Considering the two Es, experience and environment
Considering the two Es, experience and environment
The Mosaic Initiative leads university-wide conversations around active learning and the evolving needs of IU's learning environments. The Mosaic Faculty Fellows program inspires many of these conversations through opportunities for faculty to explore active learning approaches, to reflect on how these approaches work and change in different learning environments, and to influence course design and technology selection at IU.
This year, the Mosaic Faculty Fellows program is moving away from its usual single, campus-specific cohort of fellows to three cross-campus cohorts of fellows, with expanded focuses on engaging students everywhere they learn and placing more emphasis on inclusion. Each cohort is exploring active learning in a particular area—hybrid learning environments, online learning environments, and inclusive and accessible learning environments.
Miranda Rodak, hybrid lead, reflects on Mosaic's evolution
Whatever the modality, I think everything begins with the two E's: experience and environment. It can be overwhelming to think in terms of all the technology and tools available to us. Instead, I encourage faculty to start by asking "What kind of learning experience do I want my students to have?" "What kind of learning experience supports my students' needs and goals, and drives my learning outcomes?"
From there, it becomes much easier to then take up the question of learning environment. With a clear vision of the experience in mind, you can then think creatively and practically about what kind of environment best serves that experience. Alternately, if you don't have a lot of control over the environment, then having that vision equips you to analyze your environment—whether it's online, in-person, or blended—and determine how both the affordances and limitations will impact the delivery of your intended experience.
IU has incredible resources—not just technologies and tools but people and support programs—to help faculty think through this relationship of experience and environment. Mosaic is powerful because it provides a hub where faculty can come together to learn from each other, collaboratively produce new ideas, models, and knowledge, and get plugged into IU's rich resources to empower active, engaged, inclusive learning experiences for students.
Introducing the new Fellows cohorts
Active learning in hybrid learning environments
A few words from cohort lead Miranda Rodak, Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Clinical Associate Professor, Department of English, IU Bloomington:
I'm inspired by the way Mosaic is shifting—moving away from a framework of "learning space" toward thinking more expansively about "learning environment." This shift will keep IU at the leading edge of active learning in higher education. It's especially important as we embrace a post-pandemic landscape that requires adopting more multimodal and multi-experiential ways of learning, thinking, and doing. I'm excited to lead the first cohort explicitly investigating hybrid learning and teaching. "Hybrid" means many things to many people, including hyflex, bichronous, and more.
As I lead this cohort, I want to empower faculty not to think they are supposed to have all the right answers but, rather, that they need to be asking the right questions—of themselves, their students, and their learning and institutional context—in order to leverage the right resources and create the most effective course designs. This includes understanding that any (and every!) version of "hybrid" comes with affordances and constraints. Flexibility is the key, but it carries costs—on faculty labor, on faculty and students' cognitive load, on technological resources and infrastructure, etc. Part of our work, then, is to think carefully about these affordances and constraints and to design our learning experiences with them in mind.
Weejeong Jeong, Lecturer in East Asian Languages and Cultures at IU Bloomington, relates this opportunity to the needs of students, noting that: "Gen Z students thrive in learning environments that involve hands-on experiences, often incorporating technology, proceeding at their own pace, and engaging in bite-size learning. In response, I am eager to delve into various hybrid learning and teaching environments, exploring modalities applicable to hybrid settings, and discovering effective approaches to active learning."
A'ame Joslin, Clinical Assistant Professor of Education Policy Studies at IU Columbus, also hopes to collaborate on teaching and learning practices with colleagues across IU and across disciplines: "I'm eager to see how we can use the current technology (or update our options!) to create inclusive, welcoming, and accessible environments for students learning in person and those who are learning online. I hope to redesign a course using the new Science of Reading curriculum to meet the needs of our hybrid learners."
Here are the eight Fellows in the hybrid cohort:
Carly Bennett, Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Health and Human Sciences, IU Fort Wayne
Hong Chen, Assistant Professor, Informatics, School of Business and Economics, IU East
Ann Huntoon, Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, Department of Kinesiology, IU Bloomington
Weejeong Jeong, Lecturer, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, IU Bloomington
A'ame Joslin, Clinical Assistant Professor, Education Policy Studies, Division of Education, IU Columbus
Brian Krohn, Associate Professor, School of Health and Human Sciences, Department of Tourism, Event & Sport Management, IU Indianapolis
Lee Little, Research and Instruction Librarian & Adjunct Lecturer in Law, Ruth Lilly Law Library, Robert H. McKinney School of Law, IU Indianapolis
Carrie Rector, Lecturer, Media Arts and Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, IU Indianapolis
Active learning in online learning environments
A few words from cohort lead Anna Greene, Group Manager, eLearning Design, University Information Technology Services (UITS), Indiana University:
As instructional designers who increasingly focus on the online space, it's a real privilege to facilitate these faculty conversations. The fellows are the experts in the room—each of them has something to offer as part of the cohort, whether it's a skill, a mindset, or a commitment. We provide context and resources, as needed, organizing the cohort's six sessions around things instructors often struggle with in online spaces (especially when focused on active learning): community building, learning experiences, discussions, engagement, group work, motivation. Much like online classes, these sessions model how to adapt to varying dynamics, like creating continuity between different facilitators and holding makeup sessions if people can't attend.
Session facilitators: Adam Bunnell, Karri Hamlett-Bedan, Carrie Hansel, Kim Murday, Renee Petrina, Jessica Rebstock, Maggie Ricci, Missy Ritchie, Kim Seeber, Maria Tobar (guest), Meg Zurlage
Myesha Price, Associate Professor in Counseling and Educational Psychology at IU Bloomington, speaks for many of the fellows in saying "The vast majority of my experience in engaging students in active learning has been with in-person teaching. However, as we begin to adopt more online teaching modalities, as ways to make learning and the education experience more accessible to a variety of students, I would also like to adopt more active learning approaches. This is particularly difficult in asynchronous courses. I am hoping to learn how to better engage students with the material in hopes that the online courses I teach allow all students to thrive."
Senior Mosaic Fellow Subir Bandyopadhyay, Professor of Marketing at IU Northwest, would like to work with the other fellows and facilitators to "perform a thorough survey of the different active learning methods used in different online learning environments and evaluate their effectiveness. Based on the survey findings, I will develop a template for effective active learning techniques suitable for the online environment. This template will help faculty members in choosing the right active learning methods for their classes."
Here are the 16 Fellows in the online cohort:
Jared Allsop, Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, Department of Health & Wellness Design, IU Bloomington
Subir Bandyopadhyay, Professor, School of Business and Economics, IU Northwest
Jaclyn Barkow, Clinical Assistant Professor of Accounting, School of Business and Economics, IU Northwest
Kimberly Carballo, Senior Lecturer, Jacobs School of Music, Department of Chamber and Collaborative Music, IU Bloomington
Jokima Hiller, Assistant Professor, School of Business and Economics, IU Northwest
Stephanie Baranko Lincoln, Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, IU Northwest
Yan Liu, Assistant Professor, Management, School of Business & Economics, IU East
Jacob Miller, Lecturer, College of Arts + Sciences, Department of Sociology, IU Bloomington
Peter Nemes, Senior Lecturer, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Department of International Studies, IU Bloomington
Sandra Ortiz, Senior Lecturer, College of Arts + Sciences, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, IU Bloomington
Myeshia Price, Associate Professor, School of Education, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, IU Bloomington
Eric Sader, Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Law & Ethics, IU Bloomington
Lamia Sherzinger, Senior Lecturer, School of Health & Human Sciences, Department of Kinesiology, IU Indianapolis
Kevin Slates, Clinical Associate Professor, School of Public Health, Department of Applied Health Science, IU Bloomington
Megan Young, Lecturer, Digital Art, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, IU Bloomington
Louie Zhu, Senior Lecturer, Informatics, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, IU Indianapolis
Active learning in inclusive and accessible learning environments
A few words from cohort lead Michael Mace, Manager, UITS Assistive Technology and Accessibility Centers, Indiana University:
I am so proud and happy that Mosaic wanted to add a cohort on inclusion in the active learning space. We (as instructors) frequently forget that we bring our whole selves into the classroom, and so do our students. With those whole selves come all the learned behaviors, unconscious biases, fears, disabilities, backgrounds, and beliefs. This creates so many filters of perception between the student and the faculty member, it's a wonder that we can communicate and learn at all. It's important to acknowledge and recognize those filters and the potential barriers when designing active learning experiences for our students so that we can ensure we move all learners forward.
Kimberly Arnold, Lecturer in Chemistry at IU Bloomington, centers a concern echoed by several Mosaic Fellows in the 2024 cohorts: Lowering DFW rates, or the percentage of students who finish a course with a D or F grade, or who Withdraw from the course entirely (some instructors also expand this to DFWI, including students who finish with an Incomplete). These numbers often include high numbers for students from minoritized groups, especially for large-enrollment preparatory courses.
Lin Zheng, Clinical Professor of Accounting at IU Indianapolis, notes that "students learn more effectively and efficiently when their diversity is considered in learning activities… My goal as a Mosaic Fellow this year is to continue learning and exploring strategies to accommodate learning diversity as brought by students' background, abilities, and needs. I would implement learning activities in my courses to leverage such diversity for individual learning and for the whole class."
Here are the 13 Fellows in the inclusive and accessible cohort:
Benjamin Ale-Ebrahim, Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Department of Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills, IU Bloomington
Kimberly Arnold, Lecturer, College of Arts + Sciences, Department of Chemistry, IU Bloomington
Xin Chen, Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Department of Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills, IU Bloomington
Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick, Professor of English, Division of Liberal Arts, IU Columbus
Heaven Hollender, Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Health & Human Sciences, Department of Health Sciences, IU Indianapolis
Jennifer Lale, Lecturer, College of Arts + Sciences, Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance, IU Bloomington
Pamela Laucella, Associate Professor, School of Liberal Arts, Department of Journalism and Public Relations, IU Indianapolis
Hassnaa Mohammed, Assistant Professor, Interior Design, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, IU Bloomington
Joe Packowski, Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Department of Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills, IU Bloomington
Logan Paul, Senior Lecturer, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, IU Bloomington
Carolyn Runge, Visiting Lecturer, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Department of Community and Global Health, IU Indianapolis
Todd Shelton, Lecturer, Media Arts and Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, IU Indianapolis
Lin Zheng, Clinical Professor of Accounting, Kelley School of Business, IU Indianapolis
The Connected Professor A fresh look at teaching and learning with technology at IU resources and social media channels
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