Education Technology
Twenty-first century learning is undergoing a complete metamorphosis and UF is leading the way. The College of Education’s advancements in educational technology have created a transformative educational experience and, ultimately, a growing force of well-prepared educators.
Picture yourself, if you will, entering a college classroom outfitted with notably different furnishings and equipment, with students engaged in novel lesson activities that you wouldn’t expect to see in a typical lecture hall.
Instead of all seats facing forward, they are arranged in small groups for student-to-student interaction and group discussions. A live video conference is projected on the wall, and another dozen e-learners are logged in and participating from several locations off campus and even in other cities and states. The e-learners use their individual webcams to broadcast their verbal and nonverbal communication—such as facial expressions and gestures—to their instructor and all of their classmates on and off campus.
You join one of several small group discussions taking place, with some students in the same classroom and others who are digitally present. The conversation is happening verbally, textually and visually. Students are gathering, sharing and synthesizing information. They may even be creating a lesson-related report, poster, Powerpoint presentation or other “learning artifact” for evaluation and grading. The instructor is facilitating this learning exercise that is at once both highly independent and collaborative.
Thanks to recent improvements in technology, the classroom scene described above now can be experienced in reality, not just in our minds. The integration of face-to-face and distance learning takes place daily in classrooms across the UF campus. During the past two years, the College of Education has merged and tested several concurrent or “synchronous” online teaching methods. The goal: to open up new learning opportunities to students around the state, nation and world.
Synchronous online learning comprises live lessons and conversations commonly delivered in real time by videoconferencing, threaded discussions and other media such as Skype, instant messaging and live chat.
UF education professors are blending synchronous e-learning in real time with the methods of both traditional classroom coursework and self-paced (or “asynchronous”) online learning. The latter approach delivers coursework via web, email and message boards that are then posted on online forums. Instant messaging is not available on Web-based platforms, but students have the advantage of being able to watch the videotaped lectures anytime from anywhere.
“With synchronous learning, you can ask questions and immediately discuss the answers with the teacher and fellow students participating in different places,” says Jason Arnold, who heads the UF College of Education’s e-learning programs, which U.S. News & World Report has ranked first among all American education colleges for two consecutive years.
“Our students tell us the synchronous online learning makes them feel more connected with fellow students and part of a community—a learning community—instead of isolated and just communicating with a computer,” he adds.
Kelli Peck Parrott, a UF clinical professor and instructor in legal issues in higher education, calls her blending of asynchronous and synchronous online learning elements as “critical in teaching higher education law.”
“For most student affairs and higher education administrators, learning to infuse legal reasoning into their work is difficult and counterintuitive,” Parrott says. “Using Zoom (videoconferencing software) and meeting in a live, virtual classroom environment allowed students to discuss, deliberate and grapple with difficult concepts together in a way that increased their learning exponentially.
“It offers the best of both worlds—the flexibility and independence of an online course with the deeper learning that occurs in engaged, guided, face-to-face discourse.”
Rachelle “Shelly” Curcio, a recent Ph.D. graduate in Curriculum, Teaching and Teacher Education, used synchronous teaching methods in her UF doctoral studies to help pilot the distance observation and evaluation of pre-service teachers on their field experiences and internships.
The UF teachers-in-training shared recorded video of their instructional practice with their faculty advisors and mentoring classroom teachers. The mentors provided time-stamped video feedback, matching their comments to the corresponding time in their video. The host classroom teachers and advising UF professors could have follow-up synchronous online conversations with the student-interns and together analyze specific practices observed in their videos.
“The use of synchronous video discussions around teaching in practice has allowed us to have focused teacher-coaching conversations with a deep reflection on data,” Curcio says. “This mirrored the conversations I would have side-by-side with students when we were actually in the same room. It gives every student the opportunity to participate in a coherent coaching process no matter where they are located.”
Curcio, who received the College of Education’s 2017 Outstanding Professional Practice Award for graduate students, says the pre-service teachers “loved the daily connectivity with peers and to UF.”
Aida Valdez, a recent graduate and participant in the statewide pilot program, adds, “The synchronous discussion around the recorded video provided an opportunity to review your own work and check your understanding of the content you are designated to teach.”
Jason Arnold says the live interactions that characterize synchronous learning address one of the major criticisms that have shadowed online learning since its infancy:
“Merging traditional, self-paced online learning with the live conversations and feedback you get with synchronous e-learning has boosted excitement and engagement among both students and professors in our online program,” Arnold said. “It is a transformational step forward in our approach to learning.
“And it’s fun to watch it unfold.”
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