In this episode, Rob and Jared discuss instructional management with Dr. Kevin Jones who has an Ed.D. from Spalding University and serves as the Dean of the School of Education and Social Work at Cedarville University. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

Dr. Jones emphasizes the importance of planning and preparation in teaching. As he prepares to teach, he focuses on key tasks such as identifying essential questions and learning objectives, and then he utilizes backward planning to ensure students achieve the intended goals. This kind of preparation enables him to be more effective at meeting the students’ needs.

Dr. Jones also emphasizes the need for teachers to recognize and embrace their own giftings and weaknesses, as well as the importance of showing compassion and praise to students. He encourages instructors to model and teach students about interconnectedness and the value of their unique gifts. Dr. Jones discusses how to handle hard conversations with students while maintaining an encouraging relationship. He emphasizes the importance of grace and provides the students with opportunities for growth and learning.

In this episode, Rob and Jared revisit content delivery with the return of the podcast’s first guest, Dr. Quentin Schultze. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better. 

Dr. Schultze approaches course content delivery carefully, knowing that content can easily be perceived as “boring.” He wants to make sure the content is the best while still ensuring that the delivery of that content is engaging and inspiring and that students walk away motivated. He does so by using narrative to show the content’s relevancy. In a face-to-face (or ‘incarnate,’ as Dr. Q likes to say) course, this content delivery approach is handled with various pedagogical strategies. In an online course, the delivery is shorter and focuses just on the essentials. 

The basics of Dr. Schultze’s narrative approach to content delivery are anticipation (“what’s going to happen?”) and identification (relevancy, helping students identify with the story). Instructors can pull narratives from different places: their own lives and background of the content itself. The important thing to remember is making the content relevant and personal for the students. 

Resources 

Quentin Schultze’s website 

In this episode, Rob and Jared revisit assessments with Dr. David Mulder, professor of education at Dordt University. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

Dr. David Mulder emphasizes the need for clear learning targets and aligning assessments to those targets. He uses the analogy of an archery range, where the learning targets are the bull's eye and assessments measure how close students come to hitting that mark. These assessments provide opportunities for educators to deliver specific and timely feedback to help students grow and improve.

They also touch upon the challenge of time constraints in education and offer strategies to manage assessments effectively. One approach is to prioritize essential learning targets and to group related assessments together. A standards-based grading approach helps instructors emphasize fewer key concepts for assessment, allowing students to demonstrate their understanding comprehensively. Teaching fewer things well helps ensure students deeply understand essential content. These kinds of assessments serve students and equip them with the skills they need for success in life.

Resources 

Dr. Mulder’s podcast, “Hallway Conversations” 

Subscribe to Dr. Mulder’s newsletter, “Positivity – Passion – Purpose” 

In this episode, Rob and Jared discuss objectives with Dr. Haisong Ye who has a PhD from Indiana State University and is an instructional designer in the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University. They engage in a thought experiment to create objectives for a course on how to make a good cup of coffee. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

Dr. Haisong Ye advocates for working through creating course objectives by starting with a simple question: what do you want students to be able to do by the end of this course? This strategy helps instructors begin by defining their end goals. To provide a specific example, Dr. Ye, Jared Pyles, and Rob McDole think about how they would design a course about making a good cup of coffee. The end goal of this type of course is that students would be able to brew a properly extracted cup of coffee. They brainstorm lower-level objectives, such as teaching students how to grind coffee, choose the right coffee beans, and set the proper water temperature. All of these coffee brewing variables build towards the end goal of the course. This thought experiment underscores the benefit of working through objectives for a course.

In this coffee drop, Rob and Jared are joined by Haisong and newbie to the podcast, Jason to discuss a potential usage of AI as a teaching assistant. If you have questions or comments, contact us at [email protected]. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

Resources

How AI could save (not destroy) education

In this episode, Rob talks with Dr. Vladimir Bratic who has a PhD in Mass Communication from Ohio University and is an assistant professor of Media and Communications at Hollins University. They discuss helping students be critical thinkers and how faculty should navigate the future of education with the growth of ChatGPT. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

Dr. Bratic wants students to think critically so they can learn on their own and be able to ask the right questions. Rather than focusing on content delivery, he is passionate about teaching students "how to think, not what to think"— and this informs how he thinks about AI and ChatGPT. He reflects on the environment of higher education and its response to ChatGPT, pushing instructors to reconsider traditional teaching dynamics such as lectures and multiple-choice tests in favor of more modern methods that prepare students for the anticipated complexities of a 2030 society. He encourages faculty to consider the world that higher education students are going to be facing instead of the world they face now.

In this episode, Rob and Jared conclude our series on the Community of Inquiry framework by discussing the future of online learning in higher education. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

Building on the Community of Inquiry framework, Jared and Rob emphasize the importance of constructing an online course that is well-designed. They encourage frequent communication between instructors and students in an online setting and suggest strategies such as using video feedback and monitoring student engagement to ensure effective communication. As Rob thinks about the future, he emphasizes the potential of AI in online learning, citing examples of how AI tools such as ChatGPT can be used to create programs and analyze pictures.

Jared and Rob recognize that cheating can be a serious concern for instructors in online courses, but research suggests that students who choose to cheat in an online environment will do the same in face-to-face courses. Jared suggests using strategies such as implementing higher-level activities and projects to minimize cheating incidents. Continuous adaptation and readiness to embrace change are crucial in online learning, and the Community of Inquiry framework can be a helpful tool in this endeavor.

Resources 

Testing a Model to predict Online Cheating—Much Ado about Nothing

Cheating in the Digital Age: Do Students Cheat More in Online Courses?

In this episode, Rob and Jared chat with Dr. Norm Vaughan who has a PhD in Education from the University of Calgary and is currently a professor in the Department of Education at Mount Royal University. They discuss a key component of the Community of Inquiry framework—cognitive presence. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

Dr. Vaughan emphasizes the importance of understanding students' needs and prior experiences to connect the learning with their existing knowledge. The design of a course should consider the unique characteristics of different groups of students and create an environment that fosters collaboration and interaction. He believes that the best facilitation of online courses involves modeling and guiding students through the cognitive inquiry process. Asking open-ended questions is important as well as engaging students in the exploration phase to deepen their understanding.

Dr. Vaughan also discusses the role of assessment in promoting cognitive presence, noting the need for self-assessment, peer feedback, and external feedback from experts. He recognizes that challenges exist in teaching an online course, so he suggests using surveys and pre-assessment activities to understand students' knowledge and tailor instruction accordingly.

Resources 

Teaching in Blended Learning Environments 

Seven Principles of Blended Learning 

Dr. Norm Vaughan in Google Scholar 

In this episode, Rob and Jared continue the series on COI and discuss social presence with Dr. Sheri Conklin, Assistant Professor in the Department of Instructional Technology at UNCW, while at AECT in Orlando. She explains how instructors can make connections with students and how courses can provide peer-to-peer interaction. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

Dr. Conklin’s interest in social presence began with her asking the question: “why do we need to have peer-to-peer interaction in every course? Is it necessary?” She discovered that students desire to have social interaction in their courses and highlighted some strategies that can effectively build social presence in a course: discussions on group work, student-to-student interactions, and the presence of the instructor. She also acknowledged the challenges, such as forced discussions and the need for engaging prompts, that instructors face in building social presence in online courses. Dr. Conklin suggests that social presence is crucial for building motivation and appreciation for the subject matter and that discussions should be purposeful and aligned with the objectives of the course.

Dr. Conklin also shares the "FORCE" (feedback, organization, response time, clarity, and engagement) acronym which highlights the key factors that contribute to building social presence and effective online learning experiences. These elements were identified as important by student participants in a survey that she conducted during COVID-19 when education was pivoting to online.

Resources 

Use the FORCE to Create Sociability and Connect with Online Students 

Through Their Eyes: Student Perspectives 

Instructor Social Presence Effects on Learner Social Presence, Achievement, and Satisfaction 

The conversation Rob and Jared had with Dr. McCartney just couldn’t fit into one drop, so here’s more talk on ChatGPT. They discuss hesitations and the importance of equipping others to use ChatGPT. If you have questions or comments, contact us at [email protected]. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.