Reflection on the Course Prototype Development Process

I sincerely appreciated this assignment, as well as the process, as my understanding of the nuances of Instructional Design grew significantly, and in a scaffolded manner.

The chunking of the assignment into small bits of information, coupled with peer feedback and instructor support along the way, made for a fun and challenging learning experience. I am grateful that we had the opportunity to design a course that was applicable to our context.

Going through the Analysis and Development process of the ADDIE model helped me to understand who I am as an educator, and also helped me to understand my colleagues (the learners in my course) on a deeper level. Carefully considering building community and embracing the Backwards by Design or Understanding by Design models of planning made me think critically about assessment tasks, intentional interactions, my learning philosophy and skill taxonomies.

I enjoyed the opportunity to check out my classmates course shells last week. I went with Google Classrooms, but I was also impressed to see the capabilities of Canvas. If I were designing a course for students that required sequential progression — this LMS platform would be my “go-to” for sure!

Lastly, the discord group was an amazing support and I learned about so many resources that I tried out along the way! Keepers from my peers, or from parallel exploration during the course will definitely be: genial.ly, jamboard, Canva, FlipGrid, Padlet, Mentimeter, Kahoot, Lumi, Quizziz, Seeing AI, and  ClipChamp. Some of these resources are simply fun ways to engage, while others may have a profound affect on the accessibility of learning for all students.

You can find my detailed Course Prototype Development Outline and Rationale at the link below:

Detailed Course Information

Reflection on Peer Feedback

The peer feedback I received was largely positive, particularly with reference to the proposed content outlined in the outcome walk.  and the blended course organization. There were important questions that I needed to consider about time, as well as a fun organizational tip that I implemented!

TIME

When will teachers complete this? Is it during school hours or on their own time? Might you consider building in flex time, or slower months for when teachers get busy? 

These are important questions. Time is so precious for teaching staff with already overwhelming workloads. I appreciated these questions and suggestions because they made me think critically about being as concise as possible in the information we were to cover. Due to this feedback, I took a second look and planned to have 4 of the sessions scheduled by the teachers (their PLC time), 4 of the sessions to happen during teacher meeting days, which leaves just two meetings (one per semester) that will need to take place outside of the school day. I am sure my staff will thank my classmates!

Compared to others in our division, I believe that this will leave me on the lower end of scheduled time outside of the school day. However,  I believe that with the highly organized course and intentional topics, we will cover just as much, if not more than through traditional models.

FUN TIP!

Kate-Lynn taught our small group how to put emojis in our titles. Being that Google Classroom is not the most visually appealing LMS — the headings are monotonous — this small visual touch helps the user keep their place. PLUS they are fun!

Simply search the emoji you want in google, copy it, and paste it beside your heading!

Example: Summer Emojis:

FINALLY….

You can find my link to the Course Prototype Walkthrough below! It is still a work in progress and I am really excited to use it this year, and develop it further over the years to come!

Link to 10-15 Minute Course Prototype Walkthrough

Planned Student-Student & Student-Instructor Interactions

Promoting community is one of the most important, foundational pieces to working with my group of learners. This community must share ideas, debate understandings, agree AND disagree on professional practices, and problem solve together. In the blended course, I will use many of the strategies from the Barkely & Major article, 6 Strategies for Building Community in Online Courses, including:

• Creating a plan for communication
• Meeting in Real Time
• Creating opportunities for information and expertise sharing
• Using collaborative learning techniques
• Developing Sub-Communities

In addition, I will use strategies from The Art of Coaching Teams by Elena Aguilar, which is full of relational activities and healthy processes for effective communities of learners.

Learner interactions will most often have a collaborative learning focus with lots of group problem solving, learning and idea sharing. Some of the Collaborative Learning Techniques and Platforms I plan to use include:

• Jigsaw
• Think Aloud Pair Problem Solving
• Storytelling
• Project Based Learning (PLC)
• Brainstorming/Concept Mapping
• Case Studies/Comprehending for meaning (viewing, reading, listening)
• Field Trips/Service Learning
• Games
• Debate/Fishbowl/Group Discussions/Think-Pair-Share

Interaction Platforms will include, but are not limited to:

• Google Classroom
• Multimeter and Google Forms
• Kahoot
• Padlet
• Edsby
• Google Jamboard
• Google Docs
• Teams
• Screencastify

Rationale & Justification for Types of Interactions

There were many parts of the Bates text that resonated with me when planning for interactions and assessment with my group of learners. First, in Chapter 4.4, the Online Collaborative Learning Theory, where students work together to “create knowledge, to invent, to explore ways to innovate, and, by so doing, to seek the conceptual knowledge needed to solve problems rather than recite what they think is the right answer,” helped me to frame my intentions. This is what I want for my learners!

Chapter 6 of the Bates text helped me to frame my role, and the role of my learners. While I have selected the sequence and general content, I view my role as helping students to analyze, interpret or apply this content and the ideas of their colleagues to their own setting. While I am adopting a more constructivist approach, I do know that I will have to provide instruction and a vision towards more inclusive ideals in our building, and support learners as they struggle with these new concepts and ideas. One of the ways that I will provide space to co-construct guidelines is by having staff develop community of learner “Group Norms” through a shared Google Jamboard. These Group Norms will be referenced frequently to ensure that interactions are “supportive, engaging and relevant.”

Due to my view of the learner, my understanding of my role and my educational philosophy, the assessment of this course will not be typical to most courses. There will be limited assessment of the learner, and increased learner assessment of the learning environment we have created for collaboration. Feedback will be collected frequently to further refine the space for optimal learning. My assessment of learners may be used towards their professional growth appraisals, but mostly the information gathered by learner participation will be utilized to further inform the direction of learning improvement in our school. Much of the assessment will be learners deciding what they have learned, what they wish to continue learning and whether they are satisfied with what they have learned.

Regardless, we were asked to outline assessment, so here are my proposed methods:

Assessment

• Monthly Formative: Surveys, Games, Anecdotal Observation, Project Work, Peer Assessment/Feedback
• Yearly Summative: Professional Learning Community Reports, Teacher Professional Growth Plans, Learning Improvement Plan Goal Reporting
• Monthly Reflective: Ongoing feedback on learning environment and ongoing change to direction of course content, sequence, and method

If you are interested my detailed course outline, check out my video summary by clicking the following link:

Professional Learning Course Outline

Reflection on Accessibility and Equity

 After a discussion of accessibility and equity in my EC&I 834 class, I sat and pictured the intended learners for my blended course. It was a pretty homogenous picture. All of the staff are middle to upper class members of society who have completed their grade 12 and higher education. None of the staff have disabilities and 90% of the staff benefit from white privilege. This group will be responsible for ensuring that our student body (where 50% of our learners are BIPOC and where 20% of our learners have disabilities or exceptional learning needs) experience equitable outcomes. “I worked hard to get where I am today” and “That’s not how it works in the real world” are common discourses of those with positional power in our school. 

The Bates Chapter on Epistemology and Theories of Learning further highlighted a big issue for me to consider: Schools reinforce social hierarchies and gatekeep success. Students whose truth and skills are not considered valid make up those who do not graduate. Students with disabilities or adverse factors affecting their education do not have educators that understand their position. Students must not only navigate an unjust society, but also navigate an unjust social hierarchy that is perpetuated in school. The judgement of what constitutes success is granted, or withheld, by those who already have a bigger piece of the pie than most. Based on my staff, the gatekeeping worked.

Now, all of this might be a bit obvious, but putting these understandings to words helps me with the instructional design of my course and the needs of my learners. This analysis helps with intentionally planning learning experiences with the intended outcome in mind.

It is also important to note that despite the makeup of the learners, there is still much diversity and individual circumstances which affect accessibility. There are those with long commutes, single parents, and those whose digital literacy is limited. While I call all of the learners “educators”, there are learners who have their Grade 12 education working alongside learners who have their Masters of Education. There are learners in an age range of 20s to their 60s, all with broad and varied roles and experiences.

Applications of New Understandings to my Course Prototype

What do my learners need to know and be able to do: They need to collaborate in person, or in an LMS to plan and work towards learning improvement goals. They need to have common understandings and skills to consider the diverse cultural and ideological makeup of our community and student body.  They need to build new skills to engage and provide equitable experiences for this complex group, and they need to reframe their ideas of positional power and inclusion so that they can work towards building authentic relationships and creating complex change.

Ethical/Social Considerations: Flexible attendance and a variety of ways to engage with the learning are provided so that all learners may participate, despite obligations outside of work, family composition or geographical location. Courses are focused and concise to be mindful of time, so that professional learning does not further increase workload and negatively impact educators’ mental health and wellbeing. In addition, activities and chosen digital apps will be well explained and their application to the classroom will be highlighted.

An accessibility “oops” from my last post!

Issues Related to Accessibility: There is a range of digital literacy, which resulted in the choice of a blended learning experience. Learners may engage in person or online. Learning experiences may be completed asynchronously, or synchronously. There is one professinoal learning activity per month, and these are numbered with expandable tabs in the Google Classroom. Google Classroom was chosen due to staff familiarity with the platform and existing account provided by the school division. Some of these activities may be printed and those who need support accessing the digital tools or videos will have the opportunity for support during the synchronous sessions.

Due to the broad experiences, interests and abilities of staff, multi-media approaches and varied learning modes were selected so that all staff will feel confident in some areas, and will be able to grow in other areas.

Intended Outcomes: In addition to demonstrating reflection, collaboration and action on improving learning and equitable outcomes for students, I also hope to see growth in the digital literacy and digital citizenship of our students and communities. The digital barrier is one more gatekeeper for students and families accessing education in the 21st century. This work must start with educators. A focus on equity and accessibility in my class will be important to model if I hope to see it in their classes and in our communications. I appreciated the opportunity to learn more and reflect on my existing work and design so that I can share new knowledge and resources with my colleagues.

“What I permit, I promote. What I allow, I encourage. What I condone, I own.” – Michelle Malkin.

The above quote has been a touchstone for me as a new principal, and provides direction in the way that I want to shape the vision and direction for our school. If I truly wish to address inequity in our school system, I need to start by working with my staff. In my last post, I carefully reflected on the importance of collective teacher efficacy and my proposed actions to make a unified move to create complex change positively affect our students.

In my course shell, which you can find here, the proposed professional development is broken down into 10 professional learning sessions experienced monthly throughout the year. For this week’s assignment, I focused in on Topic 6: Silence is Acquiescence. The content within this topic explores the Inspiring Success: First Nations and Metis PreK-12 Education Policy Framework and the application of this framework to Equitable School Transformation in our local setting.

This topic can be explored synchronously (at a monthly staff meeting) or asynchronously (on the educator’s own time). There is one group activity that must be completed collaboratively, and I expect that I might have one group of commuters agree to do this activity virtually together.

The lesson starts with a self reflection where learners examine their personal and professional understanding of anti-racist and anti-oppressive education. ‘

Key terms to be explored are:

• Power
• Positionality
• Equity

The “Minds On” activity has learners score themselves on the classic privilege walk exercise, and then view my Lumi interactive video to begin the reflective process.

A side note on the Lumi app — I LOVED USING IT! It will be a wonderful reflective tool. I sincerely appreciated the ability to have open ended questions and questionnaires, however I wish that there was a way to collect questionnaire answers for later reflection. I will combat this issue likely with an anonymous google form for completion in the lesson, unless I can figure out a way to view this data before my module is released.

I also included the famous equity cartoon, but illustrating one more scenario with inclusion as food for thought.

https://twitter.com/ClinPsychDavid/status/1407103431718969345?s=20

The next part of my lesson is a collaborative Jamboard activity where we develop group norms for professional conversations about race and inequity as they might be sensitive topics for some, depending where they are on their journey towards anti-racist and anti-oppressive education. I chose to use an adaptation of the Circle of Courage model for professional collaboration by Dr. Martin Brokenleg, as all staff will be familiar with this format because we are a Circle of Courage school. This is followed by another Jamboard called Someone on my mind… which will help staff to personalize this issue to their everyday lives through a focus on a student they care about.

As a “summative assessment”, the learners will work in groups to complete the Indigenous Education Responsibility Framework for our school (The readability will be best if you download it to view in excel). This framework has been created by the Saskatchewan School Boards Association and the Strategizing Continuum includes Observing, Supporting and Disrupting, which I think is quite progressive and a bit rebellious — and I love it!

In closing, I will have students revisit “Someone on my mind…” to add the larger systemic impacts that might be made on the student in mind.

The main resources I used for this topic’s development include:

The Listening Leader by Shane Safir (THIS IS A MUST READ!!!)

In addition, I used an old PD Resource-  Leading to Learn: Impacting First Nations, Inuit and Metis Student Outcomes: Signpost 1. This was a training that was put on by Student First and the STF Professional Development Unit, therefore it is tricky to share the source. If it is ever offered again — definitely sign up!

This is a big topic, and we know it is a long road. In closing, I will share one more encouraging quote, near and dear to my heart and important to my practice:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou

One of the reasons that I love my staff is that they have a fantastic sense of humour, and part of that humour is reclaiming social media slander for our own use. Last year, we were roasted (as I am sure many of you have been) by an angry stakeholder online. In conclusion, they stated, “DO BETTER!” — hence the name of my Google Classroom: “Doing Better”: Kelliher Staff Professional Growth”.

This course is a blended learning opportunity for teaching and support staff to engage in professional learning together in lieu of traditional, long, monthly, sit-down meetings. My colleagues teach across a broad range of curricula and plan for predominantly triple grade splits. Our school has a vulnerable designation due to the socio-economic status of our community, as well as our distance from essential services. Many of our students suffer from inequitable outcomes due to opportunity gaps in their lives and/or trauma. Because we have so few service available to support families, the school often functions as the only social security net in the area, where the staff fill the gap through extensive volunteer work. In addition to caring for our students and family, staff have their own children and commitments.

Surveying staff throughout the year indicates that while they feel the culture of the building is positive, the culture of the profession is burnt out due to increasing classroom complexity and limited resources.  Staff often feel overwhelmed by meetings and professional development when they give so much everyday to their students. As such, staff miss many meetings, sacrificing time to positively network with staff, keep up with best practice in education, or build skills required to meet the needs of increasingly complex classrooms. This results in frustration and hopelessness. We need to DO BETTER!

I hope to use a blended format to decrease scheduled time, increase teacher choice and voice in professional development and increase opportunities for staff to co-construct goals, positively network with staff and collaborate with a learning community to find hope in our tough setting. Meetings must be purposeful, concise and flexible. Half of the meetings will be done in person (with the option to tune in online), and the other half will be scheduled on the teacher’s own time with their group, or alone. Major learning outcomes include:

• Take Action to Build Community and Relational Capital
• Appraise Learning Improvement Framework & Construct Professional Goals
• Understand and Apply Response to Intervention & Plan for Student Connection
• Evaluate and Implement Supporting Student Assessment in Saskatchewan 
• Collaborate to Design Student Advisory Blocks, referencing Framework for Student Success, Achievement and Graduation
• Explore and Implement Culturally Responsive Instruction
• Review Local Data, Critique Learning Improvement Goals and Report to the Learning Improvement Plan

Photo Credit: 2023 Valamis Group

I work with the most selfless and dedicated people in the world. I cannot imagine asking them to give me more of their time on my schedule. There is a need for more teacher voice, choice and for increased flexibility to participate in professional learning. This important topic is often perceived as, “one more thing to do,” but without it, teacher isolation and hopelessness can take over. There is lots to learn, and much opportunity for fine tuning our practice and growing in our abilities to become more effective through intentional instructional design. There are undiscovered passions waiting to captivate us and motivate us! And, on those bad days, there is the team to lean on.

I am excited to plan this course to better meet the professional learning needs of the amazing people I work with!

Who Am I?

I am a mother, a teacher, and a community member. I am honored to be labelled the “instructional leader” of our small rural school. My background is in early learning where the value of place is significant, and where the environment is the third teacher. As such, my header photo serves as an important symbol on my blog as I constantly center myself in place. I have been shaped by the land, I am a benefactor of the land, and I must work to recognize my privilege and decolonize the learning landscape so that all may experience more equitable outcomes. The following quote has served as a roadmap and source of inspiration in my work:

“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

So where does online and blended learning fit into this educational journey and worldview? In the post-COVID era, my thinking about knowledge, learning and equity has changed.

As were many, I was thrust into to the world of online learning in 2020. Fear and frustration accompanied this detour. As an educator,  this format appeared to exacerbate social inequity in education, leading to disconnect and segregation. I helplessly watched my students fall off the map, with vulnerable students disproportionately affected due to gaps in access to technology and quiet, private spaces to access learning. However, as we do, students and teachers learned new tricks and adapted. We collaborated to address inequity and learned new ways of engaging with learners.

When we came back to in-person instruction, the students had learned how to problem solve and how to use new modes of learning. While everyone was eager to “get back to normal,” many students and staff saw value and potential in a format that provided more flexibility. A system that was viewed as escalating inequity might in fact be used to address inequity. A system that was viewed as isolating might be used to connect learners.

Challenges and Opportunities: A Case Study

Our small community of learners comprises of around 30 high school students from Grades 10-12. We have 2 high school teachers. Let’s consider Math. In any given year, we should be offering students: WAM 10, Foundations and Pre-Calc 10, WAM 20, Foundations 20, Pre-Calc 20, WAM 30, Foundations 30, Pre-Calc 30, and Calculus. That is 9 courses options for 30 students led by 2 teachers — you do the math! Old solutions included combining all curricula for one group. For example the Grade 11/12 math teacher would teach 6 courses at the same time (including modified and alternative courses).  This was extremely difficult for staff and students to manage. We needed to do something different!

Well thank you online and blended learning! We partnered with two other PreK-12 Schools 35 and 50 minutes away and created the first of its kind on our division — a monstrosity that we labelled e-Magnet learning. One school would offer the 20/30 WAM, one would offer the 20/30 Foundations and one would offer the 20/30 PreCalc. Students would take attendance in their home schools, have the math teacher in the classroom as support, but would ultimately get their instruction online. It was a huge success and a huge failure. But we adapted, changed a lot, and we continue to grow.

Students who struggled with attendance due to transportation or other extenuating circumstances were able to access their learning at any time and catch up. We expanded our community of learners and increased the expertise of teachers, now able to gain a deeper understanding of their curriculum.

Where to next?

I was inspired by Chapter 4 of Tony Bates’ Teaching in a Digital Age: 4.4 Online Collaborative Learning. In our setting, online and blended learning has been a means to an end, and has not been undertaken with the intentionality that it deserves. I anticipate exploring this theory in practice with my colleagues. In addition, 4.7 ‘Agile’ Design: Flexible Designs for learning was a bit of a relief for me! I had considered practices of online and blended learning to be prescriptive in nature. I am excited about opportunities to include more constructivist approaches that allow the learner to take the lead. Finally, I am excited about the potential of 4.6 Communities of Practice. I would like to explore the possibilities of utilizing a blended approach to professional development in our building. Ultimately, I am eager to learn more about harnessing the power of this “new” tool to improve equitable outcomes for students.

I love the famous equality/equity/justice cartoon & have used it a lot in talks. However, its always really bugged me that the three people stay exactly where they are, outside the park, in all 4 pictures, so I've taken the liberty of added a 5th, does this make sense? pic.twitter.com/h2sPUB62Gp

— David Murphy (@ClinPsychDavid) June 21, 2021

Thanks for stopping by for my long-winded reflection! Please comment any of your thoughts, connections, or concerns below. How do you envision the role of Online and Blended learning in working towards equitable outcomes in your setting?