Instructions/Resources for Brief Hybrid Workshop

"Anupholsteraphobia":  the fear of not covering the material

Every teacher makes sampling decisions about almost every aspect of teaching and learning:   selecting a group of topics, a group of students' responses, some portions of students' work, some individual students, etc. to deal with as a meaningful representative of the full collection of such items or people.  For example, during a traditional classroom discussion, a teacher may invite only a few students to respond to a few questions about a reading assignment that was to be completed in preparation for the class.

Traditionally this has applied primarily to choices about topics to be covered in assigned readings, discussions, laboratory work, and classroom presentations within a course.  However, educational conditions are changing so that teachers and learners have many more choices about what, how, and when to learn and to teach – and about what, how, and when to interact with each other.  The sampling decisions have become more important and more dangerous to leave to old habits and assumptions that may no longer apply. 
For more, click here.

Conclusion/Recommendations
Enable teachers and learners to use new patterns of interaction - especially "sampling" - in online and hybrid/blended courses with confidence and without overwork!

1. Confidence, Workload
   Enable learners and teachers to regain confidence in the quality of education they can achieve together without demanding unreasonable workloads of each other!

2. Expectations
   Eliminate the expectation that every student should have daily individualized interaction with every teacher in every course that has a substantial online component.

3. Sampling Strategies
   Develop intermittent "sampling" strategies and schedules for the interaction of learners with teachers and with instructional resources.  

4. Interaction Options
   Support teachers' and students' use of a wide variety of strategies, tools and media options for interaction. 
   [NOTE:  Watch out for audio on the Web, blogging, and small digital devices that combine cell phones, PDAs, cameras, Web browsers, ...]

5. Guidelines
   Develop guidelines for matching interaction options with the needs, goals, and abilities of learners and teachers.  Of course, "interaction options" include face-to-face and other traditional means of communication!

Click here for more detailed conclusion, recommendations.

Click here for other "Dangerous Discussions" topics/questions for faculty, administration, and staff
- (especially, about Teaching, Learning, and Technology)

• Sampling:   “…the process of selecting a group of people or products to be used as a representative or random sample…”;  Also

• Sampling:   “…the process of taking a short musical phrase from one recording and using it in another …”  

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• Covering:  “…to deal with a subject in a discussion, speech, book, or article…”;  Also

• Covering:  “…to record a new version of a song that was first sung or made popular by another performer…”

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Definitions:  Anupholsteraphobia

"... Like most of the teachers I ever encounter, I suffered from a common malady--what Stan Brimberg at the Bank Street School calls "Anupholsteraphobia":  "the fear of not covering the material." 

Anupholsteraphobia cannot be cured, but it can be controlled."

- From "Discipline and Publish: Faculty Work, Technology, and Accountability,"  Randy Bass, Georgetown University, Plenary address delivered at the AAHE Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards, San Diego CA, January 22, 1999.
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/disc&pub.html

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Sampling vs. Covering – Setting Reasonable Limits for Interaction in a Course
Every teacher makes sampling decisions about almost every aspect of teaching and learning.  Traditionally this has applied primarily to choices about topics to be covered in assigned readings, discussions, laboratory work, and classroom presentations within a course.  However, educational conditions are changing so that teachers and learners have many more choices about what, how, and when to learn and to teach – and about what, how, and when to interact with each other.  The sampling decisions have become more important and more dangerous to leave to old habits and assumptions that may no longer apply.

 Every instance of educational assessment is also a “sampling” – a sampling of someone's accomplishments.  How could a student possibly demonstrate complete mastery of every item or element of any course - unless the scope of that course is trivially narrow?  So, teachers find ways of sampling students' learning.  And good students find ways of sampling their own learning.  Teachers or others may sample a students' learning to evaluate or certify that learners' progress.  Or the sampling may be used to develop recommendations or resources for improving that student's learning.   Or the sampling may provide feedback that enables teachers to improve their courses – either within the current academic term or in subsequent offerings of the same course.

At the same time that more attractive options are becoming available for teaching and learning “online,” the pressures are increasing to take advantage of those options in college courses. 

Within the last few years most teachers and learners have also been making “sampling decisions” about the kinds and frequency of their interactions with each other.  Many of these decisions are being made out of habit, without conscious deliberation.   Others are made conscientiously -- even painfully – but without the benefit of much relevant experience, research results, theory, or guidance.

As information overload has become commonplace and the accumulation of knowledge in most fields has accelerated, teachers can almost never include everything relevant in a course.  Teachers decide which topics to “cover,” which to omit entirely, and which to leave for students to learn in other ways.  In most courses, what is covered is a thoughtful sampling.  [I recognize that “cover” is a problematic term, but hope that it is adequate for the purposes of this argument.]

Similarly for learners.  Most students cannot give their complete attention to every element of every course. 

If a teacher can actually "cover" everything in a course that matters, then either the course is too narrow or the covering too shallow.  Most instruction begins with the selection of a few items by a teacher.  No course can include everything relevant and important unless that course has been limited to an inconsequentially small universe.  Every interaction between learners and teachers can only touch a sample, a selection of items or elements of a course.

No teacher can provide constant encouragement, motivation, or guidance for any learner.  Constant feedback is neither feasible nor desirable among human beings.

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Conclusion/Recommendations
Enable teachers and learners to use new patterns of interaction - especially "sampling" - in online and hybrid/blended courses with confidence and without overwork!

1. Confidence, Workload
   Enable learners and teachers to regain confidence in the quality of education they can achieve together without demanding unreasonable workloads of each other!

2. Expectations
   Eliminate the expectation that every student should have daily individualized interaction with every teacher in every course that has a substantial online component.  

3. Sampling Strategies and Schedules
   Develop, try, modify, adapt, use, … intermittent "sampling" schedules for the interaction of learners with teachers and with instructional resources.  Help learners and faculty members recognize that sampling patterns of interaction are at least adequate - and often the most effective option - for most kinds of effective learning and teaching.  Find sampling strategies that provide adequate feedback, structure, and incentives - while permitting both learners and teachers to set realistic limits for their workloads.  Of course, these strategies and limits must permit both learners and teachers to confidently sustain a mutually respected quality of education. 
   [NOTE:  Most traditional classroom-based courses have long provided "sampling" patterns of interaction between individual students and individual teachers.  How many students typically show up for most faculty members' face-to-face office hours, even on residential campuses?]

4. Interaction Tools and Media Options
   Provide adequate training and support for both teachers and students in the use of a variety of strategies, tools and communications media for interaction. 
   [NOTE:  Watch developments in the use of audio on the Web, blogging, and the rapidly evolving small digital devices that combine functions of cell phones, PDAs, cameras, Web browsers, ...]

5. Matching Interaction Options with Conditions
   Develop guidelines for choosing interaction options to fit relevant conditions - including the needs, goals, and abilities of learners and teachers.  These guidelines must also include as important factors  the accessibility and ease of use for all involved of new interaction strategies, patterns, methods, tools, and media.  Finally, these guidelines should also reflect understanding of and respect for the unique aspects of face-to-face and other "traditional" means of communication.

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Discussion Activity - Key Questions for Class Size

• What is the maximum number of students acceptable for your course(s)?

• What factors, conditions, or resources most limit class size for your course(s)?

• What factors, conditions, or resources would enable you to increase class size for your course(s)?

• Who should be engaged in a constructive "Dangerous Discussion" about class size within your institution?

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Also, see queries developed about Education, Technology, and Change. 

http://www.tltgroup.org/gilbert/QuakerQueriesswg2-19-01.htm

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