In this interview, NCU's Associate of Director of Faculty Support and Development, Dr. Bloomberg, describes key ideas in her new book, Designing and Delivering Online Instruction: Engaging Adult Learners. Dr. Bloomberg's book was nominated for the 2021 Distance Learning Division Book Award by the Association of Educational Communications and Technology. Hear Dr. Bloomberg talk about how to engage learners through empowerment and how to empower them through engagement.
In this interview, NCU's Associate of Director of Faculty Support and Development, Dr. Bloomberg, describes key ideas in her new book, Designing and Delivering Online Instruction: Engaging Adult Learners. Dr. Bloomberg's book was nominated for the 2021 Distance Learning Division Book Award by the Association of Educational Communications and Technology. Hear Dr. Bloomberg talk about how to engage learners through empowerment and how to empower them through engagement.
Dr. Amy Lyn 0:02
VESC brings you exciting and practical tips for improving your virtual teaching and virtual learning experience. Hi, everyone. I'm so glad to introduce you today to our guest, Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg. I first heard Dr. Bloom Berg's name when I was a doctoral student and her book completing your qualitative dissertation, a roadmap from beginning to end was on our required reading list. But we're here today to talk about a new book that Linda just released. Linda, can you say a little more about yourself?
Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg
Sure. Hi, Amy. And thanks so much for having me on your podcast here for VESC. I am currently working with Northcentral University as an Associate Director of faculty support and development in the School of Education. I also teach students, dissertation students, and I'm so happy to be here with you. So I think that you'll learn a little bit more about me and my approach as we get talking.
Dr. Amy Lyn 0:57
Thanks, Linda. I'm really excited. You're here. It's a privilege to be talking with you today. I'm eager to hear more about your book designing and delivering effective online instruction, how to engage adult learners, which by the way, listeners was nominated by the Association of educational Communications and Technology for the 2021 distance learning division Book Award. Can you tell us a little bit about your ideas in the book?
Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg 1:23
Sure. Um, I should mention that I actually started writing this book long before COVID. In fact, almost three years ago, because I saw that online learning was a developing area in higher education. And I was really interested in delving more into it. I've been writing and researching on online learning for many years now, in fact, since I completed my own dissertation, in 2006, where I started an online learning communities. So I've been thinking about these issues for a long time. And I've worked in a number of distance learning contexts prior to coming to ncu, as well. So I started preparing this book, and then COVID happened. And I realized that the online learning landscape suddenly and dramatically changed. In many respects, the online learner population changed from a very small percentage of people that were learning online to almost everybody in every context in every part of the world. So I changed some of the book. But the basic fundamental principles remain the same. And that is how to engage learners, but not just to engage them, how to empower them. And I hope that we can talk more about this, as we continue talking about this today, in this in this podcast.
Dr. Amy Lyn 2:37
Me too Linda, I think that is a key idea to talk about, can we start by just setting people up to understand how the book is organized?
Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg 2:46
Sure, the book is actually organized in three parts. So the first part is about designing learning experiences, how to set up and actually create content, based on learning outcomes, learner needs, etc. So there's a lot of typical stuff in that first part, specifically related to online learning, which involves synchronous and asynchronous activities. The second part of the book, which is called traveling the educational journey, delivering engaging and empowering learning experiences is really about the teaching. And there are three chapters included in that section. First one is onboarding and welcoming learners. The second is establishing and building teaching relationships, which is so important in online world. And the third chapter in that section is multimodal teaching strategies to engage and empower learners. And the multimodal aspect of it is really extremely important, as I said, and as you know, yourself, working in an online environment requires using many different types of tools, both synchronous and asynchronous, and really combining these in the most effective and engaging ways possible. And then the third part of the book, the part that I'm really most excited about is called taking stock, a review of multimodal engagement. And here, the reader will actually go back and review all the different engagement strategies that have been discussed throughout the book. And I've developed what I call engagement indicators for eight different factors. And I'll just quickly tell you what these factors are. The first is ensuring teaching presence. The second is nurturing working relationships. Three is apply effective facilitation practices. Four is create a sense of community. Five is address diversity and inclusivity. Six is embrace learner autonomy and empowerment. Seven is support learners use of technology and ages establish and maintain a culture of trust and transparency. And these are not listed in any order of preference or importance. They're all equally important, and I deal with that in the book as well.
Dr. Amy Lyn 4:54
Those are important strategies. I love that you talk about not just what the teacher can do with the learner directly But creating the culture of that environment. You know, and I and I know from our previous conversations that engagement is instrumental for many reasons for learner success. But in particular, you you make out an idea around learner empowerment. And talk about that in your book and how engagement is a precursor to learner empowerment. Can you say a little more about that?
Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg 5:25
Yeah, um, the book is actually based on five different themes. And learner empowerment is one of them. And it's very, very prevalent throughout the book, I'll just quickly mention what the others are, because they kind of all feed into learner empowerment. The one is principles of adult learning, which means how adults actually learn as we know, according to adult learning principles, adults learn very differently and have different needs than children. And the second point that I that I thread throughout the book is engaging through presence, but presence is not enough presence means being there, being for your learners, but you have to take it to another step, which is about engagement.
And then finally, empowerment. I also talk about creating a learning community because as we know, that's extremely important in the online environment, where learners can tend to feel isolated and very much on their own. And we don't want online learning to feel as though it's alone learning and that, again, is a very important theme, and also directly related to empowerment, and that the fourth one is respecting diversity and ensuring inclusion, which again is important and critical in any learning experience. And especially so in online environment, where we have to really take care to include all learners and provide access to all learners. So moving then to supporting learner empowerment. The book takes the concept of engagement one step further, as you said, to focus on the concept of learner empowerment, and develop the competencies needed by instructors as facilitators of learning and empowerment.
And the book is grounded in the idea that we need to move beyond engagement to empowerment. And this requires a specific paradigm shift. Because the learning experience is a shared space that the primary owners are learners. And we achieve learner empowerment by offering and indeed ensuring control and choice. So we empower our learners to claim the rightful space by relinquishing some of our power as instructors, and building authentic relationships with our learners, and offering them opportunities to interact and engage in open discourse and collaborative learning with us and with their peers.
So for me, the goal of education is to meet the needs of all learners, offering them that ownership agency and autonomy to actively engage in the learning experience, that they're empowered to implement changes in their own personal and professional lives, and ultimately, in the lives of others within their communities. So there's a strong focus throughout the book, both on how to engage learners through empowerment, and reciprocally, how to empower them through engagement.
Dr. Amy Lyn 8:02
I love that idea. Is there a strategy that comes to mind that you would recommend, like right away for people who are designing online learning that will help to lead and get to that place of learner empowerment, like, what's the primary one that stands out?
Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg
For me, it's really about understanding who our learners are, and what their needs are. It's all about the learners and their needs. So if we can recognize that and understand what they're needing from the learning experience, and how they can most meaningfully connect with that learning experience, then they will be empowered to take what they learn to take the materials to relate to the materials. And to really engage in deep learning. I also talk about this in the book and make a very important distinction between deep learning and surface learning.
And for me, learning is only about deep learning. Learning has to be something meaningful that learners can actually take away new knowledge and learning and use it. It's not about surface learning. It's not about rote learning. We've moved beyond that in the last number of decades. And I think that most theorists to write about adult learning and development, talk about and recognize the deep learning is what counts is what's important and is what's meaningful.
Dr. Amy Lyn 9:16
That makes a lot of sense. Near the end of the book, there are some tools and resources, some that are particular to educators developing their reflective practice. Can you share a little more about those those resources?
Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg 9:32
Sure. I just want to say one thing, though, in case anybody has read the book or is considering reading it. A number of the resources are housed in online appendices, which are accessible through through a QR code, which is included in the book. But in the book, every single chapter ends with a reflection checkpoint. And I think that's what you're referring to here, right? Yes. So the reflection checkpoints occur. At various points throughout the book, but the final chapter is called the instructor as reflective practitioner.
And again, this is something that's really important in my experience in my many, many years of teaching and studying, which is reflective practice educators viewing themselves as reflective practitioners. And I've studied this in my own doctoral and master's programs as well and have heavily based this on the work of jack Meza row, Stephen Brookfield, and Donald Schoen who writes about reflective practice, and there are many new authors and practitioners who are writing about it currently. And I found this area particularly important because if we're not able to reflect on our practice, how can we learn from it? And how can we move forward? So I think that these tools, which are offering the book regarding reflective practice are really important. And I'm thrilled to share them through the book. Yes,
Dr. Amy Lyn 10:56
I agree, I think that being a reflective practitioner is, is how people are going to be able to, you know, start to really embrace online teaching. You know, as many people were, we're faced with doing that this past year, during COVID. It's that reflective capacity that will enable them to be the best they can be and transform their practice from being you know, in a building face to face to being online.
Unknown Speaker 11:22
And actually, what you say is really so so pertinent, because, in fact, today, just this very morning, I was reading an article about how to take what we've learned from online, teaching and learning back into the classroom. So because everything is now slowly moving back to traditional face to face, a lot of it is remaining hybrid. And some programs and courses are even remaining online, because they've been, they've been taught and taught so well. And it's been very effective. So I think as the world transitions back into a post pandemic world, we will still continue to use some of the best practices that we learned about over the last year, which is just thrilling as well, because so much have we learned, need not be thrown away, but can be reused and repurposed. In the new world that we're moving into.
Dr. Amy Lyn 12:14
I completely agree. Linda, it has been such a pleasure to talk with you. And I'm always learning from you. You know, one thing I didn't mention is that is Dr. Bloomberg happens to be my own faculty coach, and what an honor it is to be able to work with someone who's been doing, you know, teaching online for so many years and has such a depth of experience and knowledge. It's really a privilege, as I'm moving from K 12, on site completely to an online higher education environment. We're really lucky at ncu to have the colleagues that we have, and I want to wrap our interview up with asking you to fill in the blank. I used to think virtual teaching and learning was, and now I think virtual teaching and learning is that's an interesting question.
Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg 13:06
And let me put it this way. Um, it doesn't really work like that for me, because I started studying. I did a master's degree many, many years ago, that was a distance education program. But it was so long ago. And now I'm really giving away some secrets. Because we didn't even have personal computers to work with in the online environment, we worked through what was called video conferencing. So my colleagues and I had to actually drive to a location in our city where we live in Atlanta. And we studied online with different cohorts all around the country, and in fact, even around the world somewhere in different countries. But we all had to be in front of a computer screen at a particular time.
So that said, My perception of online learning is that yes, it does work in many, many formats. So I was never afraid or never had any anxiety about it. But having taught for many years since then, in online environment, in different formats, and with different LMSs, my answer would still be the same. I think that online learning has so many benefits. It is so effective, if used correctly, if applied meaningfully. So I haven't changed in my perception about how effective and meaningful online learning or distance learning or distance education, whichever word one wants to use is. So I'm thrilled to see how the field has evolved over the last number of years, and where we are now and how it's being applied and the different opportunities that it's made available to people all over the world who may not have been able to study had they not had this opportunity for online learning.
Again, though, and this is a topic of another discussion. Access to the online environment is something that needs to be really very carefully thought out by educators to ensure that all learners do, in fact, have equal access and equal opportunities that they can partake and participate to the extent that we hope they do. So I hope that answers Thanks, Amy.
Dr. Amy Lyn 15:18
Thanks, Linda. That is a well said statement about online and distance learning and teaching. And I couldn't agree more the potential is, is infinite. And the opportunity to include others is important. include all people with the opportunity to learn so I really thank you, Linda, thank you for your time and for sharing your knowledge. And I look forward to talking with you again on on the best podcast.
Dr. Linda Dale Bloomberg 15:47
Thank you. I'd love to and thanks so much for your time and for the people that supported this podcast in the background. I really appreciate all of the assistance and support and and you're inviting me so thanks so much and take care of you too.
Dr. Amy Lyn 16:01
Thanks for joining us on VESC This is Dr. Amy Lynn. Remember, learning is right at your fingertips.