How to transform live courses into online courses
Hi, I'm Sean Tackett, a general internist on the faculty at Johns Hopkins, Bayview Medical Center. And today I'd like to talk to you about how to take your curriculum from offline to online.
And so I think to get us started familiarize you with some terms. I'd like to briefly look at the evolution of educational technologies.
And so the first technology that we had to educate was our voices. And so in the beginning, things were passed on through all tradition.
And so this was audio only communication, it was passed synchronously. So you had to be there to experience it and it could only cover short distances.
Great communication improved on that in the sense that it allowed some visual communication to come through and was asynchronous so that it could expand generations.
Um and it could also cover longer distances. So letters and books, they could be passed across geography and people could read them.
Uh people could respond to letters and submit replies and so on where we actually got into having synchronous communication that crossed long distances was with telegraph, telephone.
And these are primarily against still audio, no component, but at least able to communicate more in real time. Television gave us our first glimpse of what it would look like to have audio visual combined into video um over long distances synchronously.
Although it's primarily one direction, I think where online and mobile technologies are most useful is that they allow audio and visual exchange that can be synchronous or asynchronous or basically continuous.
Um And they can cover any distance and again with mobile, they're ubiquitous. So there's essentially all the boundaries that used to exist are now blurred or gone.
And so with such powerful tools at our disposal, how can we use them wisely? Um And so I think, you know, first things, first, if you're thinking about converting offline to online, uh you need to make sure that you stick with educational theory principles, science.
So for example, you know, make sure that whatever you're doing aligns with the needs assessment of your learners, it aligns with your learning objectives.
It's suitable for your context. It's feasible.
Given the resources that you have available with online, in particular, it's helpful to think about equitable access to online materials, both for your students and for your faculty.
So next, if you're convinced that it makes sense for you to go from offline to online or you have no choice because you're being told that you have to um what are some ways to do it.
And so I like to think about conversion from traditional to online. Um in in a few different categories.
So first is synchronous to synchronous. Next is asynchronous to asynchronous synchronous to asynchronous and then thinking about assessment separately.
No, do just two brief examples to kind of tie it together. So synchronous synchronous tends to be fairly straightforward.
So talking about converting sort of live in class sessions to fully online sessions. Really what you need here is a good video conferencing software and and so Zoom is one of the more popular ones.
There are others like go to meeting blue jeans, Google Hangout Skype. Um They all do pretty much the same thing.
So they allow you to exchange audio and visual communication with your learners. You can often see your learners on the screen and monitor their, their expressions or body language.
Uh They, they typically have a screen share function where you can share your computer screen or they can share their screens for demonstration purposes.
They often have a chat function so that students can put in comments or have dialogue without interrupting whoever is speaking.
So the function that video conferencing software has uh can replicate almost all of what you would ever need for for a live class session, converting from asynchronous to asynchronous.
Uh This is also fairly straightforward and so what we're talking about here is reusable learning objects. And so traditionally thinking these could be readings or textbook chapters or more modern terms, you can think about video files that you've been sharing or audio files or different podcast recommendations that you've been thinking about.
And so going from offline to online is all fairly straightforward because they can be housed in a learning management system or if you don't have a learning management system or if you're not used to using the one that you have, um you can often do the same thing in a document sharing resource such as uh Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft on Drive or any other collaborative document sharing platform.
So I think what people often get hung up is the conversion from synchronous to asynchronous. And so this is where you're taking something that you've traditionally done live and to something that is now done where everybody experiences a different thing at a different point in time.
So converting from synchronous to asynchronous does involve more planning because you can't adjust on the fly in synchronous sessions to what your learners are doing or the feedback they're giving you, you have to kind of anticipate what they might think um and prepare.
The the big advantage is if you've taken the time to prepare and once the enduring material is created and available on asynchronously, then the standard is always the same and students can access it anytime anywhere often.
What we're talking about here is converting a live presentation to something that is recorded and available. As so for many educators and the health professions, this will be a presentation they gave with powerpoint slides attached to them.
The easiest way to convert to a recorded powerpoint presentation is to use powerpoints audio record function which is free and it's included in the software.
I think one step beyond that would be using video conferencing software and presenting your powerpoint slides as you speak to them and recording as you do that.
Because almost all video conferencing Softwares allow you to do that. I think one step beyond that would be using a dedicated video recording software such as Panto or CSIA, which are popular ones.
Often these come at a fee if they are not provided to you by your institution. Um And then some institutions actually offer sort of a video recording service where you can go to their studio and you can work with a team and it may be a teleprompter and they can edit it and they get very professional, whatever you do, they, they're liable to be many options to you from the, the free, cheap and easy powerpoint to something more professional.
Um And it's just mainly gonna depend on locally what you have available to you. I think another thing that many educators struggle with when they're going from offline to online is how can I maintain discussions with my students or how students with one another.
And so I think that there are again a lot variety of tools available to you. So one would be the old discussion post board and their learning management system emails can function.
But I think increasingly learners are expecting and, and wanting to use social media platforms. And so whatsapp Facebook groups or their social media um that are available to them on their mobile devices.
These have a lot of advantages because students are probably already using them and they all with their mobile devices and so they can be accessed anywhere.
Um And then I think the big advantage from an educational standpoint is it allows them to share any kind of media that they want.
So not limited to text based, but it's very easy for them to share photographs or perhaps audio recordings or videos that they've taken through their mobile device.
So now we thought a lot about converting traditional teaching and learning methods to online briefly. Let's talk about assessment.
So for formative assessment tends not to be that difficult because you flash cards, case based questions, virtual patients, other online formative assessments can be accessed by students.
There is no risk they should be accessing that because testing and space retrieval enhance your learning. So summative assessments that need to be given more attention.
So summit of assessments have consequences and if they're low stakes summit of assessments, it's just partial credit for a course, administering them through learning management system is usually ok.
Um You can even use a simple survey software. Some schools have dedicated exam Softwares for this.
It's the high stakes summit of assessments which require more attention to exam, integrity and security. And so, and here there are Softwares out there that enable remote proctoring, which is probably about as secure as you can go.
Although it does require this extra software, video conferencing software can accomplish many of the same things where you can set up a synchronous session for the students to take their exams and you can just be there present with them and sort of monitor them as you're taking it as you would if you were in a live session, proctoring an exam briefly cover a couple of examples um to tie this together to real life because, you know, in reality, um you won't be converting pieces of your curriculum to other pieces.
You'll be trying to think about models and converting that to an online model. Um It's just just like that.
Uh Lots of the software are not good at everything, they're good at one or two things. So you'll probably need to be engaging with multiple different technologies.
So one is the flip classroom, another is team based learning, which is a version of the flip classroom that's more structured.
So flip classrooms, typically you have students do independent work before a live session where they interact with one another.
And the the teacher um you can do the same thing fully online. You can have them access reusable learning objects or do some preparatory work before they get to their synchronous session.
They can have their synchronous session, students can have it in small groups, you can do it as a full group class or you can even have full group class split into breakout rooms, come back into a full group and discuss um synchronously.
And then often that's facilitated by collaborative document sharing um team based learning ass in that assessment element.
And so you just have to think about how you could have uh an individual assessment often through a learning management system survey, other other exam software as we talked about, followed by uh the team based assessment.
So you may need to have students first start by engaging with each other in small groups, take their, their team based assessment and then go into the application exercise um as part of the full course during a synchronous session.
So in addition to there being dedicated team based learning software, you can actually accomplish the same thing by combining more common software that you probably already have available to you now that I cover the basics of how you can plan to go online when you want to.
What do you do when you don't want to? And you have to anyway.
And so as I'm filming this, we are in the middle of a global pandemic. Um COVID-19 is spreading and is actually shutting down many health profession schools.
And I think a lot of schools are trying to figure out how can we keep our students learning. I'm looking at this in in 22 ways.
So first is nonclinical. So I think converting from nonclinical traditional to nonclinical fully online, probably not that difficult.
And a lot of the tips are already gave you apply. I think some other considerations would be, think about how you can adapt whatever material you wanted to include, to make sure that it's absolutely essential given that students will be under other stress.
And if there are any clinical faculty, they may also be under different kinds of stress. Another thing to consider would be communicating or over communicating expectations with students and keeping them updated regularly, not only about what they are trying to learn, but about sort of what's changing with the course and the learning environment around them.
And then the final consideration for this is to keep it as simple as possible for yourself when you're trying to convert to online.
I think we are in uncharted territory is with the clinical learning that is supposed to be happening around the world and it is not safe for students to engage in at this time.
And so I think until recently, it would be almost a no brainer to just shut down clerkships. Students would have to take a deferment and some extra time learning after it would be safe for them to enter back into the learning environment.
I think now we don't necessarily have to do that. One.
There are technologies that are pretty good at approximating clinical learning skills. There are some virtual reality modalities which aren't quite ready for prime time.
But even virtual patients can allow students to have practice with their diagnostic reasoning processes. And if simulation centers are open and available students can go there and practice even procedural skills, an area that really hasn't been tapped into is how can we engage students in telehealth in the care for patients.
So one example would be having them be on the telephone with patients and help participate in the triage of patients to the adequate testing recommendation or otherwise, another one would be for them to participate with providers in a virtual video visit or even maybe do an independent assessment of a patient and then do tele precept thing with their provider.
And this would allow them the chance to practice a skill that's actually gonna be relevant to them when they get out into practice.
Because telehealth will be an expectation for everybody who engages in the workforce in the future while actually keeping them safe and out of harms away from any infection they might develop.
And they want to be using precious resources such as personal protective equipment which may be in short supply. So covered a lot of territory.
I would like to just highlight a few, take home points to try to tie it together for you. So one online gives you many opportunities to overcome boundaries imposed by space and time.
We can make it continuous and ubiquitous and we can even enhance it in other ways such as through multimedia testing space retrieval.
Um Despite all that potential, make sure that whatever you're doing is aligning with educational principles. Second point is even though the technological possibilities are endless.
Keep it simple for yourself. I'd recommend familiarizing yourself with one video conferencing software, one local learning management system, one way of recording your own presentations, uh One document sharing platform and one online assessment method.
Ideally, these will be the ones that your institution provides for you and supports. However, if you can't find institutional support for them, I think reaching out to the companies that produce these um and asking for help you, you'll be met with lots of willingness to try to help you get through this.
And along the lines, third is you're not alone. And so again, institutional support companies, um colleagues, everybody I think would is gonna be more than willing to try to help you uh get your course online and there's plenty of resources available um for free online.
I think the fourth point I tried to make is an extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Um The trick is just to do your best to keep everybody learning.
Um And keep everybody moving through while keeping everybody safe. And, and then who knows if in a crisis, we will innovate and find new ways of doing things that are better in old ways and emerge from this a little bit better and a little bit stronger as for, as a result.
Thank you. I hope you found this helpful.
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