Angela Atkinson Duina

Abstract

By posing to myself a reflections question, I developed five principles to elicit deeper learning outcomes in my online graduate courses, and overcame a professional challenge.

     I teach in a graduate education leadership program, where my colleagues and I prepare professionals to become administrators or for other leadership roles. In 2020, our program made a major shift to offer asynchronous online courses and, subsequently, my instructional strategies also shifted. When the department’s shift to asynchronous online courses was imminent, I regularly heard instructors lament the loss of in-classroom discussions and wonder aloud how we could prepare leaders to lead their organizations in-person, through online courses. I, myself, bemoaned the switch to online discussion forums, which I feared would be stilted and contrived.

How can I create a rich, engaging, and productive discussion for adult learners in the asynchronous online setting?

Mind Frame

     In Spring 2020, I found myself uncertain of online courses’ benefits, as I planned my asynchronous online, accelerated (seven-week) courses. As irony would have it, one of the course readings was John Hattie’s book,Visible Learning for Teachers (2012), which includes discussion of mind frames. I could not avoid reflecting on my own mind frame and how it might be affecting my instruction in our discussion forums and, as a result, impacting course participants’ opportunities to demonstrate deeper learning outcomes, such as effective communications, working collaboratively, and thinking carefully/critically.

     More typically, I am energized by my work, where I support aspiring leaders in developing professional judgment, ways of analyzing, problem-solving, and a sense of shared values that can serve as foundations in their future roles. But, clearly, my frame of mind about online courses was inhibiting the growth of a culture, where this could happen.

Self-Reflection Question

“Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings.” (Postman, 2011, p.173)

      Recognizing my perspective could be hindering best learning outcomes for my graduate students, I turned to a self-question strategy that encourages thinking critically and creatively, to help solve challenges. My self-question strategy is aligned with learning and problem-solving processes written about by Postman (2011), for example, who states: “Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings” (p.173).

      I wrote out the following question in the notebook on my desk: “How can I create a rich, engaging, and productive discussion for adult learners in the asynchronous online setting?” In framing the problem as a challenge I could solve, my mind frame shifted, and I began to engage more thoughtfully in the design of discussion forums. I identified a set of five principles (see Table 1) to support deeper learning outcomes I want my students to strengthen and demonstrate: thinking carefully/critically, using knowledge, and working collaboratively.

Table 1
Five Online Discussion Principles

– Be explicit about course culture.
– Identify the purpose of discussions.
– Create relevant and inclusive prompts.
– Support participants with strategies they can use to respond meaningfully to their colleagues.
– Synthesize the discussion into usable knowledge, with personalization.

     Be explicit about course culture. In addition to being online and asynchronous, many of our courses are also seven weeks in duration, so being explicit, from the outset, about the type of culture we are co-creating helps learners to quickly focus on what is important, in terms of their engagement. It also models a common practice of professional leaders. In my courses, I name the following values in my communications about course culture: professional judgment, critical thinking, questioning, alternative and diverse perspectives, respect, trust, support, and care. While we work collaboratively to live these values in all areas of the course, the discussion forum is where many student-student interactions happen and so is a prime place for putting these values into practice.

     Identify the purpose of discussions. While there can be many purposes for classroom discussions, the purpose I identify as central to the leadership courses I teach is supporting the development of professional judgment. Daniel Duke (2019) defines judgment as “the ability to arrive at and make a choice when faced with incomplete information, uncertain conditions, and/or competing goals and values” (p.191). A prompt, related to a case study describing a new principal asked to make changes in a middle school, supports the development of professional judgment (see Table 2).

Table 2
Prompt to Support Development of Professional Judgment

If you were the principal, how many people would you have on your school improvement committee and who would be on it? Why? If you don’t think using a committee to manage change and conflict is the approach you would take in this situation, explain your approach and the rationale behind it.

Note: This is an excerpt from a detailed, multi-part prompt.

     Through discussion forums, where thinking is transparently presented in writing, participants can easily see how different people display professional judgment with different or similar conclusions, in a given context. I find this kind of setting encourages critical thinking and places value on clear and effective communications. 

     Create relevant and inclusive prompts. In determining whether prompts are engagingly relevant and inclusive, I consider the course’s learning outcomes, professional standards, and the various contexts and roles of all learners. In some instances, this may mean providing choice that allows course participants to respond to cases most relevant to them. In a discussion of districts that have demonstrated above average growth in student learning, for example, three cases are offered to course participants: an urban city case, a rural district case, and a suburban district case.

     Another way participants are empowered, is that sometimes they have the opportunity to pose their own prompts and questions. One such prompt, on effective teams, below, asks participants to apply a strategy for team development from the course or from their own practice and discuss how useful it was while also considering a set of criteria for effective teams:

Choose a tool or strategy from our course materials or from your own research or practice. After you have used the tool or strategy, discuss why you chose the strategy or tool and how useful it was in supporting the development of an effective team. Also discuss other strategies you have seen used, or used yourself, to improve the effectiveness of teams. How have these worked and why? (As a reminder, consider the criteria for effective teams included in our reading.)

     Support participants with strategies they can use to respond meaningfully to their colleagues. Building a discussion forum, where thinking carefully/critically and creatively for challenge-solving occurs, requires that participants respond to their colleagues’ discussion posts, in a way that advances learning and growth and moves beyond simple, polite affirmations. One of the strategies I advise participants to use is 3CQ (Stewart-Mitchell, 2020), where participants write responses that Compliment, Comment, Connect, and Question (see Table 3). Though this strategy, originally, was developed for middle school grade learners, adult learners appreciate guidance on how to craft most meaningful responses. The 3CQ strategy is powerful for forwarding the deeper learning outcome of thinking carefully/critically for problem-solving, since it makes asking questions of others and their thinking part of the norm in online discussions.

John Campbell’s (2016) GROWTH protocol for coaching and question development (see Table 4) is another strategy I encourage course participants to use.

Table 4
GROWTH Strategy

Goals: What do you need or want to achieve?
Reality: What is happening now?
Options: What could you do?
Will: What will you do?
Tactics: How and when will you do it?
Habits: How will this be sustained?

     Synthesize the discussion into usable knowledge, with personalization.  At the conclusion of all discussions, I synthesize what participants can take away, making sure to emphasize how the ideas and concepts contribute to professional judgment and how the knowledge can be used in the field. In these synthesizing communications, which I call Discussion Wrap-Ups, I also highlight exemplary work of individuals with quotes from their posts. Through the weeks, all participants eventually have some aspect of their work or thinking showcased. (See Table 5). The Discussion Wrap-Ups support deeper learning outcomes, for example, of acquiring and being able to use knowledge and working collaboratively

Table 5
Discussion Wrap-Up

     There were some great posts this week and a number of you answered parts of our prompts key question through your posts. Many of you also discussed how the environment, roles, policies, and goals have impacted the organizations you’ve worked in. Since an important part of the discussion in our asynchronous courses is the exchange that happens among course participants, this week I’m highlighting some of the great ideas and insights related to this week’s topic – the structural frame – that came up in these exchanges:

Kira, Miranda and Lindsey discussed how vision, goals and clear expectations help staff members to perform their roles effectively in a school setting. This theme also surfaced in Lisa’s post regarding healthcare organizations and in Lindsey, Beth and Brianna’s discussion of their school districts.

Carre’s exchange with Kayli highlighted some benefits of horizontal coordination within a department. Carre shared how the team she leads is working to establish a “one team” approach. Instead of working on “specialty” goals, they are working to define and advance team goals and cross-training staff so that they can perform different roles as needed. In response to this, Kayli noted how understanding different nursing roles/ perspectives helped her to see complex situations differently.

Rob offered a keen observation of how these discussions allow us to see what others are struggling with or where they are advancing the same issues that we are focused on in our own organizations. I especially appreciate his perspective that it’s often not bad intentions that cause our good ideas to flounder; it may just be structural:
“… It is not bad intentions that cause good ideas to flounder, it seems they are mostly structural…The diagram from the readings shows crisscrossing lines of communication. I think, often times, those lines aren’t as strong as they need to be...” – Rob
     As Rob notes, our communication lines, the infrastructure that keeps us connected across different roles in our organization and that keeps us connected to vision, mission, and goals need constant upkeep. As a leader, how can you make sure this essential work gets to the top of your priorities every week?

Note: The above are excerpts.

Reflections

      As I reflect on the five principles and the evolution in my thinking and attitude, I recognize how teaching – and especially the exercise of intentionally honing one’s practice – can lead to deeper learning for instructors. In this case, reframing my discontent into a problem that I knew I could solve enabled me to think critically and creatively to solve a personal and practical challenge. As I continued iterations of elevating my practice in asynchronous discussions, I had opportunities to clarify my thinking, resulting in more effective communications with course participants. I also saw the tangible benefits of using my newly solidified online discussion principles in the work and engagement of course participants, who posted more frequently and whose responses were richer with connections. While I have yet to test the numbers empirically, there seems to be evidence of improvement on discussion-related items in my course evaluations. Statistics in the learning management platform indicate that, on average, students are reading more posts in the discussion forums.  

     As my commitment to deeper learning through rich, engaging and productive discussions continues to evolve, I recognize that there is room for more learner leadership in the forums. One step in this direction has come from working with graduate teaching assistants, who are former course participants and who I’ve mentored in leading the discussion forums and in crafting the Discussion Wrap-Ups.  

     What excites me, just as much as the above recognitions and reflections, is the opportunity to use this same process of reframing my discontent into a solvable problem, in other areas of my teaching practice. For someone who thrives on seeing improvements in a classroom or in organizations, online course spaces are great laboratories for testing changes that may lead to improvements. 

References

Campbell, J. (2016). Framework for practitioners 2: The GROWTH model. In C. van Nieuwerburgh
     (Ed.), Coaching in professional contexts (pp. 235–240). Sage.

Duke, D.L. (2019). Judgment and the preparation of educational leaders. Journal of Research on 
     Leadership Education.14(3),191-211. doi:10.1177/1942775117752455

Hattie, J., & Zierer, K. (2017). 10 Mindframes for visible learning: Teaching for success. Routledge.

Postman, N. (2011). The end of education: Redefining the value of school. Vintage.

Stewart-Mitchell, J. (2020). Blogging about books. Educational Leadership, 77(7), 68-73.

Angela Atkinson Duina, EdD is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Southern Maine, Gorham, Maine. Angela Atkinson Duina can be reached at atkinsonduina@maine.edu.