Centering the People in Online Courses

Faculty who teach online know that it comes with distinct benefits, with the ability to reach learners who might not otherwise have access to your course prominent among them.

But as meaningful as that is, the logistical challenges online teaching can present means we don’t necessarily think of it as a “joyful” exercise, particularly in those courses with limited live interaction between instructor and students.

An author and longtime advocate for online teaching, Flower Darby has written a new book titled The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes. It has much to offer anyone teaching in the online modality, whether your course is entirely on-demand or features regular live sessions.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The turning point with a student that reshaped Flower’s approach to online teaching
• Drawing on positive psychology’s PERMA theory of well-being to create a better online learning environment
• Why being a “joyful” teacher entails something different than surface-level happiness
• The importance of introducing energy to and generating energy in online classrooms
• The impact instructors can have on students by doing simple things like knowing their names and genuinely responding to what they’ve said
• Why Flower believes instructors bringing their full selves into their asynchronous classes is the most effective way to counter unethical uses of AI
• Finding creative ways to connect with students and lean into what gives you joy as a teacher to improve their experience and your own

Guest Bio: Flower Darby is an associate director of the Teaching for Learning Center at the University of Missouri, an author, and a keynote speaker. She’s taught in higher ed for more than 30 years in subjects ranging from psychology to jazz dance. Her latest book is The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes, which is part of the Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed Series at the University of Oklahoma Press edited by Designed for Learning host Jim Lang and Michelle Miller.

Resources Mentioned:

• Flower’s New Book: The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes (University of Oklahoma Press)
• PERMA Theory of Well-Being
• Sarah Rose Cavanagh’s Book: The Spark of Learning (West Virginia University Press)
• Flower’s Website
• Flower’s LinkedIn
• Episode Transcript

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu/podcast. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter.

Transcript

[JIM LANG]
(cheerful upbeat music)
Welcome to Designed for Learning, a podcast from Notre Dame Learning. I'm your host, Jim Lang.

Today's episode pairs two concepts you don't normally see together, online teaching and joyfulness. Now, I'm sure that plenty of people who teach online also happen to be joyful people, but I haven't seen too many people attribute their joy to the fact that they teach online. Of course, online courses have been an essential pathway for learners who might not have access to traditional education or for those who just prefer to learn in that modality, so online teachers can certainly take pride and satisfaction in the meaningfulness of their work. But joy? Today's guest has been a longtime advocate for online teaching in projects like her book Small Teaching Online, co-authored with yours truly. In her newest book, she takes on the subject of online teaching as a source of joy, both for the teacher and students.

Flower Darby is an associate director of the Teaching for Learning Center at the University of Missouri, an author, and a keynote speaker. She's taught in higher ed for over 30 years in several subjects, ranging from psychology to jazz dance. Her latest book is The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes. Welcome to Designed for Learning, Flower.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Thank you so much, Jim. It's truly a treat to be here.

[JIM LANG]
So, let's start by hearing about your journey into online teaching. So, when did you start and how often do you do it? Is that your normal teaching modality? So, tell me a little bit about your journey and your experiences in online courses.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yes, so I started in 2008 or so, and I was offered an adjunct, you know, one online class. I thought I would not like it. It was a 300-level writing composition, and I thought I wouldn't like it. However, I thought, It seems like higher ed is kind of going this direction, I'll try one class and see how that feels. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and I liked logging in at any hour of the day or night and checking in on my students and interacting with them. I did have a good opportunity to shadow an experienced and engaging online instructor the semester before I taught. That really made a difference. And then over time, that became my primary mode of teaching as I was starting my family. It allowed me to stay home with my young children, and I really appreciated that flexibility.

However, I was teaching only online and so much online, four classes per semester and four more in—not four, two more in the summer—that I finally realized that my teacher self was kind of shriveling up and dying inside because of the lack of the same kind of interactions that we have in the classroom. I was not teaching dance or English at that time. And it just caused me to realize that I felt like I was trudging through the online teaching trenches, which is not the way I usually feel about teaching. So, that kind of caused an interest in, how can we make this better and what can we do? What does the science say about how we learn? How do motivation and emotion play into these aspects? What can we do to invigorate online classes? And that's what led me to where I am today.

Now, I'm not teaching online currently because for almost five years now, I've been an online student in a Ph.D. program that is online asynchronous, and that has given me a very unique lens to bring to my online teaching experience, and you'll see that influence reflected in the book, as well.

[JIM LANG]
Okay, so let's just talk about that a little bit. So, tell me a little bit about that experience as, you know, from the other side of the screen and sort of how you've been able to use that experience to inform what you're arguing in this book.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Thankfully, I've been able to be successful, but that's not too surprising because I know what I need to do to be successful (laughs), and the program is designed for working professionals. To your point, you know, in the introduction, you mentioned that online classes make it possible for people to pursue that credential that might not otherwise be able to. Well, I'm in that position now.

So I've been walking a long and weary mile in online students' shoes, and it has certainly increased the empathy. It's just hard to juggle everything, as you might imagine. But seeing it from the other side, interacting with the other people in my classes who are students, again, that has really shaped my thinking about what else we can do when we're in the instructor's seat to help and support online students, but also to make it more enjoyable for students as well as ourselves.

[JIM LANG]
And so the idea that, you know, the experience hasn't always been joyful for you as an online teacher, you sort of described that in your first answer. Was there a point in which you sort of— you mentioned the idea that at a certain point, you sort of realized you had to sort of step back and become more self-aware about what was happening with you as in your teaching self and your attitudes toward teaching online. So how did you start to reshape that teaching self in your online courses? What were some of the first things you did to try to help move yourself into a different place?

[FLOWER DARBY]
You know, there was really a critical turning point. And I fell into a trap, but I think many people who teach online do fall into, and that is that we fail to see the names on the screen as real people in complicated lives with dreams and challenges and trouble. And there was one particular semester, about spring 2019 or so, and this one student really struggled. I was teaching an ed tech class at that time. Required video introductions because it's all about using technology effectively, that was aligned with the course outcomes. She declined to turn on her camera, which was a requirement, it was in the rubric, and posted a photo of herself and her son instead of having a video. And I kind of got frustrated. I docked points in the rubric. I moved on, didn't think too much about it. She was an amazing student for the rest of the term.

But two days after the class ended, she realized that she was a few points shy of an A and asked if she could resubmit something. And then in that same email, she said, You know what? Something's been bothering me this whole time. I didn't record a video because the week prior to that assignment, I was beaten. And I was embarrassed with the way that my face looked. I was still damaged.

And that was a critical turning point. In fact, I think I sobbed, honestly, when I read that. I was like, What am I doing? Well, I'm just treating these people as names on a screen. And so that was the moment that I thought, Okay, how can I reinvigorate myself? How can I reach out to and connect with these people who are on the other side of the screen? And that's when I started essentially centering the people in our classes. That's the big takeaway from this book, is that we need to center the people in our online classes, starting with ourselves. That's how we're gonna find our joy, and that's what I started with several years back.

[JIM LANG]
That's a powerful story, you know, changing your understanding of this way of teaching. So, the idea then in the book is really trying to get yourself more connected to your students, see them as whole people, and so tell me what are some of the things that you argue in the book that are essential for doing that?

[FLOWER DARBY]
Well, I encourage us to reframe our mindset and our perspective because teaching online, especially if all you teach [is] online, right, you only teach online classes, it begins to feel like technical administrivia. You're just clicking, you're just updating links, you're just changing dates. It does not feel like facilitating learning and growth. So, in the book, I present the PERMA Theory of Well-Being out of positive psychology, which argues that there are five building blocks of individual well-being that we can draw on and cultivate to flourish, and to foster flourishing in ourselves and in the people that we're interacting with.

I highlight two elements, particularly. One is positive emotion. Building on Sarah Rose Cavanagh's book The Spark of Learning, I apply positive emotion science to our online teaching experiences to help our students learn and thrive. And then I drill down on relationships, which is the R in PERMA, a positive relationship, supportive social connections. And so, the whole book is kind of a step-by-step, practically speaking, how do we do that?

Chapter 1, for example, is "Set Up for Success," and that deals with the part of online teaching that I don't love. It's all the administrivia. It's all the making sure that the links are working. It's that instructions are clear, that you have extra examples, so that you can set everybody up for a successful journey. And then the remaining chapters are, again, diving into how do we foster positive social connections? Because it's harder to do in online classes. How do we bring emotion science to bear? How do we focus on the meaningfulness and the accomplishment, two other elements in PERMA, and remind ourselves when we begin to feel like we're trudging through the online teaching trenches—there are many, many practical recommendations in the book that address those questions.

[JIM LANG]
You know, some of the language that you use here, trudging through the online trenches (laughs), which kind of reflects this notion that's how many people feel about teaching online, right? But even in, like, teaching, you know, an in-person course, we sometimes feel like that. You call that administrative-tivia? What was it called? What was the term used?

[FLOWER DARBY]
Administrivia.

[JIM LANG]
(laughs) Administrivia, I like it. Right, so I mean, to a certain extent, that's part of teaching, right? You have to get that stuff done. It matters to the students, and it matters to the conception of the course. But you're right. I mean, it can be a challenge, no question about it.

[FLOWER DARBY]
And I think when we are teaching in person, the interactions that we have with our embodied students in the classroom and that buzz that we get, that energy that we can help to generate, facilitate, sustain, that compensates for those less—

[JIM LANG]
Ah.

[FLOWER DARBY]
That compensates for those less-interesting tasks, and you're missing that online. So, I've worked really hard to develop for myself and then share with readers how we can find that buzz of interaction in what—basically, I finally come clean in this book and admit that I don't love teaching online as much as I love teaching in person. (laughs) I admit that it feels like drudgery sometimes, and then, Okay, look, what can we do about that?

[JIM LANG]
So the fact that you mentioned the idea of positive psychology. So, you know, we can sort of make a distinction between, you know, sort of happiness or flourishing or eudaimonia—

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yes.

[JIM LANG]
Versus joyfulness, right? And so joyfulness is actually a slightly different thing. So why'd you choose that versus, you know, The Happy Online Teacher, The Flourishing Online Teacher, or something like that? What drew you to that word?

[FLOWER DARBY]
Well, quite frankly, Jim, you did because—

[JIM LANG]
(both laugh) Okay, let's pause here. So, I'm the editor of the book series that this book is being published in, so let's acknowledge that. Yes, I played a small role in this part as well, yeah.

[FLOWER DARBY]
You know, in an early conversation that helped me to shape what became The Joyful Online Teacher, that was actually a word that you put out there. And you, I believe, were making the exact point that you are now. It's not just a surface-level happiness, it is deep, it's nuanced. There is meaning, there is purpose, there is pride. This work is rewarding and fulfilling when we remind ourselves that the people who are taking these classes may not otherwise have an opportunity to get that degree, that they're seeking to pursue that dream, to make that life better for themselves and their families. And that name kind of stuck, The Joyful Online Teacher, because there's been many seasons of my online teaching life that I was not joyful at all until I learned to notice those moments. I have other stories, and better yet, I interviewed several joyful online teachers, and I shared their stories of how they have been able to cultivate joy, that meaning, that purpose when they remind themselves of the work that they're doing.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah, so a big part of this is just sort of when you have these moments, you have to surface them and remind yourself they happened. And they're meaningful, and they contribute to the person that you wanna be, right?

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yeah, in the introduction, I share one of the most powerful stories. It's about an online instructor who found out that she had stage four cancer, was put into hospice, kept teaching online, and said, "When you're facing the end, it helps to know that you have lifted other people up."

Spoiler alert, she's fine now!

[JIM LANG]
Wow, okay, good. Yeah, that's a good spoiler alert. Yeah.

[FLOWER DARBY]
But she was one of the most passionate advocates, and you'll find stories, again, from other folks like her who have found that joy and that passion, that meaning, that purpose, and I share their stories to inspire us all to pause and notice and remind ourselves of that work.

[JIM LANG]
And so, when you think about, you know, some of these—that was obviously, you know, a great example of someone who you spoke to or learned from, brings some joy to their online teaching. So, the other folks that you interviewed or spoke to or learned about, what were other things you heard from them? There was connections, right? The idea of seeing people behind the screens, the idea of finding the meaning in your work. Anything else comes to mind for you?

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yeah, you know, a theme that emerged for sure was having fun and being silly and bringing our quirky personalities into our class. You know, again, if we as the instructors are enjoying our time in class, and you'll see that represented in the book in different shades and variations, that's how we're going to bring that light, that energy, that warmth that I think is oftentimes missing in online classes. So, bringing our own personalities and embracing some of those fun aspects, that's another thing that you'll see.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah. I think that's a great point. I think whatever energy we bring into the in-person classroom has a kind of infectious quality to it, both positive and negative, and I'm guessing that's probably true in the online teaching as well.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yeah, again, this idea was first sort of put into words for me, I knew it intuitively after teaching for years, but, you know, Sarah Rose Cavanagh's book, again The Spark of Learning, is where I finally kinda realized, Oh, that's a thing, emotion contagion. And instantly, as soon as I was reading that book, I thought, This has so much potential for these dry, boring online classes. And The Joyful Online Teacher, again, kind of extends that work. It talks more about how we can apply emotion science to generate that energy in, quite frankly, what I think are really ugly online classes.

[JIM LANG]
Mm, yeah. And so, what do you hear from students? Like, do you have any opportunities to talk to students? I mean, either students in your program or your own students or to sort of hear from them their perspective about what really makes a good online course.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yeah, you know, I do share a few stories in the book, and specifically, I really appreciate when I get to go to panels of students who are talking about their experience as online learners. And, honestly, it grieves me because still, less than a year ago, I attended a panel, and this story is in the book, that the students are saying, "You know what really makes a difference? When the instructor responds to my email. It makes me feel like I matter." I'm like, What? “You know what really makes a difference? Is when they read my discussion post and it seems like they care a little bit.”

I just feel that—and no blame, no shame, right? Because many of us teaching online really haven't—now, to be fair, a lot of programs do a lot to prepare online teachers, but I think we're missing the mark on that personal connection, that facilitation of learning. And when I talk to students or when I hear from students, it's about how isolated and lonely they feel. All they want is a little bit more of us. They're not asking us to be 24/7 bots, right? They just want more of us, and that's why when we can bring our own personality, spend a little more time with our students, it makes a big difference in their motivation and their success.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah, this just happened to me. So, I have a daughter who's in a graduate program, a master's program, and some of her classes are online and some are in person, and one of the online classes that she has, she's the TA for because she's in her second year in the program. And so, [inaudible] a great instructor. Sometimes, you know, I'm in the house, I can hear how the class is going. And so, she is the TA. The instructor had them do, like, a midterm evaluation, and she did it, so she was online with the students. The professor had given them some questions, and then she had them respond to them, and then she did follow-up questions with them. So, I was listening to all this. I was making lunch in the kitchen.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Mm-hmm.

[JIM LANG]
And one of the students said, and I know this class is maybe 10 or 15 students. All her classes—the largest class she has is maybe 20 students. And one of the students said, I heard one of the students say, "You know, it's amazing. This professor actually remembers things I told him in the last class about myself." And I thought to myself, Oh my gosh, like, this is the only professor that's doing this to you in a master's program? Like, that's incredible to me.. 

And again, you and I sort of take these things for granted. And folks who have done research in this area, folks who work in faculty development, we know this is so important, but apparently, the message is still not getting out there, like just this notion of just say their name, remember something about them. And I know in a large class, that's difficult, but in these smaller classes and in online classes, boy, it must make such a big difference to these students who feel so anonymous.

[FLOWER DARBY]
They absolutely do feel invisible, unseen, isolated, that they have to walk themselves through the class. And that story that you just shared, it's so timely, so powerful. But to your point, we're not doing a great job of getting the message out there, and that's why I wrote The Joyful Online Teacher. Because I thought, You know what? Rather than telling online teachers what they should do, let's just inspire all of us to—because we have more enjoyment when we as instructors notice what that student told us last week. There's a spark. There's that collective effervescence that we learn about in sociology. So, it boosts our well-being, it refills our teaching cup when we do a little tiny thing like remember what a student said last week. But you're right, that's very common. Students in online classes feel like nobody is paying any attention to them. That's so demotivating and discouraging. It's hard for them to learn and be successful under those conditions.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah, I think about anyone, even like working in an office, right? If you just feel completely anonymous and you don't feel like you're being recognized for your contributions or even the fact that you're there, that's gonna be so demotivating to that person. So, I think you're just trying to bring that energy to the online space, as well.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yes, and it is still contagious and infectious. You can still bring all your teacher energy and enthusiasm, which the literature is clear, energizes and motivates your students and helps them to learn and persist. We can help our students cross the finish line when we are mindful and intentional to project that positive energy, that support, that optimism, that availability to our students. It goes a long way. You don't actually have to do a lot, but a little bit goes a long way.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah. Now, you just mentioned the idea that your book is designed to inspire and to help people, you know, re-embrace this form of teaching and take more joy out of it. But of course, I know that you are also interested in actual techniques and strategies, right? (both laugh) So I'm sure the book has not just inspirational stories, but also has concrete strategies that will help people embrace this idea, right?

[FLOWER DARBY]
You're absolutely right, you know me well. Every chapter is chock-full of very practical tips, and they are all in the vein of small teaching ideas, right? Things that don't take a lot of time, effort, energy, don't create a huge grading burden, but help our students to, again, learn meaningfully and persist.

[JIM LANG]
And we'll talk about one of those, or one or two of those before we finish here, but I wanna just now step back a little bit in these, just away from the book itself, and think a little bit about the context in which the book is being written. And the book has the word “asynchronous” in the title, and so clearly, this is a really challenging moment for asynchronous teaching in general, partly because of AI, largely because of AI. People are so concerned about the survival of this modality in an era when agents essentially could step in and do an online course, credentialing, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, how are you feeling about that? How are you talking to people about this? I know you give a lot of talks on other campuses, so tell me what the energy that you're feeling and how you're feeling about this right now.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Right, well, I had my own little sort of crisis as the agentic AI began to invade online classes, and thought, okay, and I saw all those calls for the end of asynchronous classes. But here's where I landed after a lot of internal wrestling, debate, scanning the landscape, paying attention to what people are saying and thinking and doing.

Here's where I landed: Asynchronous classes aren't going away. Too many people rely on them—not only students, but there's many instructors, and you meet a few of them in the book who really need this modality for their own mental health, for example, for their own well-being. And the business model is too firmly embedded in higher education. I don't think they're going away, but what I'm offering is that this kind of online teaching is the antidote. It is the way to mitigate the threat posed by AI.

Now, I'm not gonna pretend that joyful online teaching is gonna prevent a student from getting the agent to do all the work. I get it. But I really do like something that I saw from John Warner recently, author of More Than Words, you know, a well-known writer and thinker about writing, especially now in an age of AI. And he said, You know what? Earning—not earning—getting a credential without actually learning anything, people are going to figure out that that's not going to serve them well. And I liked that sanity, that kind of balanced view, so what I propose is that when we bring our full selves into our online classes, it will help our students make the choice to bring their full selves and not their bots.

And, you know, I also believe that we need to shake up some tired practices in online classes like the stilted, inauthentic, tedious discussion boards, which I still use and I still think can be used, but it's time to shake things up. Maybe we need to rethink, we probably do need to rethink assessment in online classes. But basically, I'm suggesting that when we bring that kind of joy, it will help the people who are there to learn, who know they need this modality to, again, earn the credential, make a better life. There's plenty of those people out there in the world. I'm one of them. I'm not using AI in my classwork except where my program said it was allowed. (both laugh)

[JIM LANG]
Yeah. So, I think, you know, my perspective on this is that obviously, you're absolutely right. You know, the modality is essential for people getting credentials that need them, instructors who want to teach in this modality for various reasons or need to. I think my real concern is for, like, a gen ed course, a required course in an asynchronous format. I think that's where the real challenge is. Like, if I want to get a credential because I want it and I want to learn from it, you know, I'm not gonna be so tempted to use a bot to do that for me because I actually want the learning. I think when we force students into a course because of a requirement or something like that, that's where I think the challenge is going to be, and I have no idea how that's going to go. I think, you know, the arguments that you're making here, they seem definitely part of the solution, but I think it is a problem.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yeah, you're right. Maybe this will be the time that finally shakes up higher education. I don't know, some of us said that about the pandemic.

[JIM LANG]
Right.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Well, I would argue things do need to be rethought, and I really appreciate your point that when students are having to take classes that they don't actually see the relevance in—you know, currently, I and you and lots of us are encouraging instructors to help students see the relevance in the classes that they don't think they need, you know, that they're taking to check a box. But maybe it's time for higher ed to rethink that model.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah, and the book mentions asynchronous classes in the title, but does the book address both synchronous and asynchronous classes in terms of, like, online courses?

[FLOWER DARBY]
You know, I did make the deliberate decision to really focus only on asynchronous, and here's why: Because they're still terrible. (both laugh) Asynchronous classes still leave a lot to be desired. I've been doing this work for what, 10 years now, and there's lots of other people doing this kind of work, and they still leave a lot to be desired, right? The students are still feeling like they're invisible and numbers or names on a screen.

So, I will absolutely say the theory, the research, and, you know, the strategies themselves can easily apply to synchronous online or in-person teaching. Definitely the theory and the research is going to apply. The strategies, I focused on asynchronous because, to me, it's like the patient in the emergency room that gets triaged to the front of the line. I think asynchronous classes need a lot of help, and that's definitely my passion. So I wrote it for async, but it will apply in any teaching and learning context, and even any office setting, as you mentioned earlier. This kind of stuff is really powerful. It can really improve productivity, thinking, learning, motivation, engagement, persistence, success, all the things.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah, yeah. And so, when you say async, I mean, does that ever include, for example, online office hours or, you know, an instructor having one-on-ones or conferences with students? Would that be included in a potential asynchronous class in the way you describe it?

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yeah, definitely the definition is evolving. And what you just described is one of my current recommendations. If you're teaching fully asynchronous, you can still offer those synchronous real-time opportunities. And in fact, it's not in the book because it's so very recent, but my current recommendation is that maybe online instructors can think about discussion-based assessments or basically a conference, right? Students can choose a 15-minute slot that works with their schedule. You can get on a Zoom or even a phone call and just talk with the student and kind of assess their learning or provide that real-time kind of guidance that you and I know so well as English professors, you know, kind of workshop the idea, the project, the writing assignment.

So, I do encourage instructors—but more broadly, you know, department chairs, deans, administrators of distance learning—to be thinking about how we can start to incorporate some of those real-time elements. There are some counter-arguments. I'm thinking of Kevin Yee at the University of Central Florida who's like, You know, many of our online students are overseas serving in the military. And I'm like, Yeah, we might need some creative solutions. But for many students, a quick 10-minute one-to-one can really make a world of difference. Talk about helping our students feel seen and known by us, that would make a big difference.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah, I think the technology and some flexibility on the part of the instructor and the student can largely get those—you know obviously, there's always gonna be outlier cases, but I think the general idea of getting our faces in front of each other or our voices, you know, in hearing of each other, I think that is gonna make a difference, especially if we think connection is the most important part of this process, is seeing the whole student, having the student see our whole selves. It feels to me like this has to be some part of the solution.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yeah, and again, I'm deliberately calling on distance learning administrators because I know some programs are super strict, you can't require that. And I'm gonna push back on that and say maybe it's time to rethink that.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah, I agree with you. Okay, so as we get near the end here of our time, I always like to sort of finish up by thinking about, you know, some ways in which people sort of take the idea of the book or the resource, whatever we're talking about, and get started. So, let's say someone's actually working right now on an async course, developing it or in the middle of, you know, rolling one out. What are the couple things they can start doing immediately this week, next week, whatever it might be?

[FLOWER DARBY]
You know, as many others are doing, I am going to start by encouraging us to prioritize our own well-being. I have been making some changes in my life, in my work that's on my plate based on this theory from positive psychology about what brings us joy, how we can cultivate our own well-being. So, number one, give yourself permission to do more of what you enjoy. And I am preaching to myself because I still need to hear this, right? Let me go ahead and take that time to go to that yoga class, even though I have so many things to do, so many tight deadlines. Cultivating my own physical, mental, spiritual, relational well-being, all of those things, that's the first thing I'm gonna remind us all to do. I'm not the only one saying that, I know.

But specifically for online classes, something that we can do immediately is to spend more time with our online students. Let me qualify that. It sounds like I'm asking online instructors to do more, spend more, do more work, spend more time, but I'm going to argue based on solid experience, research, and theory that actually, when we interact with our students a little bit more, again, we're going to feel more fizzy. We're gonna feel happier. So, respond more in discussion boards, write a little bit more in assignment comments or feedback, record a quick video and make that effort to project, again, optimism, support, encouragement. Send a silly GIF or a meme in an announcement. Do whatever we can to spend a little bit more time with our students to communicate to them that we see them, we're paying attention, we remember what they told us last week. It really does not take long, and it makes a huge impact on your students' well-being and success, but also ours.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah, that's a great point. I think the idea of, you know, if you have a little extra time, you set aside time for coursework essentially, right? Maybe it's more important to just record a three-minute video about something that's happened to you that is relevant to the course versus laboring over the text of an assessment description or something like that. And the same way you just actually mentioned the idea of doing the things that bring you joy, you're more likely to get that joy from, you know, getting online and just recording a video in an informal way than, again, working on that more sort of administrative work or getting an assignment or a lecture perfectly right.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Absolutely. I, again, speak with online instructors all the time, some specifically for this book, but just broadly speaking, and the ones who are enjoying teaching online the most keep that clear focus on supporting their students and then being themselves in those quick little media-rich [ways] when possible. But sometimes, you know, we have a season of life where it's not as possible to communicate on video or audio. Still, sending a little bit extra warmth and support through our written communications has a bigger impact than some of that heavier academic work that we might find ourselves doing, for sure.

[JIM LANG]
Yeah. Okay, that's excellent. So, the book is called The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes. And I think when this episode is out, the book will be out in, like, a week after, I think, this episode appears, but I think people will be able to order online and have it probably show up on their doorstep shortly afterwards. And so, anything else you wanna say about the book or how people can contact you or reach out to you if they wanna bring you to campus?

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yes, absolutely. I have a website, flowerdarby.com. I'm on LinkedIn, Flower Darby. And just really want to encourage us all to lift ourselves up, get our heads out of those online teaching trenches, or even listeners who don't teach online, to your point earlier, it's easy to get in those teaching trenches sometimes and forget the bigger picture, the bigger purpose of what we're doing.

I fully believe that when we teach in higher education, we are changing lives, we are making the world a better place. So, if nothing else, let's remind ourselves of that and seek to bring more joy into our interactions with our students. I think it's an antidote to the burnout that many of us are experiencing right now, is doing those kinds of things. So, yes, reach out. I would love to visit folks or do a lot of Zoom kind of things, but also most importantly, I hope that listeners will be reminded today of the meaning of the work, and take some joy and pride in that.

[JIM LANG]
Yes, excellent. I'm gonna do a good job of my work today. Thank you, Flower, for the inspiration. (both laugh)

[FLOWER DARBY]
Yes.

[JIM LANG]
All right. All right, we'll talk to you soon.

[FLOWER DARBY]
Thank you.

[JIM LANG]
(cheerful upbeat music)
Designed for Learning is a production of Notre Dame Learning at the University of Notre Dame. For more, visit our website at learning.nd.edu.