Kris Hans
& Erik Christiansen
Kris Hans: Instructor; University of Calgary and Mount Royal University; Canada and Co-Founder of Market Grade
Erik Christiansen: Assistant Professor/Librarian, Mount Royal University, Canada
Kris and Erik: Creators, co-hosts EdTech Examined Podcast
Interviewed August 2020 by Mac McGinn
MM Kris and Erik, why don’t we start by having you introduce yourselves and telling us a little bit about what you do.
KH I’ve been teaching since 2005. I teach at both Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary. I have taught over 100 courses, about half via online delivery. In consultation with my program manager, I took professional development courses in 2013 on both learning and teaching online as I anticipated the tremendous potential for online course delivery and with the pandemic we’ve all been thrown into online delivery without any preparation. For my day job, I co-founded Market Grade, an interdisciplinary consultancy focused on design, innovation, marketing, and strategy. Recently, Erik and I launched a podcast series called EdTech Examined. In Summer 2020, we produced weekly episodes to help people prepare for online remote delivery in the Fall.
EC I am an academic librarian at Mount Royal University. Prior to getting into this position, I worked at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Education where I was in the unit that focuses on education technology, online learning, and instructional design. At Mount Royal, we are instructional librarians, so most of my time is dedicated to teaching the nuts and bolts of research, including creating good research questions, logically thinking through how to answer these questions, where to find information, and the kinds of resources that are available. Our team do a huge amount of library instruction. That’s primarily what I do, as well as the service and scholarship that’s required from most faculty members. Outside of work, I am a long-time technology enthusiast with interests in computer hardware and software development.
MM What are some of the biggest challenges you experienced when moving toward online teaching?
KH I was fortunate that most of my classroom student interactions and deliverables had already been addressed in March, so when we had to go to emergency remote, the only outstanding assignment was the need to adapt the final group presentations. However, to move courses that were supposed to be face-to-face to online delivery in a short span of time certainly does pose a challenge. On average, I would estimate it takes six to nine months to prepare an online course. Even then, I’ve been teaching an online course where we have a full team of instructional designers we work with, and we’ve evolved the course over the years and are constantly iterating. It’s no easy task. For this reason, I highlight the difference between emergency remote delivery and online teaching. Online teaching takes a great deal of time and care. You also have to take into consideration your pedagogical approaches while teaching online.
I saw the pandemic and emergency remote delivery as an opportunity. I began investigating some of the technology that might help facilitate a better student and course experience. For instance, I came across whiteboarding technology, specifically Miro, MURAL and Jamboard. Likewise, I was able to consider guest speakers from all over the world. In the past I would limit myself to guest speakers in the Calgary area; for my design thinking course I brought in guest speakers from Amsterdam, Kansas City, New York, and even Silicon Valley.
EC Kris makes a good point. There’s a big difference between emergency online instruction and preparing for instruction online. For some context, it’s a bit different for me because I’m a librarian. I don’t teach credit courses; rather, I support credit programs, which is very different. My instruction is prepared but also somewhat reactionary to what the assignments and the objectives are that are laid out in the curriculum of a program. I’m the librarian for psychology, health and physical education, and I also do liaison work around the collections for health, wellness and our music conservatory.
In terms of challenges faced in moving to online instruction, I think I experienced these less than a lot of other credit instructors. Creating online resources is my job. If you Google “Erik Christiansen MRU,” the first page you’ll see is my faculty profile and a link to the library guides, which, especially if you look at psychology, are very extensive. In my profession, creating online asynchronous learning materials for reuse is very common. That said, it was a big challenge to transition some of the face-to face sessions and appointments. For instance, my library instruction largely went asynchronous except for dedicated time where people could ask questions. The challenge there is that it requires a lot more preparation. Now I’ve done this before because I worked in EdTech and I’ve worked in remote learning, so I know what to do when there’s a problem, but it still requires a large amount of time. I started recording very short videos for students on how to create a mind map for a research question, how to break down a research question into its essentials, and how to narrow it down and pick it apart. I did an iPad Pro stylus annotation and then uploaded all the videos onto YouTube. Initially, that was a huge amount of preparation but now I can reuse those videos.
The other big piece for the classes is the communication because when I do synchronous instruction online I don’t do a lecture like I would for a face-to-face class; I don’t try to recreate that experience. I give students an abundance of materials in advance with very clear instructions on what they need to read. I tell them to watch these videos, go through the process, and try to create a mind map to start. I let them know that I will check in at our live class to see how they’re doing, and that I’m going to answer questions about where they’re struggling and then provide some guidance for moving forward. That all sounds easy, but again that requires a huge amount of preparation. Especially in an emergency situation, you are trying to create materials quickly to give enough lead time so people can use them in a thoughtful fashion and allow for time where they can follow up. If you just say “here are the resources and I’ll check back in next week,” that’s not going to work. It’s not specific enough. I think that’s the biggest challenge: the creation and the lead time. In an emergency situation, you’re really under a time limitation.
MM Do you find that this presents opportunities for each of you in terms of digital education and creating a different type of learning atmosphere compared to what it would be in the classroom?
EC Definitely. Kris probably has some things on his mind, but I think there’s an opportunity in this strategy for creating a database of online teaching resources for yourself; but there is also a fear. In instruction, if you release everything to the world in an online environment, you’re giving away your “secret sauce” so to speak. That’s the impression. But I think the opportunity is that if you take the time to create reusable materials, that’s a sunk cost in the beginning but then it pays for itself in the long run. I think it’s worth it.
I also would say there’s another opportunity, which is that in addition to creating resources that you can reuse, students have a chance to rewatch and relisten over and over again, and there’s a really good chance that next time I see them they’ll understand the concept better and their questions for me will be more interesting. The better I prepare the students, the more advanced their questions become. It’s more of a conversation, and it’s more satisfying because I get to see their growth.
I think that’s where having a blended approach within a face-to-face environment is a good example. You can come to class, get that real-time social interaction, but then there’s something to rewatch. Concepts are difficult, especially in content-heavy disciplines. They require a huge amount of consideration. Listen to any philosopher academic do a podcast; I have to listen to them more than once. That’s why Joe Rogan’s interviews are so successful because he has deep conversations. If you can create materials where your students have an opportunity to reconsider a concept multiple times, perhaps from different perspectives, they’re not only going to come to class more prepared and more engaged, but they’re also going to ask much more interesting questions—which I’m always thirsty to get.
KH We did an interview with Mohammad Keyhani, associate professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at the Haskayne School of Business, and he mentioned this exact point of not seeing the potential opportunities. It’s a great deal of work to prepare course materials in advance, but once you create the resources, you can reuse them over and over. The fear among educators is more around putting your course content into the world and the uncertainty of the unintended consequences of having your course materials in cyberspace. For instance, other people may come across your content and use it. Likewise, students may find some way to use these materials to cheat and there are other concerns around academic misconduct. With regard to tests and quizzes, educators may have to reconsider making the evaluations open book or instituting other constraints for student examinations.
Going back to the question of challenges, we also need to consider Internet etiquette. One suggestion for synchronous sessions is to have everyone muted so we don’t experience external noise or distractions. I’ve had some students ask about whether they should have their webcam on. I leave the use of webcams to their discretion as it’s not mandatory. I don’t want to create a situation where webcams are required because of uncertainty around their personal situation at home. For example, a student may have a child in the background that they’re looking after. I don’t want to put any student on the spot. In terms of netiquette, I suggest setting up video conference sessions with everyone’s mics and webcams turned off by default and leave it up to them to make the decision if they feel comfortable enough to engage in this way. I don’t know if having webcams on adds much value with faces in this Brady Bunch or Hollywood Squares-type of grid.
MM The idea of “netiquette” was the focus in the TALON newsletter of 4 August 2020 (Issue 6). It’s the idea of privacy, and how you’re being transferred to somebody’s home or private workspace, and how to go about making a space for people to participate comfortably. What is your most-used software tool for communication or meeting with people online in an education setting?
EC In terms of collaboration, the biggest software tool for video conferencing is whichever one is institutionally supported. If I were to distill library instruction, I’d say that it is supporting an existing curriculum and helping people find and understand what they don’t know. That’s primarily what library instruction is for, and that is the basis of library science. In terms of tools that facilitate that, we are a Google campus. I have set up Google collaboration docs and put students in groups in this online environment. If they have a group project, I will set it all up for them and say, “I want you to come up with a pitch for what you’re going to cover in this presentation” or “Develop and answer to this research question.” I want them to start with a broad topic (or research question), then I want them to narrow it down, and then I want them to narrow it down again, and so on and so forth. You can collaborate in Google Docs. Sometimes I’ll set up Google Suite in a way that is similar to breakout rooms. All the people have to do is just click the link, go in, and do their stuff.
There are other collaboration tools that work well too, depending on the privacy level and things like that. There is one called Padlet, and it’s really useful because it’s like a virtual pinboard. I am interested in any virtual collaboration tool where I can put people together and get their ideas down, because one of the issues in library instruction is that if it’s not face-to-face and you’re not documenting it, it can be quite ephemeral as it’s that “one shot” style of instruction. To mitigate some of that in a face-to-face session, if I write a bunch of stuff on a whiteboard, I take a photo and upload it to the guide that I send out. That way, people have something to reflect on. When doing work in either an online or face-to-face library session, I think you should have something to show for it. Students can leave with something they’ve accomplished on what their assignment is. Evidence of your collaboration is very helpful for the instructor too.
KH We interviewed Dr. Tom O’Neill, associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary, and he’s developed a system called ITP Metrics. I think ITP (Individual and Team Performance) Metrics could be very beneficial for people when putting together teams remotely for students. The platform can also be useful for the students themselves to reflect on their own personality and their strengths and weaknesses.
It’s funny, in 2016 when I returned to Mount Royal University to teach, I didn’t know much about the Google Suite with my experience being mainly with the Microsoft and Apple suite of products. I gave my students an in-class exercise and some started working away on their computers, and I wasn’t entirely sure what they were really working on their laptops. When we were ready to debrief and discuss the class exercise, the students asked if I wanted them to come up to the front of the classroom and present their slides. I was a bit blown away and inquired, “what do you mean”? They explained how they had created a presentation in Google Slides during the class exercise and were collaborating while on their computers. This real-time collaboration took in-class exercises to a whole new level.
As a side note, I mentored a student—probably about ten years ago—who was in a senior role at ATB Financial. This student explained how ATB had switched everything over from Microsoft to Google Suite. The ATB senior management made this decision assuming it would appeal to the millennials, but they actually pushed back. The student mentioned how all these years in school they had to learn Microsoft products, and now ATB had implemented the Google Suite, and Google Sheets is crap compared to Microsoft Excel. This is especially the case if they need to run high-level calculations, macros, and so on. Ultimately, the technology that is used comes down to organizational culture.
I have tried using a variety of different tools for course delivery in my design thinking course, and one piece of feedback I received from my students is that they were getting overwhelmed because I was using multiple tools. I didn’t consider this at first because I was scrambling to figure out how I was going to transition from in-class to online delivery. Students had three tools to choose from and we only had so much time for course delivery in addition to the learning curve for each tool. I realized the learning curve should always be considered. In our interview with Mohammad, he pointed out that we should not put in the technology just for technology’s sake and overdo it. The technological tools should be used for a specific purpose.
EC In terms of all the technology available, there are diminishing marginal returns. I’ve tested a lot of tools at a surface level to get an idea of what their potential is, but I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole unless it offers something really quite profound and different. In my previous position at the University of Alberta, I took the Google Suite and Webmaster Tools certification. It’s probably expired now, but I did it because I wanted to maximize what I could get from those tools. There is an advantage to working within the tools that you’re comfortable with and within what you know well. Constraints breed creativity. I’ve actually given students that challenge. For instance, students must work in Google Suite and find out how to create a Gantt chart or a spreadsheet. Is there an existing template? Can you find a website that expands your ability to use the tools we already have, rather than constantly adding new things?
To see how the students navigate the instructions within the constraints of one tool makes things interesting. Obviously, the instructor can’t be like, “here’s a tool that I saw video on that I’ve never used” because they won’t be able to provide any support. As an instructor you have to know the tools to a certain level, but maybe there’s a template or a strategy that I didn’t know about, and the students can then show me. Now that’s an incredible learning experience. That’s the benefit of open educational practices where the instructor has some crystallized and tacit knowledge that they are teaching, but there is a back and forth in terms of process. I think that makes it much more interesting to students. When I can learn something new from students … I think that’s brilliant.
MM I completely agree. Similar to what the TALON project is doing with creating a collection of resources, you discuss various online resources on the EdTech Examined podcast. Other than what’s institutionally supported, are there certain ones that you lean on?
KH Even though I have several years of online teaching experience, I pushed myself to attend professional development sessions at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning and also at the Academic Development Centre at Mount Royal. I find in Alberta, perhaps even in the wider Canadian context, that we’re very open-minded and open-hearted in the way we share. If we take “Six Degrees” of Kevin Bacon approach, in Alberta the degrees of separation in our tightknit community are quite often two or three at most. It’s much more of a neighbourly or pioneering culture. For instance, if we look back to challenging circumstances with the Fort McMurray fires or the 2013 flood here in Calgary, people came out in droves to help one another out. I have this saying, start locally but act globally. We have many resources locally with many people being unaware they even exist. EdTech Examined is our attempt with our podcast to start locally to see what we have through our initial network, and then assemble this information and resources to act in a global manner. We have the potential for global reach with the power of the Internet.
MM We took a similar approach with TALON, documenting what approved technologies or resources are available within the University of Calgary, providing access to instructors, staff, and students, and then branching out nationally and internationally to find out what other institutions are using and what other kinds of resources are out there.
EC Yeah, and I would agree with Kris that it’s great to take on opportunities for academic development. I haven’t done any of the seminars at the University of Calgary, but it has an excellent reputation. I’ve done it at the University of Alberta and through the Academic Development Centre at Mount Royal University, and they have a fantastic and wide-ranging series on instructional methods. I am almost certain that teaching online will be the focus for the next year or more.
Internally, we do some great things through the library at Mount Royal. We have instruction roundtables, which are very informal discussions where we encourage our colleagues to share what kinds of instructional sessions they’re doing, and what problems they’re trying to solve, and we give feedback. Sometimes people want to borrow from each other, and I think that is really good.
For me, I follow a lot of Listservs. I’ve cut them down over the years because it starts to clog up my inbox up, but I’ve been interested in ISSOTL—the acronym, SoTL, stands for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. That’s a discipline, and ISSOTL is the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. They have some really interesting Listservs. Of course, it’s good to go to SoTL conferences and explore any online things that they provide. The library network for Listservs and online instruction through CARL (Consortium of Academic Research Libraries) is pretty good. So, these are ways that I get my instruction strategies, but in terms of the learning about the tools, I actually don’t get that from a lot of education sources. I’m more interested in what the tools are and then figuring out how they could be useful in an education context.
I listen to probably twenty-five hours of podcasts a week. A lot of them are on productivity and technology, not specifically on education. I curate this list of technologies that could potentially be useful, and then I choose the ones I think may have an educational application and start investigating them. There are many podcasts out there that talk about higher education, but in the EdTech realm, that’s where Kris and I felt that we could contribute something, and we’re very proud of that.
KH In terms of other things we do, Erik has set up a Google news alert, so we get alerts about any EdTech news. For the most part, we both have an interest in technology, so we come across information in our regular reading. I usually start off my day reading Fast Company. I look for my interests, not only in tech, but in business, design, innovation, and strategy. I find Fast Company is one of the best publications and one of my go-to resources.
MM Thank you for sharing these resources with us. We have come to the final question: what do you expect higher education to look like in ten years’ time?
KH In the future people are going to probably—hopefully—re-evaluate. Going beyond even what’s happened with COVID, people are questioning the value of higher education in the first place. Google recently came out with its own certifications, and I believe they’re giving them out to around 100,000 people for free on a scholarship basis. If you have Google certifications and with these credentials can get a job with Google, why would you as a student pursue a computer science degree at the University of Calgary?
When I start off my first lecture of any course, I always ask the students. “What should you be getting out of school?” In my opinion, it comes down to three things. The first is developing your critical analysis and skills. This is especially important today. I never would have thought that fake news would exist. You should be equipped with the skills to go and gauge for yourself whether the actual topic or facts you see are legitimate. You can go to a technical school and get what you need in just two years, but that’s the value in taking all these other optional and elective courses. It’s a matter of being able to develop your experience on philosophy, humanities, science, business, and a whole variety of disciplines, and that’s why postsecondary undergraduate degree programs typically take four years. These soft skills are not going to be replaced by artificial intelligence or other technologies.
The second thing that people should be getting out of university is research skills. You need to be equipped with the skills to figure things out for yourselves. University libraries spend millions of dollars getting you access to all this information. Students should take full advantage of access to these research databases because when you’re working in industry, accessing these resources and materials can be very expensive.
The final thing is the development of communication skills, and particularly writing. I teach business communications, and our textbook mentions that 30 percent of your time is spent writing or communicating in some way. If you take a 60,000-dollar salary, this equates to about $18,000 a year that a company is paying for their staff to write e-mails, and prepare reports, presentations, etc. This helps to answer the question of why students have to write these essays and answer certain questions, and so on.
These three major skills combined is what students should take away from university; they are considered soft skills. If we look at someone like Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO of Slack, he didn’t even have technical skills. Butterfield has both a bachelor and a master in philosophy. He created his first start-up Flickr and sold it to Yahoo! Both Slack and Flickr were actually developed as video game concepts that were transformed to meet an unmet need and become commercially viable. Likewise, Ben Silverman, Founder of Pinterest, is also a non-technical founder, and so you might wonder.
I recall reading that Silicon Valley tech companies have stopped hiring people with technical expertise and are looking for those with a background in liberal arts because they have those critical analysis and critical thinking skills. They’re thinking, as they say, outside the box. They’re adding another dimension to the organizational culture. Especially when you’re dealing with users, you need to have an understanding and development of soft skills. In the future we’re going to have to rethink what value students are taking away from school.
EC Kris’ analysis is pretty interesting. I would agree with what he said. My belief is that universities are going to go back to the state that they were in during their inception. So let’s think about skills for a second. If you look at the research, RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) has done research on desired skills and outcomes—“twenty-first century skills.” It feels like every ten years there’s a new name attributed to the same set of skills, which I find infuriating to be perfectly honest. They are all, like Kris said, soft skills such as communication, logic, critical thinking, etc. and it’s very difficult to teach critical thinking. That is a massive challenge, and in many ways we don’t do a very good job of it. But I think one of the best approaches is to give people real-world problems to solve. First of all, it gives you a goal, which is really important and that’s why we’re moving toward more active learning methods.
You can take all the degrees that you want, but if you’re faced with a problem it’s only then that you are really confronted with what you don’t know. In this case, “I can’t actually solve this until I’ve learned X.” Nobody who has a PhD would tell you “Well, I figured out everything I needed to know and then I just applied it to my research.” That’s impossible. It doesn’t work like that. For this reason, those soft skills are going to be increasingly important. They’re going to be largely problem-based, team-based classes, so that you’re developing your problem-solving skills, thinking outside the box, plus having to work with other people.
I have to be careful how I say this, but I think you’re also going to see a shrinking perhaps—a shrinking of the disciplines or a more interdisciplinary approach. I’m not sure how that’s going to work. I didn’t take a specific discipline in my undergrad. I have an undergraduate arts degree in international relations, so I had to take economics, international trade, political philosophy, philosophy of logic, political science, a variety of history courses, languages, and things like that. The idea is that you use all these skills in tandem to write papers, answer questions and solve problems. So I think university is going to go more general, more interdisciplinary and more problem based, active learning based. If you were to look at where universities—I don’t want to say lose, because it’s not necessarily a zero-sum game—but where they’re maybe going to shift their focus away from is from the highly specialized areas. I think places like engineering are in good shape because they’re basically what I’ve described. They are applied sciences and interdisciplinary in many regards. But I think you’re going to see a growth in non-accredited micro learning, such as LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn bought Lynda, and LinkedIn was bought by Microsoft. Microsoft owns the largest online learning platform in the world. It is very good. If you talk to a web developer, somebody who works for Google, or somebody who does their own contracting, I do not believe they would say that a computer science degree is a necessity to be a successful person in that field. Like Kris said, these fields are not solely technical fields. If you studied the philosophy of logic, you’re probably a very good programmer because it’s about arguments and consistency. If you want to be a web developer, yeah, go take a computer science degree, but I think that the curriculum should mandate that people take math and statistics and philosophy. Then they can go and specialize through micro learning, and that’s probably outside the academy. I think that’s the better investment.
I have these pie in the sky ideas of what I’d like to see education look like. For instance, if I were in charge of a program, let’s say psychology, you would have general courses that are supposed to give you well-rounded, interdisciplinary skills. Many of the skills that you get from a psychology degree, a political science degree, a history degree, or perhaps a biology degree, involve a lot of writing, presentation, critical thinking, plus concepts that you just have to learn. I think in our programs there should be regular intervals for reflection where people compare themselves, not to others, but to where they were the previous year and figure out how they can translate those general skills into solving a problem in the workforce. It doesn’t have to be a specific position in the workforce because I think that the advice to “follow your passion” is misguided. People become passionate because they become good at things. Reflecting on your skills and how to apply them helps when having to explain to an employer what you can do for them. That’s very, very difficult if you’ve just been in academic mode. Ask any student who’s graduated and become demoralized because they didn’t get a job right away. That is a difficult transition. It doesn’t mean people can’t do it, but I think that we can build that into the curriculum. If we built that into the curriculum, we’d give people a lot more confidence.
MM Yes, bridging the gap between education and entering the workforce.
KH It’s interesting what you said about following your passion. It reminds me of when I was asked to do the keynote talk at the dean’s list in 2018 for Haskayne School of Business and that was one of the things that I mentioned, following your passion. I gave this anecdote: My business partner was raised by his grandmother, and she would tell him that if you go and chase money, you’re running after your shadow and you’ll keep going around in a circle. You may get close and then it’ll slip through your hands. Instead, she advised him to follow the sun, the sun being your passion, and then the sunlight will shine on you. Consequently, the shadow will be cast behind you and the shadow will follow. Everybody loved it! They ate it up. I said the same thing at a Mount Royal event as well.
After about a year of reflection, I was wrong to say that to the student audience. It’s important to follow your passion, but you should also determine your superpower. If we were all to follow our passion, especially growing up in Canada, we’d probably all be hockey players. I don’t know about you, but I’m not the best skater and wouldn’t have any shot at making it to any kind of league. So, it’s really important to figure out your core strengths and try to build upon that foundation.
Going back to the question of what the future holds for higher education, I would hope we would use technology for the betterment of society. Some really exciting things are developing, especially in the area of AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality). Imagine, before you had to take a field trip out to someplace, and now you can just put on goggles and get a virtual lecture from Socrates. You’re able to actually see some of the ruins in Greece or something along those lines depending on the course you’re taking. Ultimately, we’ve got to find a reason to go and get a higher education. I do think it’s important. My parents always told me that a degree is something that nobody can ever take away from you.
EC That’s what I was told too. Did our parents all go to the same seminar?
KH In a field like computer science, look at people like Mark Zuckerberg. He dropped out of Harvard. He’s one of the richest people in the world and he didn’t bother to graduate. In many ways, we’re idolizing—and especially in business where I come from and apply my lens. It almost feels as though we’re so desperate to find a new Steve Jobs, whether it’s an Elon Musk or a Jeff Bezos. In becoming very successful, a combination of factors exist, and it isn’t about having the most genius IQ. In many cases, it’s about finding the right people at the right time and capitalizing on the right trend when it comes along.
If dystopic movies are any indication or reflection of our culture, it certainly feels we’re heading in this direction where rich individuals such as Elon and Jeff are creating space companies. I’d feel much better with NASA heading up the space program, but this gives you an indication of the lack of innovation. Every time you send up a shuttle, you lose rockets, and it takes someone like Elon to push back and ask, why don’t we reuse the rockets? You need to have people to challenge the status quo, because the same old “what’s been happening” isn’t going to solve our problems in the future. We have to think outside the box. I hate to even use that phrase, because in some ways going to university is almost like getting the box put on your head and getting pushed into the world. Hopefully students have developed their soft skills to become more well-rounded skills along the way.
EC I agree with Kris. I think what education is supposed to do is to make people less dependent. It’s meant to empower people to take risks. If you’re twenty-two and you’ve finished a degree, you’re like, “Yeah, I’m going to start a business,” part of the issue is that it is harder now than it was in say 1965 because of the cost. There’s not a lot of risk-taking you can do if there’s such a big cost. That’s why we see a vacuum in education. As costs in higher education go up, market forces are going to come in and they’re going to produce, perhaps, more non-accredited micro learning. Then industry may start to say, “Well, we can’t really tell the difference.” I think this could be true for some things. Definitely for technical skills. For example, if you want to be a web developer, it doesn’t mean that a computer science degree isn’t valuable. Perhaps it gives you a better foundation, but then you have to do additional learning to specialize. I think that is the reality. University is considerably more expensive, so if you want people to take risks, empower them to think outside the box and do problem solving, you have to allow for that.
To build on something else that Kris said about passion and projects, I’d also say that we should encourage students to take on projects that they’re interested in. Universities could do better at this, and it’s not impossible to achieve, but it’s perhaps a bit out of the bounds that they might otherwise recognize. I had never done a podcast before, and I tweeted that I really want to do an EdTech podcast, and Kris responded. We’ve never actually met in person. This is all remote and we’re learning a lot. I could have taken a course in creating an audio empire, but I don’t think it would have been as good a learning experience as taking on a project like this. I think that if you build that into the curriculum, when people leave the institution they’re more likely to continue taking those risks. People have to be taking risks in class so that they can take risks outside when they’ve graduated.
MM As we wrap up, are there any final thoughts or pieces of advice you would like to add?
KH We’re getting down to about a month until the semester starts. Don’t get into this perfectionism standpoint. Looking at it for our podcast, maybe this is a very opportune time. For instance, celebrities such as Trevor Noah have increased their following and he’s just broadcasting out of his apartment. All of a sudden, our expectations as a society have changed. So, again, don’t be afraid, and push forward. I think even for students themselves, they should endeavour to push through and break out of their comfort zone. There isn’t anything wrong with dropping an e-mail to your instructor or professor and talking to them after class. This is something everybody is going to have their own take on and their own approach to. But really, we’ve just got to be humble. Especially now that we’re entering an era where it’s all online, all remote, and we’re not all comfortable with it. Acknowledge that this is all a learning process for all of us.
EC I realize that TALON has more of an educator audience, but I received a great piece of advice as an undergraduate student from a faculty member who is someone I greatly respect. He said, “Make a nuisance of yourself.” Go ask questions. We’re supposed to be smart people at an institution where you learn, so maximize the value. Get to know people. It not only builds tacit knowledge that you’re not necessarily going to get in class. You’re out building a network and finding potential mentors, and this is hugely valuable. That’s the biggest thing I ever got out of university. That’s my advice for students.
For faculty, as the late Christopher Hitchens (and many others) said, “Do not let perfection be the enemy of good.” I think there’s two ways to do that. One of my research areas is in open education and part of that is pedagogy and practices—meaning being forthright with your students about where you’re an expert and what you can bring them, while also being honest when you’re trying new things. If we’re in an online environment and you’ve never taught online or have minimal experience, you should say, here are the best practices I know, but I’m going to do some experiments and it’s a two-way street because I want and value your feedback. Nobody knows everything. If you’re honest with the students about that and you give them the agency to provide feedback, then you’re building leeway for experimentation in your course to try new things. I think that’s very valuable.
Universities have really receded from the public eye, and I think that’s coming about because of the vacuum left by what universities are not providing. Universities used to do a lot more public lecture series and interactions with the public. We used to get a lot more news articles where a real expert on a topic would provide a context, and you still get that on television news, but that’s not the same thing as say, a public lecture series. There is a deep interest in long-form academic discussion on current issues. People are smart and interested. Joe Rogan would never be successful doing three-hour podcasts with some of the highest-sighted professors ever if people did not have an attention span of more than ten minutes. Now, attention span does matter in a lecture but that’s very different from a conversation. Public conversation, public interaction, that back and forth, leads to longer discussions that are more interesting than me delivering a lecture to an empty vessel. There’s a difference between best practices for lectures versus public debates and public interaction. So, I would tell instructors who have something to offer the world, whether it’s their open educational practices or their expertise, that they should go public. There are some really well-respected academics doing this. Kris pointed out Scott Galloway. I’d also point out Cal Newport, who’s a computer scientist at Georgetown University. He wrote some great books about productivity and deep work, and he has a whole podcast about it. He is a public intellectual as well as a university professor, and we need more of those people.
As we recede from the public eye, we’re going to become less relevant because we’re not going to be on people’s minds. People who’ve done cool things should be highlighted, and that’s what Kris and I are trying to do on EdTech Examined. That’s what TALON is trying to do. People should be bold and be as public as they can about the unique things that they have to share.
Reflection
Erik: Since our interview with TALON, I have continued to reflect on my teaching practices and consider the impact of the pandemic and, subsequently, the move to remote instruction. After our collective twelve-month crash course on education technology, I’m seeing my colleagues exude a little more confidence with these tools. I have many thoughts, but I want to share two themes that I’ve observed since March 2020.
Being intentional when implementing technology into your class
Online teaching, as scary as it was for first timers, is an exciting opportunity for experimentation. Teaching in a digital environment forces us to rethink how we will create engagement in the classroom. There is a “wow factor”—a feeling of endless possibilities—when we find a technological solution that fits with our teaching style. Kris and I have spent much of the past year highlighting the pros and cons of specific tools in our podcast. We evaluate technologies based on personal experience and find solutions to questions submitted by listeners. We’ve examined digital whiteboarding platforms, notes apps, data backup solutions, and project management suites—just to name a few categories. Consider the following when selecting an EdTech tool. Will this actually help students develop a better product? Based on your experience, how long will it take your students to learn this tool? Do you need to build more lead time into the assignment?
Following some discussions with colleagues at my institution, instructors seemed to have the most success when they A) chose tools that helped students meet class objectives, and B) gained some mastery over that tool. Implementing fewer technologies and giving space for students to master those technologies is more valuable than introducing a smorgasbord of tech into your course. Instructors can more confidently answer student’s questions beyond a surface level. I’ve also witnessed the pride and satisfaction that my colleagues display when they show me how they’ve used a tool to its maximum capability. Some of my colleagues are true masters of these technologies, and they’re more confident to share their expertise with their peers.
Going public
The pivot to “emergency remote instruction” took its toll on educators at every level. You might assume that to counteract this exhaustion, instructors should invest in more self-care and mindfulness meditation. Although this may be true, for some instructors the solution to their lack of energy was to give more. Specifically, they gave back to their local and professional communities. For example, some of my colleagues have meticulously documented their approach to managing digital breakout rooms or their video production techniques. Some have leveraged their teaching into new scholarly endeavours or contributed to open textbook projects (OER). Others are partnering with students and educational developers to present at education conferences. I’ve always suspected that documenting your own practices pays dividends in the long term, but I only had limited evidence to support my claim. Now, the evidence is ample. Sharing your newfound online teaching skills and practices within your department meetings, learning communities, and online communities will benefit you and your colleagues. While the pivot to remote instruction wasn’t easy, the experience has created a sense of solidarity among instructors—particularly those who leaned into the opportunity to share their successes and failures.
Kris: Over the past year, we’ve all had adapted to a rapidly changing environment. If technology has transformed the limitations of what is possible, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how we imagine it. As we plan to return to campus, work, and life as what we used to know, it’s important to acknowledge the hardships of the past year that have taken their mental, physical, and emotional toll. With emergency remote online delivery, educators took on the challenge to evolve their courses to successfully deliver to their students. Let’s celebrate what we’ve accomplished this past year and bring with us the best of online teaching back into the classroom.
As I reflect over the past year and our TALON interview, the following are three themes I trust educators remember as we return to the classroom:
- The future is hybrid
The pandemic gave everyone the opportunity to experience first-hand that not only can we survive, but we can also thrive remotely and do not need a central physical space to work, learn, and live. Online teaching creates constraints and allows us to breed creativity to rethink and reimagine in-class exercises to effectively flip the classroom in an online environment. Let us take the best of what online course materials we developed this past year and bring these back into the classroom. To that end, I’m providing a blend of both online and in-class course materials to allow students flexibility and create a more vibrant learning atmosphere. - Student-centred design
As a practitioner of design thinking, we never lose sight of the primary end user when considering human-centred design and user experience design. Taking these concepts and applying them in academia, we as educators are putting students first and this should form the gravitational focus for course delivery. I was fortunate to have Chris Hoang (a former student starting in Fall 2019, teaching/ research assistant in 2020 to present, EdTech Examined audio producer/sound engineer, and now colleague) to strategize how best to continually improve our courses to enhance the student’s learning experience. This year provided an opportunity to experiment with new assignments, course material, deliverables, rubrics, etc. and we’ve further refined these going into the Fall semester. In April 2020, some academic development colleagues suggested having high frequency/low stake assignments as a best practice for online course delivery. After trial and iteration, this Fall we’ve streamlined assignments to avoid overloading students by simplifying their deliverables. - Tech-instinctive The pandemic has proven to be a transformative inflection point and technology needs to intertwine with an educator’s pedagogy. The best way to predict the future, is to help create it and that’s exactly what being open to incorporating technology in the classroom does. Technology is a tool like any other—and don’t use tools for the sake of having tools. I’ve seen first-hand students struggling with the learning curve when being presented with multiple technologies, and I now suggest implementing fewer tools in classroom to allow students to focus on mastery of the technology to utilize the full suite of features.
Thank you to both Chris Hoang and also Erik Christiansen for their support and providing their insightful feedback this past year.
About
Kris Hans is an ideas generator capable of turning dreams into reality and truly a social entrepreneur. He continues to undertake diverse roles and responsibilities that bring his skills and experience to serve Calgary’s many communities—a testament to the value that he places on civic participation and social enterprise. Currently, Kris is co-founder and strategist at Market Grade, an interdisciplinary consultancy focused on marketing, design, innovation, and strategy. Kris teaches business management, design thinking, economics for business, entrepreneurial thinking (opportunity identification & technology for entrepreneurs), global challenges, strategic planning, and strategic selling at the University of Calgary, Canada. At Mount Royal University he’s been teaching business communications since 2016 and he taught entrepreneurship and marketing in the past. Kris also served as the first-ever entrepreneur in residence at W21C in the O’Brien Institute of Public Health, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. Kris continues to work with students and start-up ventures to help grow their businesses and diversify the Alberta economy.
Erik Christiansen is the subject librarian for psychology, counselling, health and physical education and the Music Conservatory at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. Erik has experience working in information technology, and previously he provided instructional design, education technology and research support at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Education. His research interests are centred around open education, integrating information literacy into the academic curriculum and web usability. He is an active member of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) community. Erik has a long-held interest in computing, interface design and music.