Dublin Core
Title
Emilie Zickel - Audio Reflection
Creator
Emilie Zickel
Date
5/7/2020
Rights
Format
mp3
Language
English
Sound Item Type Metadata
Transcription
Hello, my name is Emilie Zickel and I am an associate lecturer in the English department. I work specifically in the first-year writing program. I teach English 100, 101, and 102 and this semester, Spring 2020, I moved one section of English 100 and two sections of English 102 to a remote learning format and I am here to talk about my reflections on this change.
The most challenging parts of the transition for me have definitely been about balance, not only balance among my responsibilities to my family, I have two elementary school-aged children, responsibilities to my fellow faculty members, many of whom do not do or had not done a lot of online learning before. I spent a lot of time, especially in the early weeks, providing support to other instructors and first-year writing and then also my own students in my courses so trying to balance out time for my kids my fellow instructors and my own students has been challenging. I think the addition of homeschooling my kids and also providing pretty intense support for other first-year writing instructors and even other instructors in the English department was something that took a lot more time than in a normal semester. I also think that part of my balance challenge this semester has been only in my own classes. Trying to make this decision between providing feedback to students and using my time during the day to provide feedback on submitted work versus spending my time preparing upcoming materials. Providing feedback takes a long time, creating content for my students also takes along time, and with this time crunch in the move to remote learning I feel like I was constantly trying to juggle those things.
One of the most common needs expressed by my students- extensions on deadlines. I tried to be as flexible as possible with deadlines this semester. I told students that on any assignment, particularly any major assignment, if they needed an extension they just had to let me know and they could have it, and that tended to work out very well. I heard from my students; they would tell me that they needed an extra day or two and I always told my students that I appreciated knowing that so that I knew that they were still planning to turn something in.
A new teaching technique or tool that I am using as a result of the switch to remote learning- I would say that I have spent a lot of time using Screencast-O-Matic. I actually have produced 76 videos over the past six weeks. This is not a tool that I had ever used before and I am now using Screencast-O-Matic to provide short videos that walk students through assignment sheets, walk students through how to use resources, or provide an overview of upcoming work. Informal feedback from students has indicated that that's been helpful for them. I also had a librarian, Mandy Goodsett, make a really wonderful tutorial on how to use the Nexus Uni-Database. This was a core component to one of my learning units in English 102 and she very graciously and very quickly produced a wonderful three-part video that is now a research guide. It was specific to my students, specific to our assignment, and was incredibly helpful, thorough, and well done.
But by far I think the most exciting teaching tool that I have used this year and pardon me, not just this year, but this remote learning part of the semester also ties into the new insights that I've gained about teaching in general. I had heard of this tool called Flipgrid several years ago I think and it piqued my interest. Students can upload their own videos, they can apply silly filters if they need to, conversation
can move outside of the physical classroom and into the online space in an asynchronous way. I used Flipgrid in my two English 102 courses very extensively because my students were engaged in a role-playing game. This was supposed to be an in-class debate. I was not looking forward to trying to do this via Zoom so I chose to use Flipgrid and asked students to contribute by posting videos on certain days. I also used it a bit in my English 100 course as a way to just get students to connect with each other after we came back from the break and also as a way for students to brainstorm their way through an upcoming assignment. In just three sections of English 100 and then two 102s, so three sections of first-year writing total, my students uploaded over 400 videos in the span of really just about four weeks. I did not ask for them to upload 400 videos. This really means that a portion, really, of students in each of those three courses uploaded one video and then students in the course responded to them… to the tune of 400 and some videos.
What I think is more interesting to me about Flipgrid is that when I count up all of the views for the videos that have been added to my English 100 course and both of my English 102 courses that used Flipgrid there are 14,464 views of those 400 some videos. I posted a total of I believe 20 videos. I can see through Flipgrid’s analytics how many people have viewed my videos, which most students it looks like viewed my videos once. I'm really intrigued by the fact that these 14,000 views really just weren't my stuff. These are students who were seeing each other, hearing each other, and in many cases responding to each other and I have to say this does not happen in my face-to-face class. The amount of interaction and engagement that students have with each other via Flipgrid was just astounding to me.
I am in the process of surveying my students right now to see what their feelings about using Flipgrid are and to see how or if they liked it, but I do have to say that one of the insights that I gained from using Flipgrid is that students are so willing to participate and engage in incredibly creative ways outside of class. I think there's something about being able to create their own video and edit it and perfect it before they are contributing to a class conversation that makes them have a lot more confidence than they might in the classroom. So I would say that one of the big successes for me in this switch to remote learning is having the guts to adopt Flipgrid even though it was way outside of my comfort zone. Trusting that my students would be able to handle this new technology, and they did, and then really just being surprised and charmed and excited by the creativity that came out in their posts; the honesty that came out in their Flipgrid posts, the willingness to share parts of their personality that came out in their Flipgrid posts- and that again, really, is not something that I even saw in my face-to-face classes.
How do I think this experience of remote learning is going to change my teaching when I return to face-to-face instruction?
I'm going to continue to do the screencasting. I'm going to continue to use Flipgrid. I, again, had been thinking about playing around with these things for quite some time. The switch to remote learning was just sort of the kick in the rear that I needed to dive in to the deep end and be willing to take a risk, knowing that everyone else was taking risks, knowing that all of us students and instructors were feeling vulnerable; I think I needed that to really take this on and while the results haven't been perfect and
there are certainly things that I will change in the future. I'm going to continue screencasting and using this flipped model in my classrooms where I can provide an overview of weekly assignments via video or provide some of the skills tutorials via video and then spend class time maybe processing more in a Q&A fashion what are our projects are. I will definitely be using Flipgrid to allow students to share their personal perspectives. I think that that happens in a much more organic way than it would in a classroom. So this semester that has been a challenge in terms of balance and I'm very very happy that we are at the end of the semester. It has also been one of really inspiring learning for me in seeing what my students can do and seeing what a class can become I think when both students and instructors are willing to try something crazy and new out. Thank you very much.
The most challenging parts of the transition for me have definitely been about balance, not only balance among my responsibilities to my family, I have two elementary school-aged children, responsibilities to my fellow faculty members, many of whom do not do or had not done a lot of online learning before. I spent a lot of time, especially in the early weeks, providing support to other instructors and first-year writing and then also my own students in my courses so trying to balance out time for my kids my fellow instructors and my own students has been challenging. I think the addition of homeschooling my kids and also providing pretty intense support for other first-year writing instructors and even other instructors in the English department was something that took a lot more time than in a normal semester. I also think that part of my balance challenge this semester has been only in my own classes. Trying to make this decision between providing feedback to students and using my time during the day to provide feedback on submitted work versus spending my time preparing upcoming materials. Providing feedback takes a long time, creating content for my students also takes along time, and with this time crunch in the move to remote learning I feel like I was constantly trying to juggle those things.
One of the most common needs expressed by my students- extensions on deadlines. I tried to be as flexible as possible with deadlines this semester. I told students that on any assignment, particularly any major assignment, if they needed an extension they just had to let me know and they could have it, and that tended to work out very well. I heard from my students; they would tell me that they needed an extra day or two and I always told my students that I appreciated knowing that so that I knew that they were still planning to turn something in.
A new teaching technique or tool that I am using as a result of the switch to remote learning- I would say that I have spent a lot of time using Screencast-O-Matic. I actually have produced 76 videos over the past six weeks. This is not a tool that I had ever used before and I am now using Screencast-O-Matic to provide short videos that walk students through assignment sheets, walk students through how to use resources, or provide an overview of upcoming work. Informal feedback from students has indicated that that's been helpful for them. I also had a librarian, Mandy Goodsett, make a really wonderful tutorial on how to use the Nexus Uni-Database. This was a core component to one of my learning units in English 102 and she very graciously and very quickly produced a wonderful three-part video that is now a research guide. It was specific to my students, specific to our assignment, and was incredibly helpful, thorough, and well done.
But by far I think the most exciting teaching tool that I have used this year and pardon me, not just this year, but this remote learning part of the semester also ties into the new insights that I've gained about teaching in general. I had heard of this tool called Flipgrid several years ago I think and it piqued my interest. Students can upload their own videos, they can apply silly filters if they need to, conversation
can move outside of the physical classroom and into the online space in an asynchronous way. I used Flipgrid in my two English 102 courses very extensively because my students were engaged in a role-playing game. This was supposed to be an in-class debate. I was not looking forward to trying to do this via Zoom so I chose to use Flipgrid and asked students to contribute by posting videos on certain days. I also used it a bit in my English 100 course as a way to just get students to connect with each other after we came back from the break and also as a way for students to brainstorm their way through an upcoming assignment. In just three sections of English 100 and then two 102s, so three sections of first-year writing total, my students uploaded over 400 videos in the span of really just about four weeks. I did not ask for them to upload 400 videos. This really means that a portion, really, of students in each of those three courses uploaded one video and then students in the course responded to them… to the tune of 400 and some videos.
What I think is more interesting to me about Flipgrid is that when I count up all of the views for the videos that have been added to my English 100 course and both of my English 102 courses that used Flipgrid there are 14,464 views of those 400 some videos. I posted a total of I believe 20 videos. I can see through Flipgrid’s analytics how many people have viewed my videos, which most students it looks like viewed my videos once. I'm really intrigued by the fact that these 14,000 views really just weren't my stuff. These are students who were seeing each other, hearing each other, and in many cases responding to each other and I have to say this does not happen in my face-to-face class. The amount of interaction and engagement that students have with each other via Flipgrid was just astounding to me.
I am in the process of surveying my students right now to see what their feelings about using Flipgrid are and to see how or if they liked it, but I do have to say that one of the insights that I gained from using Flipgrid is that students are so willing to participate and engage in incredibly creative ways outside of class. I think there's something about being able to create their own video and edit it and perfect it before they are contributing to a class conversation that makes them have a lot more confidence than they might in the classroom. So I would say that one of the big successes for me in this switch to remote learning is having the guts to adopt Flipgrid even though it was way outside of my comfort zone. Trusting that my students would be able to handle this new technology, and they did, and then really just being surprised and charmed and excited by the creativity that came out in their posts; the honesty that came out in their Flipgrid posts, the willingness to share parts of their personality that came out in their Flipgrid posts- and that again, really, is not something that I even saw in my face-to-face classes.
How do I think this experience of remote learning is going to change my teaching when I return to face-to-face instruction?
I'm going to continue to do the screencasting. I'm going to continue to use Flipgrid. I, again, had been thinking about playing around with these things for quite some time. The switch to remote learning was just sort of the kick in the rear that I needed to dive in to the deep end and be willing to take a risk, knowing that everyone else was taking risks, knowing that all of us students and instructors were feeling vulnerable; I think I needed that to really take this on and while the results haven't been perfect and
there are certainly things that I will change in the future. I'm going to continue screencasting and using this flipped model in my classrooms where I can provide an overview of weekly assignments via video or provide some of the skills tutorials via video and then spend class time maybe processing more in a Q&A fashion what are our projects are. I will definitely be using Flipgrid to allow students to share their personal perspectives. I think that that happens in a much more organic way than it would in a classroom. So this semester that has been a challenge in terms of balance and I'm very very happy that we are at the end of the semester. It has also been one of really inspiring learning for me in seeing what my students can do and seeing what a class can become I think when both students and instructors are willing to try something crazy and new out. Thank you very much.
Original Format
Audio recording
Duration
9 minutes, 44 seconds