Open Your Door

Blog Post created by Laura Gibbs on Apr 5, 2017

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Thanks to a great share at Twitter, I read this beautiful article by Jennifer Gonzalez that I wanted to share here too:

Open Your Door: Why We Need to See Each Other Teach

This is very Canvas relevant as I said in my retweet of the article: BEST THING about @CanvasLMS is we can OPEN our online doors! my doors are always open: Myth.MythFolklore.net & India.MythFolklore.net :-)

The article discusses three reasons to open up, and the focus is on classroom teaching. Opening up online is easier but also different; if I have time tomorrow I'll try to write up some notes about that too. But anyway, this is such a super article not just about teaching but about success, failure, and growth in general. I'm sharing it with my students as a growth mindset article that they can read and respond to; it's not just about teachers and open doors — it's really about social learning in any context. :-)

I'll just quickly include here some quotes from the article, hoping to lure people to take a look. And I will also put in another plug for my Connected Learning group proposal (I'm still trying to get those 20 votes so we can have a group)... Connected Learning is good for teachers and for students! If you've never pondered that, then Jennifer's article would be a fabulous place to start. Let's open our Canvas doors!!! :-)

QUOTES FROM THE ARTICLE

Reason 1: Seeing Each Other Succeed

"By watching the way our colleagues teach, we pick up tricks and techniques that we can take into our own rooms."

"every time I’ve observed a colleague, my admiration for them has grown, and each time, I felt a little closer to them. This is something we could use more of in every workplace — educational or not."

Reason 2: Seeing Each Other Fail

"achieving something close to perfection is pretty damaging in a lot of ways. Conversely, letting people see some of your flaws creates greater intimacy. It makes them realize that their own flaws are not so weird. When I go over to someone’s house and it’s spotlessly clean, I feel kind of jealous and insecure. But crumbs on the counter and shoes in the hallway? On a gut level, I’m more comfortable. In this place, my psyche tells me, I won’t be judged."

"Apart from the bonding aspect, failure can lead to constructive criticism, which will help you grow."

Reason 3: The Intangibles

"So much of what we gain from watching each other teach falls into this “intangible” category: attitudes, pacing, small calibrations that make things work a little better."

And of course I have a cat for open:

Stay creative: be open.

Outcomes

Stephen Simpson Apr 5, 2017 10:49 AM

Laura Gibbs, I share more https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/ resources than from any other source, except maybe the Canvas Guides. Jennifer Gonzalez is definitely worth a follow on Twitter and the site deserving a browser bookmark!

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Laura Gibbs @ Stephen Simpson on Apr 5, 2017 10:53 AM

AGREED Stephen Simpson ! And I was so glad this article re-surfaced in the Twitterverse this morning. It was just what I needed. That's another great thing about blogging: posts can revive again even years later! :-)

And if you like Jennifer, I am guessing you would also like Michelle Pacansky-Brock's work too! Have you crossed digital paths with her yet?She's all over the Internet, and now she's at EdSurge which is going to gain her a new audience I hope. Here's a link:

Michelle Pacansky Brock | Edtech Writers on EdSurge

Just out of curiosity, have you had luck encouraging people to do open classes? We are just moving from D2L where that was impossible, and I've been frustrated that there has not been an emphasis on the open option in the rollout so far, but I have been busily making my own open resource spaces to at least show people that it is possible! It really is my favorite feature of Canvas, and it's been there since Canvas first began, which makes it even more amazing and admirable IMO. :-)

2 people found this helpful

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Stephen Simpson @ Laura Gibbs on Apr 5, 2017 11:58 AM

Laura Gibbs, I wasn't familiar with Dr. Pacansky-Brock but I am now following her on Twitter. Looks like her focus in Higher Ed, but that makes no difference to me! Thanks for the suggestion.

Our Instructional Technology Department, of which I am a part, actively encourages teachers within a level or professional learning community to utilize a 'sandbox' course to collaborate on Canvas lesson design and some teachers have gone further by adding one another to courses as Observers. I should back up: we allow teachers to create their own courses in our account, so they can have as many manually-created courses as they want (in addition to those created for them by our SIS). In that way, we do have many teachers who have 'open' digital classrooms that at least allow Ts to observe organizational strategies, settings configurations, content delivery tools, formative and summative assessments, etc., if not the F2F facilitation occurring within their physical classrooms (that would vary from campus to campus and typically reflects the campus leadership's vision at each site).

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Laura Gibbs @ Stephen Simpson on Apr 5, 2017 12:18 PM

That's one of the things I am really liking about spending time here at Canvas Community: people from K-12 and higher ed getting to meet and share. We need more of that!!! :-)

Another great spokesperson for open pedagogy and a hero of mine is Robin DeRosa:

actualham – the professional hub for Robin DeRosa

My philosophy is "open by default" .... I would love to see our culture of sharing progress to the point where instead of assuming all content is closed by default, it would be open by default, with things being password-protected only when they really need to be (like grades, etc.).

1 person found this helpful

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Jayde Colquhoun Apr 6, 2017 12:39 AM

What a great concept Open your door! Enjoyed this.

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awilliams

Apr 6, 2017 3:33 AM

Group Request: Connected Learning now has 21 votes.

1 person found this helpful

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Laura Gibbs @ awilliams on Apr 6, 2017 7:26 AM

Oooooh, thank you for letting me know Adam Williams ... I'm pinging Stefanie Sanders to see if that means we can get that approved. I'm still not quite sure how to make sure of that, but I'm sure it can be a good way to gather resources in a way that makes more sense that me just piling up stuff in this blog space. I could really try to grow that over the summer, too, since I have more time for reading and writing stuff up then.

1 person found this helpful

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awilliams

Apr 6, 2017 3:38 AM

An interesting tie in with Canvas is their commitment to openness. From the source code to the office spaces to the community, they seem to really appreciate this concept on a level that permeates.

1 person found this helpful

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Laura Gibbs @ awilliams on Apr 6, 2017 7:27 AM

Yes, that is where there is a real sense of hope here: Canvas, as a company, understands openness and community in ways that I think would benefit instructors too: my ideal would be to see more Canvas courses that are open (from what I understand, very few courses actually use the open public option), with more community features that promote connected learning, just like what we are doing here! :-)

1 person found this helpful

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Linda J. Lee Apr 6, 2017 8:53 AM

Thank you, Laura Gibbs, for sharing that Cult of Pedagogy article. As often as possible, I have colleagues do guest lectures for my intro-level Folklore classes on topics outside of my area of expertise. I learn so much from watching colleagues I trust and respect interact with my students. And usually (because these are typically three-hour classes), they've had a chance to observe my teaching as well for the portion of the class that they didn't take. That provides a great opportunity for feedback and suggestions. It's certainly nerve-wracking to do this, but it gets easier with practice!

You've made me think about possibilities for opening up the online Intro to Folklore course I'll be teaching this summer. There are some logistics I need to think through -- such as how to protect student privacy (FERPA!) with some of the tools I use in the class that are accessible with a link rather than authentication.

How do you negotiate issues of student privacy in your open online classes, Laura?

2 people found this helpful

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Laura Gibbs @ Linda J. Lee on Apr 6, 2017 9:03 AM

I let the students choose if they want to put their names on things in public. Personally, I hope that they will choose to do so, but if they want to create their blog or website anonymous, or with a pseudonym, or with first name only, that is fine with me. I do first-name-only when I reference students in the announcements or set up the blog groups, etc. Most of the students put their name on their work for class; they are proud and excited about the chance to share what they are doing with friends and family, but some choose to be anonymous or pseudonymous, and that's fine too. It all works.

I also really hope that students will leave their work online for future students to look at and use (the work of past students is the single most important body of content in my classes because that is what really inspires the current students in their work); I am pleased to say that almost all of them choose to do so. When I set up the class archive, I don't use any names at all, just the titles of the projects. I'm going to be navigating a big shift soon because the "classic" Google Sites will soon be taken offline (at least that is what Google has said), so I am not quite sure how I will go about documenting and keeping some of the older projects, but the new Google Sites projects are going great, so I am overall happy about that... but I do need to figure out this summer if/how I am going to document the old archive. I went through this once before and survived when, without warning, my school deleted hundreds of student projects from the archive; that's when I started using Google Sites instead of web hosting provided by my school. This time, I do have warning from Google, so I am pondering about whether I will set up some kind of catalog that documents the past projects, even if the content is no longer accessible. Anyway, here's the archive; most of the links are to classic Google SItes sites:

Online Course Lady: E-Storybook Central

For many years, I used a Ning (private group blog), and I suppose that made sense at the time, but within the past few years, with the explosion of social media, I think it is really important for students to start building a professional "persona" online, and I hope that my class can be part of that. Just this weekend, I was writing a letter of rec. for a student applying to Library School and it was so helpful for me to go back and see her work (she is the creator of the awesome "Demigod Daycare" Storybook that is in my class archive!), and also to be able to share that link as part of the letter I wrote.

As a general rule, I find that letting students choose is pretty much the answer to any design question or constraint I encounter. :-)

3 people found this helpful

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Linda J. Lee @ Laura Gibbs on Apr 6, 2017 9:44 AM

Laura Gibbs: Truer words were never spoken: "I find that letting students choose is pretty much the answer to any design question or constraint"!!

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12 Comments

Stephen Simpson Apr 5, 2017 10:49 AM
Laura Gibbs, I share more https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/ resources than from any other source, except maybe the Canvas Guides. Jennifer Gonzalez is definitely worth a follow on Twitter and the site deserving a browser bookmark!
3 people found this helpful
Like • Show 1 Like1
Actions
- Laura Gibbs @ Stephen Simpson on Apr 5, 2017 10:53 AM
  AGREED Stephen Simpson ! And I was so glad this article re-surfaced in the Twitterverse this morning. It was just what I needed. That's another great thing about blogging: posts can revive again even years later! :-)
  
  And if you like Jennifer, I am guessing you would also like Michelle Pacansky-Brock's work too! Have you crossed digital paths with her yet?She's all over the Internet, and now she's at EdSurge which is going to gain her a new audience I hope. Here's a link:
  Michelle Pacansky Brock | Edtech Writers on EdSurge
  
  Just out of curiosity, have you had luck encouraging people to do open classes? We are just moving from D2L where that was impossible, and I've been frustrated that there has not been an emphasis on the open option in the rollout so far, but I have been busily making my own open resource spaces to at least show people that it is possible! It really is my favorite feature of Canvas, and it's been there since Canvas first began, which makes it even more amazing and admirable IMO. :-)
  2 people found this helpful
  Like • Show 1 Like1
  Actions
  - Stephen Simpson @ Laura Gibbs on Apr 5, 2017 11:58 AM
    Laura Gibbs, I wasn't familiar with Dr. Pacansky-Brock but I am now following her on Twitter. Looks like her focus in Higher Ed, but that makes no difference to me! Thanks for the suggestion.
    
    Our Instructional Technology Department, of which I am a part, actively encourages teachers within a level or professional learning community to utilize a 'sandbox' course to collaborate on Canvas lesson design and some teachers have gone further by adding one another to courses as Observers. I should back up: we allow teachers to create their own courses in our account, so they can have as many manually-created courses as they want (in addition to those created for them by our SIS). In that way, we do have many teachers who have 'open' digital classrooms that at least allow Ts to observe organizational strategies, settings configurations, content delivery tools, formative and summative assessments, etc., if not the F2F facilitation occurring within their physical classrooms (that would vary from campus to campus and typically reflects the campus leadership's vision at each site).
    2 people found this helpful
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    Actions
    - Laura Gibbs @ Stephen Simpson on Apr 5, 2017 12:18 PM
      That's one of the things I am really liking about spending time here at Canvas Community: people from K-12 and higher ed getting to meet and share. We need more of that!!! :-)
      
      Another great spokesperson for open pedagogy and a hero of mine is Robin DeRosa:
      actualham – the professional hub for Robin DeRosa
      
      My philosophy is "open by default" .... I would love to see our culture of sharing progress to the point where instead of assuming all content is closed by default, it would be open by default, with things being password-protected only when they really need to be (like grades, etc.).
      1 person found this helpful
      Like • Show 0 Likes0
      Actions
Jayde Colquhoun Apr 6, 2017 12:39 AM
What a great concept Open your door! Enjoyed this.
Like • Show 2 Likes2
Actions
awilliams Apr 6, 2017 3:33 AM
Group Request: Connected Learning now has 21 votes.
1 person found this helpful
Like • Show 4 Likes4
Actions
- Laura Gibbs @ awilliams on Apr 6, 2017 7:26 AM
  Oooooh, thank you for letting me know Adam Williams ... I'm pinging Stefanie Sanders to see if that means we can get that approved. I'm still not quite sure how to make sure of that, but I'm sure it can be a good way to gather resources in a way that makes more sense that me just piling up stuff in this blog space. I could really try to grow that over the summer, too, since I have more time for reading and writing stuff up then.
  1 person found this helpful
  Like • Show 0 Likes0
  Actions
awilliams Apr 6, 2017 3:38 AM
An interesting tie in with Canvas is their commitment to openness. From the source code to the office spaces to the community, they seem to really appreciate this concept on a level that permeates.
1 person found this helpful
Like • Show 4 Likes4
Actions
- Laura Gibbs @ awilliams on Apr 6, 2017 7:27 AM
  Yes, that is where there is a real sense of hope here: Canvas, as a company, understands openness and community in ways that I think would benefit instructors too: my ideal would be to see more Canvas courses that are open (from what I understand, very few courses actually use the open public option), with more community features that promote connected learning, just like what we are doing here! :-)
  1 person found this helpful
  Like • Show 2 Likes2
  Actions
Linda J. Lee Apr 6, 2017 8:53 AM
Thank you, Laura Gibbs, for sharing that Cult of Pedagogy article. As often as possible, I have colleagues do guest lectures for my intro-level Folklore classes on topics outside of my area of expertise. I learn so much from watching colleagues I trust and respect interact with my students. And usually (because these are typically three-hour classes), they've had a chance to observe my teaching as well for the portion of the class that they didn't take. That provides a great opportunity for feedback and suggestions. It's certainly nerve-wracking to do this, but it gets easier with practice!

You've made me think about possibilities for opening up the online Intro to Folklore course I'll be teaching this summer. There are some logistics I need to think through -- such as how to protect student privacy (FERPA!) with some of the tools I use in the class that are accessible with a link rather than authentication.

How do you negotiate issues of student privacy in your open online classes, Laura?
2 people found this helpful
Like • Show 1 Like1
Actions
- Laura Gibbs @ Linda J. Lee on Apr 6, 2017 9:03 AM
  I let the students choose if they want to put their names on things in public. Personally, I hope that they will choose to do so, but if they want to create their blog or website anonymous, or with a pseudonym, or with first name only, that is fine with me. I do first-name-only when I reference students in the announcements or set up the blog groups, etc. Most of the students put their name on their work for class; they are proud and excited about the chance to share what they are doing with friends and family, but some choose to be anonymous or pseudonymous, and that's fine too. It all works.
  
  I also really hope that students will leave their work online for future students to look at and use (the work of past students is the single most important body of content in my classes because that is what really inspires the current students in their work); I am pleased to say that almost all of them choose to do so. When I set up the class archive, I don't use any names at all, just the titles of the projects. I'm going to be navigating a big shift soon because the "classic" Google Sites will soon be taken offline (at least that is what Google has said), so I am not quite sure how I will go about documenting and keeping some of the older projects, but the new Google Sites projects are going great, so I am overall happy about that... but I do need to figure out this summer if/how I am going to document the old archive. I went through this once before and survived when, without warning, my school deleted hundreds of student projects from the archive; that's when I started using Google Sites instead of web hosting provided by my school. This time, I do have warning from Google, so I am pondering about whether I will set up some kind of catalog that documents the past projects, even if the content is no longer accessible. Anyway, here's the archive; most of the links are to classic Google SItes sites:
  Online Course Lady: E-Storybook Central
  
  For many years, I used a Ning (private group blog), and I suppose that made sense at the time, but within the past few years, with the explosion of social media, I think it is really important for students to start building a professional "persona" online, and I hope that my class can be part of that. Just this weekend, I was writing a letter of rec. for a student applying to Library School and it was so helpful for me to go back and see her work (she is the creator of the awesome "Demigod Daycare" Storybook that is in my class archive!), and also to be able to share that link as part of the letter I wrote.
  
  As a general rule, I find that letting students choose is pretty much the answer to any design question or constraint I encounter. :-)
  3 people found this helpful
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  - Linda J. Lee @ Laura Gibbs on Apr 6, 2017 9:44 AM
    Laura Gibbs: Truer words were never spoken: "I find that letting students choose is pretty much the answer to any design question or constraint"!!
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Open Your Door

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