main edtech tool. However, this was not the case and I found this to be a huge lesson in edtech tooling. The tools are vast and the best analogy I can make is considering all the tools required to build a house. To achieve my goal of discussing the value of Pedago.me, I had many tools to choose from: a paper survey, open discussion, Monkey Survey, Twitter chat, or any other edtech survey tool out there. I chose what I thought was the best tool for the job.

Original Plan

The Twitter chat option allowed for the discussion to span beyond the walls of the classroom. Pedagogical experts and guests, Remi Holden and Maha Bali were kind enough to offer their insights and wisdom during the chat. My co-presenter, Brad Hinson, was going to run the Twitter chat, while I facilitated participants in tweeting answers from their devices. Responses were then going to be projected on the wall for everyone to see. Our plan was solid and golden.

Think Again

Nine participants attended the discussion and only two or three had participated in a Twitter chat before. Brad and I could have stayed the course, forcing everyone to engage in the manner I had chosen, but the vibe of the room seemed really reluctant to the Twitter chat option.

Adapt or Die

Brad had set the chat to post questions every five minutes in case we were both needed to run a group discussion. Thank goodness for Brad’s forethought, however, I really hated the autopilot idea. This meant that Pedago.me was going to post questions every five minutes and not facilitate the online discussion. I did not get to control that aspect of the discussion and that was really uncomfortable for me. When I looked at the projected chat on the wall, this is what I saw at any given moment.

Openly Presenting

That’s the thing about “open” anything. Open teaching, open annotating, or open presenting requires the person who is in “control” to release the reigns a bit and trust that all the planning and careful thought will be absorbed, spun, and embellished upon by the participants.

Pedago.me Findings

During our quick half hour discussion, I thought there was very little participation, but after combing through all the tweets, there was more participation than I realized in the moment. After introductions, we probably had only 20 minutes left for four chat/discussion questions. Here is a list of who participated:

The projection of live tweets was really hard to follow in real time while talking to the room, but I noticed several interesting findings after the fact. Three people in the classroom took a stab at participating in the chat, one person was in another COLTT session while joining in the chat, and one person in the classroom really embraced the chat and promoted conversation. In the TwXplorer snapshot below, you can see that @chubbynbubbly was one of the most active participants with 10 combined tweets and retweets.

In the classroom discussion, @chubbynbubbly was very quiet. I had no idea she was so “vocal” in the chat. I learned firsthand how participants prefer different avenues of communication.

In the spirit of letting go of control to be surprised by the group, one of the participants suggested a collaborative effort after everyone had left the room. As one of the brave participants to take a stab at the chat, she later when on to post the following tweet to me (@thelearnersway) about presenting at her organization’s upcoming conference.

Collaboration is an important, if not essential, aspect of Pedago.me. I am excited to see what ideas the Metro State edtech community has for Pedago.me and what is possible for the Teaching and Learning Technology Symposium (TLTS). Open thinking, processing, and collaboration are all welcome at Pedago.me.