Brent Warner 0:00
What should we be paying attention to for the fall while closing out our classes for the spring? This is the HigherEdTech podcast Season 6, Episode 19.

Tim Van Norman 0:23
Welcome to today’s HigherEdTech podcast. I’m Tim Van Norman, the Instructional Technologist at Irvine Valley College and Adjunct Professor of Business at Cypress College.

Brent Warner 0:32
And I’m Brent Warner, Professor of ESL here at IVC. We both enjoy integrating technology into the classroom, which is what this show is all about.

Tim Van Norman 0:41
Welcome. We’re glad you’re here with us.

Brent Warner 0:43
Whoo, alright, winding down the semester. Yeah. So when this comes out, Tim, this is our first day of finals at IVC, things are pretty much done well, you know, there’s the big, last final push, right? And so we’ll be fine. We’ll get through that. But, you know, we’ve done a couple episodes in the past about how to wrap up your canvas shells, what to think about all those things. And so you had a good idea this time around, which is when you’re closing out your canvas, or when you’re closing out your semester, what are some of the things that you want to think about to kind of not be wasteful, I guess, over the summer, not to say this is like a big summer project we’re talking about, but we’re just kind of saying, what are some of the things we want to start thinking about right now that are good to have in your head before you finish everything? I think that’s kind of the rough idea of what we’re trying to get to today. So, Tim, I know you have some ideas. I’ve got some ideas. Are you ready to jump in and get to it?

Tim Van Norman 1:50
So this is the summer between my first year and second year of teaching community college level. And so I haven’t had a chance to do this yet. I haven’t had the summer to prepare, and I’ve been thinking about changes and stuff like that that I’d like to make to my class, because over winter break, there’s a time to do it, but frankly, that’s a busy time anyway. It gets hard. So now that I’ve got a little bit of time, I was thinking about it, and that’s where I thought, you know, it’s one thing to wrap up a class, but what about looking at the future. So there’s a couple of things that I’m interested in, and hopefully this will be interesting for everybody else, too.

Brent Warner 2:41
Yep, all right, well, let’s get to it. We’ll have you start. We’ll just jump back and forth.

Tim Van Norman 2:45
Sounds good. So the first one’s not gonna be a surprise for anybody. AI. I haven’t done it yet in my class to actually create assignments that teach AI literacy. I’ve encouraged them to use AI and stuff like that, but I haven’t specifically pushed AI. And so I want to write an assignment that has a series of assignments that has AI. They prompt AI with something, then they evaluate that, and then they rewrite it themselves and to try to push that through. I think that would be really important to do right at the very beginning of class.

Brent Warner 3:27
Yeah. So Tim, you and I, through the AI Task Force, we did a focus group recently, and one of the big things that the students mentioned in the focus group was we want transparency. We want to know what the teachers are doing with AI and why. And I think having assignments or modules even set up where you’re kind of walking students through the expectations, so it could be just AI in general, but I think a really powerful one would be how are we talking about it in this class? What are the interactions as we’re doing things here? And that way, again, that transparency and the clarification of expectations for what is right and what isn’t right in your class setting around AI is going to be really useful to students. And it’s very clearly what they want, at least according to students on our campus. And so that doesn’t mean they all want AI. They just want to know what’s expected of them, right? And so that part is really valuable.

Tim Van Norman 4:28
I think absolutely so.

Brent Warner 4:31
I’m going to take one that I wish existed. I’ve talked about this, I think, several times in the past. I just said, why? Oh, why can’t canvas just have a box on every assignment that’s only for the teacher’s side of things, and it’s like, I can take notes about my assignments, what worked, what didn’t work, all those kinds of things. Okay, Canvas doesn’t set it up for us, but you can still take notes anywhere, right? And so if you haven’t been doing this over the semester, if you don’t make a regular practice of like, hey, I’m going to try and keep track of my notes and see what went well, whatever – you could still do it now, as you’re wrapping up the semester. You can kind of look through your modules or look through your assignments and just kind of do a debrief for yourself before it’s all out of your head, because as soon as that summer break starts, you know, either you got new classes going on, or you’re going into full vacation mode, or whatever else is going on, it’s gone. So if you go now and give yourself, I’d say even an hour Tim, I mean, just to go scan through and go like, “Oh, yeah, these are the things that I wanted to adjust right on this assignment.” You don’t even have to do it right now, but you could say, “Oh, I forgot that I wanted to change this part of the assignment, or I wanted to change the language around this part. Or I want to change this next time so that this assignment is in week two instead of in week six,” right? And so any notes that you might want to take on your assignments, this would be a good time to just kind of take stock of those things. I know that’s hard during finals week and everything else, but, you know, again, just kind of saying, a block of time now is going to save me quite a few hours later on.

Tim Van Norman 6:09
And along that, think about what in the assignment – what did you get frustrated as your grading because you saw the same thing over and over that wasn’t what you were looking for? Could you make a note to adjust that language in the instructions?

Brent Warner 6:25
Yeah, and it’s almost definitely, I hate to say it, but it’s almost definitely your fault, meaning, our fault – the instructors, right? Like the one who is not communicating clearly in a way. So yes, for sure, if you’re seeing the same repeating problem, it means your directions were not very clear. Or it means maybe you had all the students struggle with accessing some technology, and you go, okay, well, maybe the way that I set this group assignment up didn’t work. Or maybe whatever else it is, right? So there’s variations on those points, so worth looking at for sure.

Tim Van Norman 6:54
Absolutely, and along those lines, with following instructions. I’m hoping to create a series, hopefully, of assignments that encourage students to actually follow instructions. Now I know these are both kind of lofty goals, but what I found is that so many times the instructions are pretty clear. I’ve given it to them three times, and people just don’t read the instructions at all, or they don’t listen to the instructions. And so I want to figure out, I’m trying to figure out a way to at least get them started, thinking about, “Oh, wait a minute, I need to pay a little bit of attention to the instructions.” So I don’t know how to do that yet. I’ve heard lots of ideas, and we’ll see that might become an episode. If it’s successful, it might become an episode next year, but I think it’s really important that our students do learn how to do that, because if they can learn to follow instructions, which, by the way, means we have to write good instructions, but if they can learn to follow them, they can be successful in so many different ways.

Brent Warner 8:05
Yeah. It’s one of the major shortcomings or failures of my students. Has nothing to do with their ability or skills. It’s just that they didn’t read thoroughly, or maybe the font – you see it. I mean, when I look at my own instructions, I’m like, “Oh, this is just kind of in there somewhere. It doesn’t really stand out,” but it’s important for them to recognize this. And so what’s the best way to encourage that, or to redesign it, or whatever else it is. So I’ll connect that Tim to my next one, which is one of the ways that you might choose to do that, is by having videos where you talk through the explanations of assignments, and so you might start taking note of areas where you’d like to have videos made for flipped settings, or for some of these things that you say, “Well, this should be clear in writing, but it’s actually more clear to students in a video or in a talk through, maybe with a screen share, where you show all the points and the clicking, where you should click for some of the things.” So I would say that having notes, and you don’t have to make notes on a few different videos that you might like to make, I wouldn’t say, like, turn it into a whole summer project, necessarily. I mean, I know some people do and they’re just like, “Okay, I’m gonna go for it. I’m gonna make other things.” But if you just said, “Hey, I can see places for three videos or four videos,” and then that’s just starting the process. And then later in the semester, you make one or two more, then next year, you make a two or three more, right? And then pretty soon, you’ve got your big collection of videos that, of course, will need to be updated every once in a while, or whatever else it is. But if you have some of those ideas going on, and you have it, for example, on a sticky note that’s on your monitor, and you go, “Oh yeah, I forgot I’m supposed to make that little video.” It’s not going to take me too much time. I’ll just do it now, as compared to not doing anything, not having any ideas about it, and then it’s not going to show up in your head or on your agenda of things to do. So one good way to communicate and to maybe set things up better for your students is to build a couple of, you know, again, quick and dirty is fine, right? It doesn’t have to be professional. It doesn’t have to have all the motion graphics or anything like that. Just what are you trying to share with students that is going to help them out?

Tim Van Norman 10:20
Absolutely, it’s a great idea. And so along those lines, I’ve got a group project that I do with my students. It’s an asynchronous class, and so that’s been a struggle for the last two semesters, is having the groups work together. And so I’m trying to – one of the things I want to do this summer is look at all of those assignments and see, can I do something with them to enhance them, without creating extra work for the students and without creating extra work for me in grading. A little bit of work in setup is nothing compared to grading 60 or 90 or however many assignments. And so thinking about that intentionally early is something that I really want to do. And I want to figure out better ways of having the group work as a group and identifying that because, first of all, group work – everybody tries to take an asynchronous class because they don’t want group work. But the reality is, we all do group work all the time in life, and so learning to do that even in an asynchronous manner is a good way to improve your skills while you can. So that’s something I really want to spend some time this summer on is really looking at what the assignments are, and how can I improve group work in my class.

Brent Warner 11:48
I like it. I like it. Well, I guess I’ll spin off of yours again here, Tim, because one way that you could do that is before the semester ends, if you’re wrapping up, if you still can – student surveys, right quick. Student surveys, especially asking them about things that they really liked or things that they found problematic. And so, for example, if you’re in a case right now, Tim, where you’re saying, “Hey, we’ve been doing these group works. What parts of them worked for you? What parts of them were a struggle for you? How about the technology, right? Did you like using Canvas discussions?” Obviously, nobody would say yes to that, but whatever setup you have, right? So you can get the feedback from the students in order to make student centered builds and adjustments to whatever you’re trying to do. So this is, “Hey, this is what my students have told me that they like, and what they engage with,” and whatever else it is. And then you keep kind of working forward from there. So that could, of course, be types of technology, tools, what did you respond well to? What did you like? What did you not like? Right? It could be organization. So if you’re in Canvas, and you’re saying, “Hey, I’ve always done weekly modules, but my students tell me that in their other class, their professor does thematic, theme modules or unit modules,” right? And so they really like those unit modules. So okay, well, maybe that’s a better way for me to deal with that here for you guys, right? And again, seeing what places you might change based on what your students are actually directly telling you. And so setting up a couple student surveys. And it’s pretty easy to do, you know, you can do them inside of Canvas, but you can also do them anonymously with Google Forms very easily for free. Just check the information and set it up as an anonymous and that way students can maybe be a little bit more honest with you too, depending on what you’re asking them. So setting up student surveys is great, and it doesn’t take too long, and can really improve your teaching for your students.

Tim Van Norman 14:03
And in fact, I did something like that at the beginning of this past semester, where I asked the students what type of feedback they would like. They want video feedback, audio feedback, text feedback, all the above. Don’t care, that type of thing. And what did they expect with regard to AI, what did they want? And completely their opinion, and express your opinion and just tell me what you think. And that was really insightful. So setting that up even ahead of time, thinking about, what would that first week look like if you could get answers from your students. And it was a graded survey. They got a point for every time they answered a question, whatever they answered.

Brent Warner 14:50
I like that idea too, setting it up as an early semester. I mean, you can set it up now, because you’re thinking about your class and what you did for everything. But then, yeah, just turn it around and say, “Hey, I’m just going to save this and make, you know, maybe I’ll do a version at the beginning, and then from the same students version at the end, and see kind of what they’re thinking about things.” And maybe, you know what – maybe did opinions change? That could be really interesting too. Because it’s like, now that you’ve gone through it and you’ve done what you said you wanted, is that actually what provided value to you? Right? So yeah, really interesting possibilities. Cool.

Tim Van Norman 15:24
All right, so my last one, I’ve been thinking a lot about feedback and how to provide quality feedback, and one of the things that I really want to do is I want to enhance my rubrics. There’s some stuff that I put in rubrics, some stuff I on purpose haven’t so that I do type feedback, but I’ve found that students seem to – at least my students – if I miss something on a rubric, they know what I’m missing, and they understand what that five versus four versus three points means, because they can literally just see it. And so something that I’m really thinking about is, how do I enhance the rubrics in areas I haven’t used them, or even in the areas I am, and then, in general, how do I provide better feedback to the students?

Brent Warner 16:17
Yeah. And, you know, that’s a forever game, for sure, but it’s definitely something good to start thinking about right now. And especially again, for me, same conversation is now. These have wrapped up right and now when you start actually doing rubric feedback, or rubric grading, you’re like, “Oh, this is not actually hitting what I’m thinking that I’m going to be hitting,” or “I’m grading them on this, and I’ve been talking about this, but that’s not exactly the language that matches inside of there.” So really, kind of figuring those things out and how they fit into your goals as well can be really powerful. Absolutely. All right, so my last one here is, I think it kind of matches with the overall ideas. But I was thinking about this idea of building a couple of just in time activities or just in time modules, depending on what you’re trying to do. But a lot of times it might happen that your plans for a class just went to the trash, right? And like, “Hey, I was trying to do this. It’s not working very well. I just gotta cut the cord and go for something different.” But you don’t necessarily have anything planned. So what if you have a couple of quick lessons or activities or things like that that you can just plug and play and ready to go, that maybe you weren’t really planning on putting into your semester, but they can kind of go anywhere as like supplemental or doubling down on information, or whatever else it is. So can you think about some places where you might get some real value out of having some just in time modules, either one for your whole class or just to be delivered to a couple of students who are struggling with things that maybe the rest of the class is doing okay with, right? So for me, many times, I might have a handful of students that are having a harder time with certain grammar points, right, and I don’t know that all 25 students or whatever are going to need this, but I know that three students probably are going to really get some value out of taking an extra 20 minutes or 30 minutes. So it could be for use inside of class, or it could be for launch, Tim. We set this up inside of Canvas, for example, and you just say, “assign to” and then it’s only going to be for that handful of students, right? And so the rest of the students don’t even see it. It doesn’t even show up on their radar. But for those couple of students who are going to need it, and you’re saying, “Hey, you’re not showing me that you understand this, I want you to do this extra couple of things to get caught up and make sure that you’re going to be comfortable with everything.” Of course, you could build those at any time, but it’d be nice if, especially if you start knowing, “Hey, these are the few things that really do come up” – just kind of as you’re scanning through what you’ve been doing this semester, to have a few ideas in place so that you can build them at your leisure and then have them as backups whenever you need them.

Tim Van Norman 19:32
I love the idea of having backup assignments, backup material that’s just available. So when you need it, you can click a button and have it. You don’t have to go create it last minute. That’s an excellent idea.

Brent Warner 19:47
And it’s pretty easy to store anywhere. You could either have it in your sandbox, if you have one of those, or just in your assignments, but not launched inside of your modules, or whatever else it is. So you don’t have to worry about it kind of being in the way, if you don’t want it to be.

Tim Van Norman 20:01
Nice, cool.

Brent Warner 20:05
Well, we got a few ideas. I hope if you got your own ideas launched from these, that’s great. Or if you want to take some of those ideas yourself, please do. And hopefully that’ll just save you a little bit of time, a little bit of heartache as you step into the fall semester. You don’t have to worry about stepping into the fall semester right now as you’re listening. You’re listening, hopefully, depending on when you’re listening. But, you know, just kind of getting that idea out there is like, “Hey, how do we start prepping?” And you know, what is it? A penny saved is a penny earned? Or, however those expressions go, all of those.

Tim Van Norman 20:41
Thank you for listening today. For more information about this show, please visit our website at thehigheredtechpodcast.com.

Brent Warner 20:48
As always, we do want your feedback, so please go to thehigheredtechpodcast.com and let us know your thoughts.

Tim Van Norman 20:54
For everyone at IVC that’s listening. If you need help with technology questions, please contact IVC technical support. If you have questions about technology in your classroom, please stop by A-322, or contact me, Tim Van Norman at tvannorman@ivc.edu.

Brent Warner 21:08
And if you want to reach out to me about the show, you can find me on LinkedIn at Brent G Warner. I’m Tim Van Norman and I’m Brent Warner, and we hope this episode has helped you on the road from possibility to actuality. Take care, everybody.