UPDATED: 5+5 Tips for Educators Scrambling to Convert Classes to Online for Covid19 Shelter-in-Place!

UPDATE: KEY POINT - CONVERTING TO ONLINE IS A CHALLENGE IN THE BEST OF CIRCUMSTANCES. BE PATIENT WITH TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNET BANDWIDTH STRAINS DURING THESE UNPRECEDENTED TIMES. GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK. STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD IF YOU GET FRUSTRATED. WE WILL ALL GET THROUGH THIS.

Have you been directed to wave your magic wand and get your learning content online? With a deadline of yesterday?

As an online course creator, I'd like to offer five tips for the thousands of educators around the world have been directed to rapidly migrate their traditional live classes to online delivery.  

I know this must be generating tremendous stress. In dozens of communications with fellow educators who are scrambling to build their courses online, the common theme is that they are being asked to build Rome in a day. Having built more online courses than I care to count, I feel your pain.

Talk about painful! Be mindful that there has never been a more challenging time to be migrating your learning to the virtual world. Online learning and collaboration platforms, as well as the entire ecosystem of our digital world is strained!

Your live sessions will likely have audio and video hiccups. Loading and downloading in online classrooms might be slower. You might even experience service disruption. Just breathe.

The first four tips are directed at helping you through the course build process. The fifth tip actually has five sub-tips. It is the BIGGIE. Why is #5 so important?

There are aspects of your live class that you KNOW can't be effectively delivered online. At Sherpa, even with our certifications primarily delivered online, we also know that LIVE Onsite Sessions yields better student comprehension and the opportunity for the instructor to witness application of techniques. In Tip 5, I'll share five ideas for overcoming that loss of limbic resonance, that magical emotional human connection that happens in your on-campus classroom.

If you have any additional ideas, please share them. Hopefully you will find these tips helpful for yourself and your students. If so, please like, comment and share!

Tip 1: Transparency

Be transparent with your institution's leadership about where you are in the process and where you are having challenges. I've heard too many educators lament that they are expected to migrate their courses online in a rush, with little to no prior experience doing so. There is no shame in raising a red flag that you, yourself are facing a learning curve!

Transparency with your students (and parents if you're in primary or secondary) is also important. You will likely be building and teaching simultaneously. If you feel like you're not putting your best work out there, or it is not polished to your standards, then say it!  

Tip 2: Have Patience and a Realistic Plan

At Sherpa, we have 4 phases of course build. 1) Preliminary Design (too much detail here to describe), 2) Alpha (inner circle participants only in rough course - lectures often by Webex), 3) Beta (participants understand that course is still not final - recorded lectures not considered final, no transcripted workbooks, etc.), 4) Final Release, with continual improvement.

Each phase of the above process takes months, with the entire process adding up to 12-18 months. You've surely not been given several months, so it is natural to feel overwhelmed. 

Again, be patient with yourself, your students and the whole digital ecosystem, when learning and collaboration platforms, much less internet bandwidth are strained!

Tip 3: Collaboration & Cross-Critique

So, you are an educator who has been directed to simply wave that magic online wand and migrate your live courses. You might be putting your blinders on to get YOUR course(s) converted to online. Believe me, you will get more done, with better quality, if you collaborate with at least 2 colleagues on your classes and help them with theirs.

Why 2 colleagues? There is substantial research (Bowen Theory, Tribal Leadership), that a triad is the most stable human relationship structure. So, rather than just pairing up, create triads to get through this Herculean effort. Divide and conquer the tasks, provide reviews for each other and give each other support.

Tip 4: Look at the Silver Lining

This is an extremely challenging undertaking. But the fruit of your labor will be of value beyond the current crisis. You'll be more resilient as an educator and your students will have new learning and interpersonal skills. Knowing this will help when you feel like throwing your hands up!

Tip 5 - THE BIGGIE: Preserving Limbic Resonance

As an educator, your class tunes into you emotionally, and your response to your students then tunes you into them. You are surely familiar with the natural cycle of the school year, and you know that the months when your class hits its stride is sandwiched by ramping up and winding down. During that productive period in between, you and your students are tuned into each other. 

That’s limbic resonance. It is the magical emotional chemistry that binds us as humans*. And boy, it is nearly impossible to replicate that online! And it is probably one of the big things that gets you out of bed on Monday morning.

But only nearly impossible…

There are several things that you can do to preserve some portion of limbic resonance: 

a. Create provocative discussions in your online classroom, that get your students thinking about their values, personal biases, fears and aspirations.

b. In online class discussions, encourage dissenting views. When a student posts a different viewpoint, offer praise for contributing to the class. Sharing dissenting views takes practice. If students miss the mark on respectfully or collegial thought-sharing, then use this as a teachable moment. Sanitizing the discussion board by deleting comments is a missed opportunity.

c. Require a minimum of two substantive replies to other students' posts. Be sure your students understand what substantive means. It is not enough to comment, "Great points, Fred! I enjoyed reading your post." Model what you expect, by identifying a few substantive replies in the discussion board and then providing substantive feedback yourself. Rather than, "Good Job, Susan!", post something like, "Susan, your feedback to Fred on his Project Charter was insightful. Thank you for sharing your viewpoint on his scope potential being too broad, and concerns that he might not get organizational support."

d. Drive participation early-mid-late week. Post more than one question weekly and post multi-part questions. Require an initial post to ANY of the questions early week, then another mid week and wrap up late week. This keeps momentum because a student might hold back on replying to one question, but have a reply for another one ready quickly. Use any tools available, such as badges, or post "likes" to reward timely participation.

e. Use live virtual tools as much and as completely as possible. WebEx, Skype, Zoom, Goto Meeting, WorkPlace video...the options are seemingly endless. When you hold live sessions, be sure that your head is in the game. Get ready for video and minimize distractions. Since your likely holding the sessions from home, don't worry if the dog barks or baby cries. This is real life in extraordinary times. Require or at least encourage your students to join with their cameras on. This will help you to maintain that awesome limbic resonance.

Remember, though - live sessions will likely have bandwidth issues that impact your audio and video. Just breathe. And smile:)

So there you go. 5+5 Tips that I hope you can use! Hopefully the UPDATE is helpful, as well - BE PATIENT WITH THE STRAINED SYSTEM!!!

If you have any tips, personal experiences or questions, please do share in the comments, and if you know anyone who might find this helpful, please share!

Meanwhile, stay healthy...

*Limbic resonance is beautifully described in the books Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and the late Henry Lodge (there are versions for men & women). I highly recommend reading - it might just change your life!