During the Spring 2020 semester we highlighted Haas faculty members as they shared their tips for teaching online
March 29th: Alex Budak | April 5th: Cameron Anderson | April 12th: Rebecca Portnoy | April 20th: Vince Law | April 26th: Sameer Srivastava | May 3rd: Jenny Herbert-Creek
Faculty Spotlight
Alex Budak
Becoming a Changemaker
(UGBA 157, EWMBA 257)
The Berkeley Changemaker
(UGBA C12)
What educational technologies would you recommend for teaching remotely?
Canvas Studio has been such a joy to use. I’m able to easily embed asynchronous lecture videos within bCourses so that I can create a digital flow for students’ learning experience similar to that which I would create live in the classroom. The greatest highlight of Canvas Studio, however, has been the commenting feature. Students can leave contextual comments on videos which then appear for other students watching as a pop-up at the exact moment in lecture where the student originally left their comment. This has led to comment streams of 30+ comments at a single point in the video and some amazing back and forth dialogues. I’ve also used this feature strategically to ask students to pause the video and reflect on a question and share their response. The engagement has been better than in a synchronous class because all students can participate equally and on their own terms.
How was your experience working with Haas Digital?
I can’t thank Haas Digital enough for all that they did for our Berkeley Changemaker course. From filming to course design to strategic thought partnership, the class is what it is because of the entire Haas Digital team’s commitment to the course. From the beginning, we set out to question the status quo about what a digital-first course might look like, and at every turn Haas Digital has been there with ideas, answers and action to make it happen.
What advice would you share with your fellow faculty members about teaching online?
Rather than trying to fastidiously replicate an in-class experience online, start fresh and lean into what digital makes possible. Let go of the path dependencies of teaching in a physical classroom and reimagine a digital-first experience. Be cognizant of issues of community and equity and incorporate those in your course design from the outset. And most of all be a student always — have fun trying new tools and seeing what possibilities they unlock. Not everything will work smoothly the first time, but students seem to sincerely appreciate our sense of curiosity and willingness to experiment. We are all figuring this out together, and efforts you put into teaching online now will compound in the future as you get more comfortable with this new mode of instruction and continue finding ways to leverage new tools and methodologies to meet students where they are.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Virtual office hours are incredible (I use Calendly for sign-ups, which automatically generates a Zoom link for each session). I plan to keep these up as an option even after we return to in-person teaching.
Cameron Anderson
Power and Politics
(EWMBA 254, MBA 254)
What educational technologies would you recommend for teaching remotely?
- Canvas is a no-brainer because it provides a great platform that serves as a hub for everything students need – syllabus, assignments, exams, videos, links to online discussion forums, the course reader, etc. It’s a great “one stop shop” where you can find everything.
- Harmonize has been great as well – the best online discussion program we’ve used so far (and we have used many).
- Panopto has led to 0% complaints, which is perhaps the best sign of its success. It has provided videos to students seamlessly.
How was your experience working with Haas Digital?
Haas Digital has provided a great deal of support for my remote teaching needs not only this past year, but also well before this past year. My experience with them has been A+. They helped me strategize on the organization of my course material, shoot high quality pre-recorded lectures, put together my (somewhat complicated) bCourse sites, shoot videos that provided technical introductions for the course and its software platforms, and even design very complicated group exercises that involve pre-surveys, the distribution of task materials, recordings of the group sessions, post-surveys, and the distribution of individual feedback forms.
Everyone I’ve worked with at Haas Digital has been easy to work with, friendly, and highly competent. If they don’t know an answer to a question, chances are nobody has the answer to that question.
What advice would you share with your fellow faculty members about teaching online?
The “top five” improvements to my online class over the years are:
-
“Flipping the course” to make the live sessions more interactive. I put almost all of my lecture material in pre-recorded videos and used the live sessions to analyze cases, debrief exercises, discuss personal assessments and feedback, engage in role-playing simulations, etc.
-
During each live session, I break people into small groups at least twice. A huge request from students is that online classes are highly interactive; they want to talk to each other rather than sit by themselves. The small group breakouts have been crucial in getting everyone talking.
-
Making the pre-recorded videos high quality. I don’t use videos that I record on my own at my desk. Haas Digital is able to make very polished and professional videos with high production value and that MBAs students have appreciated.
-
Organizing the content on Canvas to make it as easy on the students as possible. It’s difficult for us to see how complicated a Canvas site is when we design it – we suffer from the “curse of knowledge.” So going through the site carefully and simplifying, streamlining, reiterating, putting instructions in places where students can see them has helped. If students have to navigate a complicated and confusing site, their learning experience suffers.
-
Clarifying expectations up front. This applies to “pre-COVID” online teaching more, but students in the past would sign up for an online class but still post complaints that it wasn’t what they hoped it would be. I noticed these complaints go down when I was much more explicit about how much of the course would be taught via live sessions, pre-recorded lectures, group exercises, etc.
Rebecca Portnoy
Leading People
(EWMBA 205, MBA 205)
What educational technologies would you recommend for teaching remotely?
The [Zoom] chat function is so helpful with virtual teaching as it enables me to harvest full participation among the students. I usually end a class or case discussion with takeaways. With the chat, Ido the following: After the prompt to consider the specific takeaway, I ask the students to write their thoughts, but wait before hitting return. When I say hit return, they hit return, and everyone’s ideas will come up at the same time. This creates equity in voices and creates a text gallery space for everyone to review the range of ideas emerging. In comparison to the traditional classroom, I usually take a handful of responses and we miss hearing a large percentage. The chat “gallery” also called “Mad Tea” gives everyone a chance to see for themselves the similarities and differences across ideas.
How was your experience working with Haas Digital?
Haas Digital was incredible. I was among the first faculty to use the Virtual Classroom last August. I loved the support from the whole team to review my syllabus, my bCourses site, and dry run in the virtual classroom to make sure all the pieces fit into a smooth student experience. Knowing I was so supported allowed me to feel comfortable taking risks and trying so many new things all at once.
What advice would you share with your fellow faculty members about teaching online?
There are silver linings waiting to be discovered. Students love trying to connect and when online, they cannot just walk up after class. I made space for them at the end of each class by developing a ritual of saying goodbye. I told the class we will countdown to make it clear we are ending and then anyone who wanted to stay could stay on after. I usually made it clear what my cutoff time was. In the past in person, I would talk with students one by one. These post-class virtual conversations were not private but were rich and meaningful as students could hear one another’s questions.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I always start class with a check-in question related to the topic. I send students to breakout rooms. In person, they don’t necessarily meet new classmates. With Zoom, I randomly assigned them to pairs, and they loved that over the 7-8 weeks, they met so many people.
Vince Law
New Product Development (MBA 290N)
Product Management (MBA 290T)
Team Facilitation for Product Managers (MBA 290T)
What educational technologies would you recommend for teaching remotely?
Any pre-recorded lectures that free-up time for interactive learning is great. I’ve used both Canvas Studio and Panopto for this.
How was your experience working with Haas Digital?
From ideation to design to delivery, each and every member of the Haas Digital team has been helpful, resourceful, supportive, and responsive — often reaching out before I needed help. Whether it is setting up new tech or simply offering suggestions and recommendations, I’m so appreciative of all that Haas Digital does for faculty and students!
What advice would you share with your fellow faculty members about teaching online?
Students seem to really appreciate the attention to details on activities and exercises. This will seem very basic, but anything from having pre-assigned break-outs, having the right amount of time for activities, having the access to activity instructions and assets in the breakout away from the main session… those little things add up and create a smooth online experience.
Also, I let students have ownership over the chat space on Zoom and look at it on occasion in case there are relevant questions or thoughts to bring to the session. Students can make light, sometimes funny remarks to each about the session topics to keep things light and engaging. Students would probably end up messaging each other on Slack anyways.
Sameer Srivastava
Power and Politics (EW/FT MBA 254)
PhD Seminar on Organizational Theory
What educational technologies would you recommend for teaching remotely?
Online simulations (e.g., the Everest and Change Management simulations available from HBS Publishing) + online group exercises co-developed with Haas Digital.
How was your experience working with Haas Digital?
I have had a fantastic experience working with Haas Digital in developing asynchronous lecture content and online group exercises. Not only do they have relevant knowledge and expertise, but they are also a pleasure to work with.
What advice would you share with your fellow faculty members about teaching online?
-
Use small group discussions and exercises whenever possible. They help to keep the energy level up.
-
Consider grading class participation in part based on peer evaluations. I found this to be helpful in ensuring that students were engaged in small group discussions and exercises even when I was not present as an observer.
Jenny Herbert Creek
Designing Financial Models that Work (EWMBA 236G, MBA 236G)
Financial Statement Modeling (EWMBA 236H, MBA 236H)
What educational technologies would you recommend for teaching remotely?
I recommend Kahoot! – students love it because the interface is fun, and it “gamifies” the learning experience. What I appreciate most, though, is that it gets everyone in the class engaged and participating in real time. The upgraded plan allows you to use features like Word Cloud, which is a great way to get qualitative participation quickly. I also integrate lecture slides into the Kahoot! quiz, so that I can present content during the exercises while students are engaged with Kahoot!
How was your experience working with Haas Digital?
Fernando has always been incredibly responsive and has helped me make tweaks to my bCourses sites, such as adding the CidiLabs templates.
What advice would you share with your fellow faculty members about teaching online?
Just like an in-person class, begin with the end in mind: what are your primary learning objectives for the course? What are the most important learnings or skills you want the students to take away from the class? When your learning objectives are clear, evaluate the tools available and determine which tools and class exercises will best support these objectives. It may be that your course design in an online environment uses different exercises or content to best take advantage of the online modality. For example, I use more paired discussions online because the Zoom breakout rooms feature makes it far more efficient to have multiple sets of partners than when we are in-person. I try to approach the online course design as an opportunity to create new experiences for my students, rather than simply presenting my in-person content via Zoom.
For me, the most challenging part of teaching online is losing the informal opportunities to connect with and get to know students individually, such as during class transition times or in the hallways. To help with this, I use Calendly to create an office hours calendar in 15 minute increments, and provide dozens of appointments each week. I encourage students to sign up even if they have a simple question or just want to introduce themselves – this has allowed me to connect to them on an individual basis, which is hard to do in the larger Zoom classes.