Johns Hopkins University School of Education (SOE) was in a unique position when the pandemic hit last spring—60% of its programs were already online. Still, the field of instructional design has greatly been elevated during the pandemic.
In any given year, the university's Office of Innovative Learning, Design and Assessment is tasked with supporting SOE faculty on instructional design, online courses development, multimedia technology training and learning assessment. And when the pandemic hit, SOE was one of the first divisions at JHU to respond swiftly to the challenges.
“The majority of our courses/curriculum had already undergone a rigorous instructional design process, delivered with sound pedagogy,” said Jeremy Zhang, Ph.D., director of the Office of Innovative Learning, Design and Assessment (OILDA) at the SOE.
Yet, the demand for transition to online learning was increased drastically. So OILDA’s instructional designers held working sessions with faculty on converting regular in-person courses into pedagogically-sound remote learning sessions. Additionally, the department increased its outreach—particularly in instructional technologies—offering training workshops on using Zoom, learning management system – Blackboard, and video recording tools (such as Panopto, VoiceThread, etc.).
“With COVID, our roles as instructional designers, instructional technologists and assessment specialists, have changed from being collaborator, project manager and course developer, to change agents,” Zhang said. “We help transform how teachers/instructors think about teaching and learning, from effective ways of using technology, adopting robust pedagogy/andragogy, and creating methods of learning assessment, to providing timely and useful feedback.”
Improving technology, new resources
One of the first adaptions made by the SOE was the training and use of Zoom as an online conference tool. During the first few weeks of remote teaching and learning at SOE, the department offered multiple group trainings as well we individual training on using Zoom in the classroom. Also, workshops were offered to assist in Blackboard and Panopto. Later in the year, OILDA began promoting the adoption of MS Teams to increase productivity.
On a larger scale across JHU, each division was instructed to set up a teaching resource site, KeepTeaching, which has served as the central repository for all resources available to support remote teaching and learning. Plus, at SOE, all training workshop recordings were made available on the KeepTeaching site and are still maintained by OILDA. Additionally, Zhang’s department continues to add pedagogical resources—such as active learning strategies—to the site.
One of the highlights of September 2020 was the “Fall Remote Teaching Tech Fair,” in which a selection of instructional and content creation software (e.g., Nearpod, Genially), and the at-home tech kits were featured. And in February of 2021, in collaboration with the Office of Faculty Development, OILDA facilitated a two-hour session focused on “creating engaging presentations, which provided in-depth conversations on effective use of message design and color theory in both video and PowerPoint prestation creation.
In the start of spring semester, OILDA continues to work with faculty to design and develop courses. In the realm of project management, the school has adopted Smartsheet to streamline collaboration. With Smartsheet, course-developing faculty and department chairs can track project progress at any time during the process.
Also new this year is the SOE purchase of tech kits to optimize faculty’s at-home technological infrastructure. Faculty can choose from two kits—smartphone-kit and webcam-kit, together with a green-screen kit. This technology enhances a professor’s capability of creating high-quality video recordings at home.
Despite all this technology and implementation, the feedback that Zhang hears from faculty is that they feel there is a lack of training and customized support. The first issue is being addresses through psychological support. The second issue is being addressed through small working sessions, under five faculty per session, and step-by-step training. The outcome of these sessions is a concrete product.
“My role continues to evolve. I embraced my role as a change agent, who aims to transform the teaching and learning landscape by collaborating and supporting faculty,” Zhang said. “At the same time, I welcome my other roles, as a motivator for my teammates, a problem solver for limited resources, a creative thinker in integrating technology into classrooms, and a strategist and an innovative in thinking ahead.”
Future course development
Zhang said that this year made it clear that the technological infrastructure and faculty competencies were not sufficient to succeed in a pandemic situation. Notably, the lack of instructional technological competency was one of the biggest challenges for faculty.
“In this area, the pandemic exposed that higher ed is not in a much better situation as k-12,” Zhang said. “Moving forward, strengthening both areas will be the focus and priority of many universities and department like ours. Faculty development trainings will need to aim for empowering faculty capabilities of effective integration of technologies and pedagogies inside and outside both the physical and virtual classrooms.”
Having been in the trenches, Zhang does have advice for other universities making changes for the future of instruction. First, he believes that professors’ resilience and their ability to model this resilience to students will be particularly critical in times like COVID. Second, equipping them with skills and knowledge to deal with stress/time/responsibilities will support faculty and students along their journey.