Open to change following the pandemic and remote teaching? If so, what now?

Concurrent Session 3
Leadership

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

In this session, we will introduce a change model for post-remote instruction in online and blended education. This session will invite participants to apply ideas and concepts from the session to implement at their local institution, with opportunities to follow-up at a future OLC conference.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Tawnya Means, University of Illinois - Gies College of Business

Dr. Tawnya Means is the Assistant Dean for Educational Innovation and Chief Learning Officer in the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Prior to this role, Tawnya served as the Assistant Dean and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center for the College of Business at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida, leading teaching and learning support and providing faculty development programs and resources for instructional innovation and adoption of pedagogical best practices. With 20 years of experience in higher education, course design, and educational consulting, Tawnya has also taught courses in entrepreneurship, strategy, technology, and leadership in remote teams. Dr. Means received her B.S. in Education, M.S. in Educational Technology, and Ph.D. in Information Science and Learning Technologies with an emphasis on learning systems design, all from the University of Missouri. She completed the AACSB Post-doctoral bridge program in Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Florida. Her research interests are in online and blended learning, active learning, learning space design, technology for teaching, access to digital learning resources, and faculty preparation to teach. She has long been a leader in campus initiatives and committees and actively presents at conferences and other institutions and organizations on technology-enhanced learning.

Co-presenter: Kelvin Thompson, University of Central Florida

A popular speaker and facilitator, Dr. Kelvin Thompson regularly addresses groups throughout the US on topics related to online/blended learning and educational technology while he serves as the Executive Director of the University of Central Florida's (UCF) Center for Distributed Learning (http://cdl.ucf.edu) with a faculty appointment as a graduate faculty scholar in UCF's College of Education & Human Performance. Dr. Thompson has collaborated on the design of hundreds of online and blended courses over the past twenty years and is active in the online education community. Kelvin developed the BlendKit Course open courseware (http://bit.ly/blendkit) as part of UCF's Blended Learning Toolkit, and he also co-hosts TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast available on iTunes and at http://topcast.online.ucf.edu. His personal research interests center around how interaction affects learner engagement, and information on his Online Course Criticism qualitative evaluation model for facilitating the scholarship of teaching and learning in online and blended environments is available online (http://onlinecoursecriticism.com). Kelvin Thompson holds an EdD in curriculum and instruction and an MA in instructional systems technology from UCF and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from The Florida State University. Curriculum vitae is available online at http://bit.ly/kelvin_cv.

Extended Abstract

As a result of two years of responding to a global pandemic, all who work in online education are more accustomed than ever to dealing with constant change. We have seen an increase in the number of faculty and academic programs with which we are working, and some disciplines that formerly eschewed online teaching and learning are now open to considering what online learning might mean for them post-remote instruction. However, responding to changing circumstances is not quite the same thing as taking the initiative to lead change at the individual and organizational level. Deliberately leading change can have a clarifying effect in institutional contexts where “reacting” predominates. In this session, we will introduce a change model for post-remote instruction in online and blended education. Existing change management models will be reviewed briefly and contrasted with the proposed new model (i.e., “Collect the CHANGE” model). An emphasis will be placed upon applicability in field-specific areas such as faculty development, course design/development, technical support, program development, etc.

Session participants will be invited to participate at a personal level in applying the new model within a community of practice following the session. Colleagues will be invited to contribute to a future OLC conference session in which we share insights gained from this collective implementation of the new change model.

This session will be community-building and collaborative in tone. While the facilitators will present their ideas in the context of existing literature, participants will be encouraged to reflect, discuss, and apply during the session in an active learning approach along with having the opportunity to engage in the proposed community of practice beyond the session. Participants need not be in roles of positional leadership in order to benefit from applying the “Collect the CHANGE” model.

Session Outline

  1. Change Management
    1. The need for a new model for our field at this time
    2. Brief review of existing change management models
      1. Poll participants as to person experience with models
      2. Participants share pros/cons of existing models
    3. Introducing the “Collect the CHANGE” Model
      1. Long-term impact of small iterative actions
      2. The CHANGE heuristic 
      3. Examples of the CHANGE heuristic in practice
    4. Hands-on application activity for participants with new model
  2. Community of Practice
    1. Introduce the opportunity to participate in a post-session community
    2. Online tools for participation
    3. Expectation of participation level
    4. Facilitator commitment to compile and share insights with participants
    5. Invitation to contribute to a future OLC conference session as a follow-up to today’s session
      1. Participant discussion
      2. Hands-on opportunity to enroll in online community if desired