3.3 Case 2: Establishing a Support Network for
3.3.3 Experiences from Departmental Satellite Support for
While it is still too early in the development and implementation of this net- work to conduct a full research-oriented evaluation, responses to a small- scale written survey administered to both of the satellites at two departments (both researchers/instructors in chemistry) and instructors (five professors of various ranks) at the two departments of chemistry at Teknat illustrate their support experiences. The satellites were asked about what support requests they received, what challenges did they consider instructors faced, whether and in what way they felt their role was mostly technical, pedagog- ical or both, whether they felt they could support instructors in meaningful ways, what aspect of their assistance did they feel was most appreciated by
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instructors, as well as general evaluations of the initiative. Instructors were asked what challenges they faced, what support did they seek from the satel- lites and the results, whether and in what way they felt the satellites offered mostly technical, pedagogical support or both, whether they felt the satellites could support them in meaningful ways, as well as general evaluations of the initiative. analysis of the responses (performed in nVivo, QSr International) revealed some interesting emerging themes.
When asked whether they felt the support was mostly technical or ped- agogical in nature, or both, the instructors mainly self-reported receiving technical support. This involved the choice, installation, and use of hardware and software. They generally did not regard the support as pedagogical in nature. by contrast, it was interesting to note that the two departmental sat- ellites responded that they regarded the support they provided as also being pedagogical in nature (see Figure 3.5).
The discrepancy between the instructors’ and departmental satellites’
views of whether pedagogical support was provided is interesting. Further examples of questions were given by a satellite: “Does my usual teaching really work via Zoom? how can I replace the blackboard in distance teaching? how do I make a meaningful electronic lab based on my usual lab? What types of questions can I ask in a take-home exam?”. These demonstrated very well that the line between what is technical and what is pedagogical is not a hard one.
For questions of “how best” to teach in a digital environment, the technical and pedagogical aspects in fact overlap significantly. The pedagogical sup- port was noticed explicitly by departmental satellites but was not something that seemed to strike the instructors themselves, even if the requests for sup- port implicitly raised such issues. as noted above, even when questions may initially be couched as purely technical in nature, the real question could also be pedagogical in figuring out how to best support student learning. There may also be different phases in the required support: whereas the immediate need might be technical support, more educational and pedagogical support may be appropriate in subsequent phases (see Figure 3.6).
Figure 3.5 Impressions given by two departmental satellites about the type of support required.
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27 Supportive Aspects of Online Learning and Teaching
having the departmental satellite at the local level allowed them to even provide moral support, and also create forums (such as weekly drop-in meetings) that facilitated discussion and exchange of ideas and experiences between instructors (see Figure 3.7).
rather than becoming obsolete with time, the departmental satellites have the potential to continue to support digital teaching and learning and build on the experiences from this intense transition period. Their role can evolve to suit the changing needs of the instructors, thanks to their close proxim- ity both in terms of technical, pedagogical, and subject expertise to those needing support. Facilitating and supporting a Cop would also increase the distribution of expertise beyond a limited number of people and sustain the sharing of ideas and experiences (see Figure 3.8).
a clear challenge with the digital teaching network is how to coordinate and incentivize the continuation of the initiative. While the heads of depart- ment were very forthcoming with nominating departmental satellites, there was variation in whether these became formal duties with allocated work time. Furthermore, while it was a core idea that the departmental satellites would decide for themselves what the needs at the local level were, some felt that their task was rather undefined and that it was challenging to reach Figure 3.6 Quote from an instructor about possible phases in the kinds of support
required.
Figure 3.7 Quotes regarding moral support, as expressed by a departmental satellite and an instructor.
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sufficient awareness amongst instructors. at the departments of chemistry, the more formalized appointments of satellites, the initiation of specific activities such as drop-in sessions and discussion meetings, and informa- tion dissemination via e-mail seemed to be a useful model, based on instruc- tor experiences. at the faculty level, more formal allocation of time and resources would also be needed for the members of the coordination group to better facilitate the mutual support and sharing of experiences envisioned in the design of the network, and to increase awareness of its existence and potentials to the instructors at the faculty.