Callie M. Victor
Cathy Felmlee Shanholtz
Abstract
A course planning template we created supports new faculty in planning graduate occupational therapy courses.The template synchronizes in-person and online learning; and addresses curriculum objectives, accreditation standards, and time requirements.
We teach graduate occupational therapy courses and lead our college’s Division of Occupational Therapy at Shenandoah University. If you were to walk into one of our classrooms, you may not be able to identify the faculty member or the student. This is because faculty are not lecturing at the front of the room; instead faculty are guiding active learning and application, in collaboration with our students.
The Division’s courses are taught in a hybrid style, blending in-person and asynchronous, online learning. To organize face-to-face activities and online learning activities that are aligned with learning objectives, and adhere to time allotments needed for accreditation, a weekly organizing guide, Hybrid Weekly Planning template (Figure 1), initially created for our own course planning, has been adopted for all new faculty within the Division. New faculty in the Occupational Therapy (OT) programs and faculty who are teaching a course for the first time are provided with the template and are required to utilize it for the development of course materials, the first time they teach a course.
We have found that faculty, even those with prior teaching experience at the graduate level and highly accomplished in the occupational therapy field, struggle with the development of course materials for a course that requires both in-person and asynchronous, online teaching and learning.The template allows new faculty to organize their weekly online and in-person content, and provide our students with a cohesive learning experience.The template organizes multiple methods of instruction, by aligning course objectives with content and assignments.
When important weekly planning aspects are broken down into categories, it allows faculty to visualize all the required aspects of hybrid teaching,
in an organized manner.
The template was designed to facilitate learning as a process, and includes important topics connected to our occupational therapy focus: occupation. Focus on process while teaching topics relevant to occupation supports “think and link.” Introduced by Maralynne D. Mitcham, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, think and link requires instructors to conduct solid pedagogical planning for the learning process, not just the learning product (Mitcham, 2014). Faculty must think critically about their pedagogical approaches and how the approaches translate to learning outcomes for their adult learners. In order to do this, there are many aspects that must be considered concurrently, such as curriculum, instruction, and assessment, which the template supports and organizes.
Template‘s Content
The template has eight columns with the following headings: Week, Weekly Objectives, ACOTE Standards, Content Area, Proxy Time, Lecture/Video, Online Teaching Plan/Interactive Time, and Face to Face Teaching Plan. Instructors receive the Hybrid Weekly Planning guide with the information in each column filled-in; except for the information in the final column, Face to Face Teaching Plan, which the instructor determines.
Week. The first column of the Weekly Planning Guide is the week of the semester (one-fifteen). It corresponds to weekly modules set-up in Canvas, our learning management system.
Weekly Objectives. Weekly objectives each correspond to a specific learning stage of Bloom’s Taxonomy: understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create (Armstrong, 2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy is utilized in our program to support our spiral curriculum model with content that builds from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, as students move along the continuum from lower to higher order thinking skills within and across their courses.
ACOTE Standards. The third column has Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) standards to be addressed that week.The ACOTE standards are educational benchmarks, with which accredited occupational therapy programs must demonstrate compliance. Including the column with ACOTE standards, allows faculty to target assessment(s) of learning in a manner that includes tangible evidence of ACOTE standards accomplishment, which can be submitted to ACOTE for review.
Content Area. The fourth column is the content areas covered. It provides an overview of the weekly topic(s) or themes that are listed in the course’s syllabus.
Proxy Time. Proxy Time is time students engage with course materials on their own. This may include readings, research, study time, exam preparation, review of audio/visual media such as Panopto recordings or Zoom recordings, and other course assignments. Zoom recordings students may view for Proxy Time are a faculty member, solo in the Zoom “meeting,” delivering a lecture or message to the students. Within the Zoom platform, faculty members can share their screen to show a slide show or other instructional material during the recording, to supplement their speaking. Panopto is another software that allows recording lectures, to be delivered remotely. Within Panopto, multiple cameras and screens can be used, and therefore, slide shows or other instructional material can be recorded and quizzes can be embedded for interactivity and knowledge checks. The inclusion of Proxy Time on the Hybrid Weekly Planning template is to meet federal regulations for instructional time.
Lecture/Video.The sixth column lists specific lectures and videos or multimedia that are delivered virtually, asynchronously. These could either be with instructor interaction, such as embedded quizzes in a lecture; or Proxy Time activities, without instructor interaction. This column is included to help estimate interactive instruction and Proxy Time, based on the purpose of the lecture(s) and video(s).
Online Teaching/Interactive Time. For the online component to be considered instructional, there must be a component of interaction between students and the instructor. Online, asynchronous, student/instructor interactive activities typically include quizzes, exams, guided online discussions, and instructor assignments.These activities ensure we diversify our students’ activities and that we are meeting the minimal regional and federal instruction time requirements. Instructors interact with course participants, asynchronously online using Canvas, our learning management system, or other interactive platforms such as Google Docs, Flipgrid or Padlet. Canvas offers various interactive options within its management system, but also integrates with hundreds of other digital applications allowing faculty and students endless opportunities to engage with one another in a virtual environment.
Face to Face Teaching Plan. In the eighth column are the faculty member’s plans for what they want to provide in face to face (in-person) instruction that week. Face to face activities typically include large and small group discussions, skills demonstrations, group and individual projects and presentations.The column also states the number of minutes the course will meet on-campus each week. This column is included to ensure, not only are we meeting our required instructional times, but that our weekly objectives and Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) standards are being met.
Time Requirements
The number of minutes or hours in each column of the Hybrid Weekly Planning template reflect amount of time, each week, for interactive instructional time and proxy time (learning students do on their own) that will total, in fifteen weeks, what is required for accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and federal regulations, for a three-credit course (see Appendix). Additionally, if one week is heavier on online instruction or proxy time, the amount of time in that category can be reduced another week, to still meet accreditation, total semester, minimum time requirements.
Acquiring and Using Knowledge
Use of the template reviews or imparts faculty’s knowledge of Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) standards, as faculty see on the template how each week’s learning objectives connect to ACOTE standards. Equally the template scaffolds faculty’s knowledge and use of Bloom’s Taxonomy for planning learning activities, since faculty see on the template how each week’s learning objectives connect to a Bloom’s Taxonomy stage. The template supports faculty’s use of this knowledge, since faculty members choose and provide the in-person (face-to-face) teaching and learning activities, based on the weekly learning objectives.
Hybrid Teaching and Learning
The hybrid course design requires highly interactive content, which promotes a community of learners both online and face to face. In our Occupational Therapy program, the hybrid model refers to a course in which 50-74% of course delivery is completed online. Our students are only in the classroom one day a week; therefore, online and face to face interactions and instruction must both reflect best practices in course design and delivery.
Contrary to many instructors’ initial concerns, the hybrid approach invariably increases learner engagement and interactivity in a course. One of the primary fears expressed by faculty about hybrid courses is that they will lose contact with their learners. In our experience, just the opposite occurs.The hybrid model allows for increased learner engagement and interactions within the course (Aycock et al., 2002), by allowing flexibility of when and where learning is completed when outside the classroom. Hybrid courses encourage instructors to develop new ways to engage their learners online and foster online communities. This greater online interaction, then also emerges in the face to face classroom, for example, in collaborative assignments. The hybrid model provides an educational platform for individuals who may not otherwise have access to our Occupational Therapy program, resulting in a more diverse applicant pool and better work, life, and school balance for our students
Mentors
Supporting use of the template and for support, in general, new faculty members are assigned a faculty mentor. The mentor and the new instructor meet weekly, for the first semester of teaching, to support the faculty person’s growth and success in the new teaching role. During this time, the mentor and the new faculty member collaborate on course content development, through use of the template. If something is not working or understandable in the template, the mentor and the new faculty member work together to personalize or improve it.
Reflections
Our template has evolved and expanded during our years teaching to capture more details, such as the addition of the Lecture/Video column which helps to determine weekly content addressed and required proxy or instructional times. When soliciting feedback about use of the template during a mentoring meeting, a new faculty member’s recommendation for enhancement of the template included “…having a small header above each week, with the times, would minimize scrolling and improve efficiency when actively using the template.” This feedback is helpful and easy to implement to improve the template’s practicality for new users.
Preparing and delivering content, assignments, and feedback for adult learners, in a course that is embedded within an accredited program, has its challenges. Faculty, new to Division of Occupational Therapy or new to a particular course, benefit from use of the Hybrid Weekly Planning template and related mentorship to support their deeper professional learning. When important weekly planning aspects are broken down into categories, it allows faculty to visualize all the required aspects of hybrid teaching in an organized manner – scaffolding the deeper professional learning outcome of acquiring and using acquired knowledge. Our students therefore benefit, engaging in acquiring, analyzing, and applying conceptual knowledge; and demonstrated by our Occupational Therapy program’s positive graduation rates, national licensure exam pass rates, and post-graduation job attainment.
References
Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved August 8,
2022 from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/
Aycock, A., Garnham, C., and Kaleta, R. (2002). Lessons learned from the hybrid course project.
Learning Technology Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Mitcham, M. D. (2014). Education as engine (Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture). American Journal of
Occupational Therapy, 68, 636–648.
Appendix
Table 1
Callie M. Victor, PhD, OTR/L is Associate Professor and Program Director, MSOT and Associate Director, Division of Occupational Therapy, Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia. Dr. Victor can be reached at cvictor@su.edu.
Cathy Felmlee Shanholtz, OTD, MEd, OTR/L is Associate Professor and Program Director, OTD, Division Director, Division of Occupational Therapy, Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia. Dr. Shanholtz can be reached at cshanhol2@su.edu.