First of all, thank you for the incredible work you have done to support each other, to support our students, and to support our staff over the past year and a half. Many of you have made great sacrifices to uphold the college’s vision for equitable student success while balancing the trauma of life during a pandemic. I continue to be amazed and humbled by your courage and creativity.

It is natural to feel overwhelmed by change and to crave some basic affirmation of your efforts to be a great instructor, so I hope you will find our upcoming blog series timely and valuable. Maybe you’ll learn a few new strategies or maybe you’ll say, “I’m already doing that.” In any case, I want you to walk away from this series knowing your online courses and your instruction are the lifeblood of realizing a more equitable learning environment at our college.

I hope the series will help you better understand how the college’s vision for equity as it is realized in your teaching. It’s important to remember that initiatives rise and fall on our ability to implement them at the most basic levels. They don’t fail because they weren’t packaged nicely or people couldn’t find them on our website. Your efforts collectively as instructors have the potential to decrease or eliminate disparities in student outcomes when girded by intentional and effective student support outside of the “classroom.” You play a critical role.

So sit back and enjoy the coming blog posts. The challenges of teaching have never been greater than they are right now, so even if you try just one new strategy this term, it could very well be enough. Know that the small changes in your courses and teaching can make a big difference when repeated across all of your courses and over many terms. Imagine the potential impact when similar efforts are shared by your colleagues.

I wish you the best of fortune in this year and the continued courage and strength we all need.

We will also be presenting faculty lessons learned so far in our shift to remote learning, as well as serving up topics that align with professional development opportunities available for you most weeks throughout the term- watch your email inbox for “Faculty Training Opportunities This Week” or find the Online Learning training schedule.

So, without further ado:

Andy Freed- Manager Online Learning Technology and Student Success

Lesson learned being remote: Watching my kids’ “going remote” experience in K-12, it’s clear that PCC having 25 years of online learning experience really was a significant benefit. We had infrastructure in place, training in place, and a team that knows our instructors well. We were able to quickly adapt to providing training and support geared towards our instructors. Our strong teamwork meant that we could all share ideas, collect feedback, make decisions, and act swiftly. Everyone was engaged and worked with compassion and it helped carry them through the exhaustion.

One hope for the academic year: We’ve seen some amazing and some less-than-great responses to going remote both on the teaching side and the support side. My hope is that people recognize when the good practices work and keep doing them.

Back in February, the online student service team presented at a local conference and the final slide said “Improving access to services for online students improves access for all students.” We had no idea how prophetic these words would be (at least at the pace COVID happened). Let’s make sure we keep the best of these student-focused practices in place because they worked before and during Remote and will continue after.

Heather Guevara- Online Learning Division Manager

Lesson learned being remote: Remote work is really difficult even if you are teaching from pajama pants. Don’t expect to get all of the technology right, but don’t stop trying. Have reasonable expectations of yourself and your students. Communicating with your students is more important than getting everything right. Examples: Underestimated how much time it would take to grade their work? Use a Brightspace announcement to let them know you’re plugging away.

One hope for the academic year: Other than this will all go away? I hope that we all grow to be more compassionate people. Joining our colleagues and students on Zoom in their living rooms, bedrooms, cars, kitchens, etc. is a type of vulnerability most of us never expected to share with them. Let’s admit that we don’t really know what to do with this level of self-disclosure. Let’s assume the best of our students and colleagues.

I would also like to see a 50 minute maximum meeting run length for online meetings implemented institution-wide. We have to build in breaks intentionally. I am making an effort to check in with my child (or at least locate them) at least once per hour.

Rondi Schei- Program Manager II for Course Development

This may not be as much about lessons learned about going remote, but more about what I have observed and learned since “Going Remote.” One, there is an abundance of support, if you’re willing to look and ask questions. I stepped into a new role during a very hectic time and everyone from HR, Deans, Chairs, Faculty, and my own departmental colleagues were there to provide me with guidance and advice. There is a sense of family here at PCC.

Two, I’ve seen the value of teamwork shine. In the past months, I’ve worked more closely and collaboratively with a variety of people. Many of the best ideas and decisions are because of the added perspective and insight of others. Going remote does not undermine achieving this type of teamwork. Thank you!

Loraine Schmitt- Dean of Online Learning

Lesson learned being remote: Trust in others and in yourself are vital to successful remote work. During remote operations and teaching, we need to have faith that everyone has good intent, is doing their best to rise to the occasion, and trust that they will work diligently in the best interests of students and the college. This time presents many complex and challenging situations in front of all of us, whether you are teaching, providing support, managing teams or providing leadership and decision-making. Building trust also takes engagement and connections with others. At a division level, we have benefited from years of building trust and communication that helped carry us through the extraordinary shift and continued abundant work load of remote teaching, learning, and support. On a personal note, I learned that I have to be intentional about listening to music. I highly recommend it as it’s medicine for the soul.

One hope for the academic year: My hope is that everyone engages in conversations about what’s working, what’s not working, what would help support faculty and staff, and implement practical improvements to make the most of remote work.

Heather red light photo

This past summer, I was capping off my birthday week celebration with some special time with cousins. I had just picked them up and we rounded a corner where no fewer than 15 lanes intersect in the Portland metro area (nope, not an exaggeration– it’s a mess). A few weeks later, I received an invitation in the mail to pay a ticket for the red right arrow light I ran (according to the traffic cam and police officer review of the footage). My other option was to plead no contest or not guilty and hope the judge would offer me traffic school so that the ticket wouldn’t be on my permanent driving record. The choice was obvious–tell the judge that the intersection is dangerous and a traffic study should be conducted immediately. On the sound advice of friends, they recommended that I go to court, verbalize my error and ask the judge for some mercy. So, I did go to court and then began my experience with my worst online class EVER!

Registration was online and seemed pretty easy. It gave me high hopes for the course. I searched through various titles available to me including: Anger Management, Positive Choices, and Living With Neighbors. All three sounded intriguing, but I was pretty sure they didn’t apply to me in this situation. I logged in a couple of weeks later to get the course over with. I mean, how hard could this course really be? I work in online learning and I’ve basically been a student or taught students my entire life. I also had a perfect driving record until that point.

I quickly searched for a syllabus or list of outcomes or ways I’d be assessed. I did find something that could loosely be called “goals for the course,” but I never really could figure out how long it would actually take me, if there would be assignments and quizzes, or if I would even get a certificate of completion at the end for my fridge (or to show the judge). There were certainly no real course-level nor module-level outcomes (hint: you should have course and module-level outcomes in all of your courses to help the learner know what to expect). The course was also not mobile-responsive. This means I spent lots of time enlarging text and panning back and forth across my cell phone screen to try to read everything on the page (hint: use the latest Brightspace template– it’s mobile-responsive). Because I didn’t know how I would be assessed, I had no idea if I should be taking notes and preparing for some type of exam or essay (hint: let your students know how and when they will be assessed and align your assessments and assignments with your module-level outcomes).

The content was really boring, relied heavily on long pages of text as learning materials, and had the occasional copyrighted image (sans any attribution). After a few content pages that seemed rather insulting (as they were very basic knowledge for drivers and an obvious waste of my time), I decided to stop reading the long content pages (hints: break up long pages into separate content pages with descriptive titles, add images to increase visual appeal and communicate in a different way). I decided my strategy would be to scroll through the remaining pages quickly since it didn’t appear that there would be any sort of test or assignment. CATCH! There was a timer built into each page that required that the browser remain open on the page for a suggested minimum length of time. So I couldn’t just hit the next button at the bottom of the page. Instead, I had to keep the page open for the minimum minutes. I smartened up and decided to open a page, set a timer, and answer emails until the timer went off (hint: don’t make your learners dread going into your course! Keep things fresh and appealing. Add announcements and reminders. Do anything to make the course a place students want to return to!).

I eventually got to the last page of the course. I was so happy that it was almost over. There were 32 modules in all. Some modules had several pages and others had one really long page. None of the pages had videos, or presentations, or interactive content. I was so fatigued by the last page and then… NOOOOO….  a LONG quiz opened with multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank items covering everything I had skimmed over! The quiz items were what I would call “gotcha” type. That is, they were items to assess my recall of very specific numbers or the suggested mnemonic devices they presented as ways to judge one’s own readiness for driving in any given moment (like when someone cuts you off).

Guess who had to go back and hunt for answers in the 32 modules? Immediately started to panic. There were many quiz items I didn’t know the answer to. What was the way to remember how to assess whether I was too angry to continue to drive? Was it P.A.C.E (P-ause, A-ctivate, C-onsider, E-xecute)? Or was it F.I.R.M (F-reeze, I-nvestigate, R-etaliate, M-anage)? I spent a full hour researching answers mostly using a Google search and not the actual course content (hint: provide meaningful learning experiences that a solo Google search can’t immediately answer).

Did this course make me a better driver? Well, there’s really no way to assess that based on the lack of outcomes and assessments. ;) Do I want to avoid a fee and never have to take another course like this? ABSOLUTELY. While it’s certainly not the case that the majority of our online courses at PCC are in the condition of this course, this entire experience did remind me of the value of a well-designed online course taught by a committed instructor. The latter sort of learning experience is relevant, meaningful, and transformative. Don’t let your course be the next “worst online class” for a student. The Online Learning Division here at PCC has a team of staff prepared to help you improve your online courses and teaching.

If you have FOMO (fear of missing out) like me, you probably made sure not to miss our first-ever PCC Online Faculty Summit. If you missed the Summit, you’re probably hearing from your colleagues about what you missed out on and now you have FOMO. It’s warranted.

Overview

The Summit was a full-day professional development event for faculty teaching fully online classes at PCC. The event, which was held at Cascade Campus on May 3, 2019, included the following: a keynote address, a student panel, great food including a dinner reception, and more than 30 breakout sessions facilitated by invited guests and our own PCC faculty and staff (59 presenters in total!). We were able to serve all online faculty who wished to attend and offered stipends for part-time faculty. This special day brought together over 200 faculty, staff, and administrators share best-practices in online learning. This event could not have happened without the support of the President’s Fund for Excellence, the teamwork of our amazing Online Learning staff, our invited guest presenters, the faculty and staff presenters, and all of the faculty and staff who attended the event.

What we’re hearing

We have an post-event evaluation open for attendees. Here is a summary of themes from the evaluation and from verbal feedback:

• “I pulled at least one method from each session that I can use to improve my online teaching environments. These sessions were great!”
• “I felt that some breakout sessions were over my head/skill level and some were under. It would have been helpful to know if the session was geared to towards beginner, intermediate or advanced use.” We heard the idea that you wanted tracks by user or experience level on a number of surveys and from verbal feedback.
• “Really terrific range of sessions, and I appreciated the ability to choose both theoretical topics and highly practical topics.”
• “There were several topics I wanted to see but were at the same time. I was sad to have to choose one over the others.” We heard this one many times. You wanted recurring sessions so you wouldn’t have to choose just one each session.

So what now?

Watch for presentations materials. Attended the Summit and want the slide decks and presentation materials? Missed out and couldn’t attend? Once we have curated all of the materials and have made them accessible, we’ll be posting materials. Watch for an email with a link to presentation materials!

Watch for encore presentations and training opportunities. We have assembled a team to look at session evaluations, overall Summit feedback and opportunities for encore presentations during college and campus In-Service activities, in TLCs throughout the year, and via other professional development opportunities that can be targeted at online faculty.

Consider writing a best-practices blog post. Yes, you can author a post. We especially love faculty posts. Consider taking something you learned at the Summit and piloting it in your online course. Share with your peers what you learned about a new tool or practice.

A big THANK YOU to all who made this a great day. Most of all, we are excited about the lasting impact this event will have on our the high-quality online instruction we provide our students!

Image by . CC BY-NC 2.0

For the 18-19 academic year, the first Monday of the month features a blog post by a faculty mentor. Faculty mentors are instructors currently teaching online courses at PCC who are trained Quality Matters peer reviewers. Like other faculty, they are engaged in teaching our students on a regular basis. In addition, mentors have spent time coaching faculty teaching online from a variety of disciplines and provide a wealth of knowledge when it comes to effective online teaching strategies. We welcome their voices and appreciate their commitment to quality online instruction at PCC. ~Heather Guevara

Voice of the Mentor: Doug Jones, Computer Science

Introduction

from “What Works Well In Online Teaching At PCC”, pg. 4

Is once a week enough for your students? Will students success increase if you have more presence in your online class? Can online presence increase without creating an unsustainable workload for the instructor? Let’s dive into things a bit beyond what is in the “What Works Well” material.

What is “Presence” Anyway?

Presence is about instructor engagement with a course. A lot has been written about ways to engage students in the online course community, and one of the best ways is to demonstrate instructor engagement and participation with the course. We’ve all seen “robot-courses” that proceed on “auto-pilot” with little input from the instructor other than grading assignments and occasionally answering a question by email. In some ways the course design standards we strive for at PCC actually increase the temptation to put a course on “auto-pilot”, because a well-designed online course makes all the important information about course structure, schedule, assignments, grading criteria, and such easily available to students. When combined with comprehensive and engaging subject material, instructors may be left with a feeling of “What can I add – it’s all there already!”.

Instructor presence is high when the instructor is engaged with the course and providing effective leadership for the online class community. Instructor presence is high when students know their instructor is a part of the class, know their instructor can be conveniently contacted when problems occur, and know that their instructor is actively monitoring their progress and will intervene when “bumps in the road” appear on the student’s path to success in the course. Instructor presence is high when the instructor is actively encouraging and supporting the success of each student in the class.

Instructor presence is not just “instructor is present”. Lurking in the shadows where students can not find you is not instructor presence, even if assignment grades occasionally emerge from your den. Automating your grading so that you don’t really have to read student work (“Who has time to read all of that stuff? That’s why they put in the automatic grading features in D2L!”) is not instructor presence. Ignoring student Discussion posts because “questions should be emailed to the instructor” is not instructor presence.

Clearly, “presence” is not a binary property – it varies more along a scale of “Low” to “High” – but there is a minimum level of instructor presence in a course that must be maintained in order for students to understand that their course actually has an instructor.

How to increase your instructor presence

Instructor presence can increase with the regular performance of a few simple tasks:

• Update the Announcement tool. Post announcements to the class, and make sure students are in the habit of reading announcements. For example, each week you can post reminders about course activities and assignment deadlines to reinforce what students should accomplish during the week. You can also reference new articles, product announcements, or other “real world” information relevant to the course.
• Communicate with each student individually a regular basis. D2L has a lot of communications tools: Discussion tool, assignment feedback, email, Zoom rooms, and so forth. Use them – or at least one of them – at least each week to reach out to a student and see how they are doing, where they are struggling, or just to say “Hello”. Individual communications are more effective at building student relationships and simply posting a “Please email me if you have any questions” type announcement.
• Don’t be shy about letting students get to know you a little. Pretty much everyone (I think) does some sort of self-introduction in their online class (after all, it is part of the course standards), but it linking a course topic to your personal experience can help reinforce the material or help a student who is struggling. Engagement is about interpersonal interaction, and letting the student see you as a person facilitates their participation in the class.
•  Be easy to reach and responsive to messages. Every instructor has their preferred contact method (phone, email, messenger, or whatever), but communications is improved if instructors are open to multiple ways of contact. Instead of “Email me with your question, and be sure your subject line includes the course CRN so my email rules can process it”, ask your students how they would like to contact you, and then try to accommodate their preferred methods. Allowing students to email, tweet, phone, or message you doesn’t mean you’ll be constantly online answering students (you can still set response time expectations) but it does mean students will find it easier to contact you when they need you.
• Keep your word. If you make a commitment to respond to messages within x amount of time, or have grading done in y number of days, then you need to make sure that is what you actually do. As instructors you have a great deal of latitude to set student expectations, but instructor’s don’t really have any more right to say “I got busy, so your grades are late” than students have the right to say “I got busy, so my submissions are late”. Students can’t assess a “late penalty” for instructor work, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be just as annoyed.
• Tell someone when unexpected events occur. No class goes according to plan (or does it? Maybe I’m teaching in the wrong discipline), and life events occasionally invade our academic fortress. If unexpected events disrupt your presence in the class you should notify someone . Preferably, you’ll find the time to notify your students, but if not then you should notify a peer instructor, your Dept. Chair or Dean, or someone else who can (in turn) notify your students. Dropping offline for some time may be unavoidable, but really isn’t an excuse for “disappearing”.

I have 5 online sections, and no time for all that

Obviously, maintaining a high degree of instructor presence is much easier when you have fewer online sections and students. Nonetheless, a “high touch” approach with a high class load is both possible and feasible. Excessive reliance on D2L’s automation features is the enemy of high instructor presence (leading to “robot courses”), yet automation is a gift for the instructor with a high online class load. The features of D2L that I refer to as “automation” include:

• Intelligent Agents that can send email to students, triggered by course events, login, or the absence of a login or assignment submission
• Automatically graded Quiz submissions.
• Release Conditions, which can be used to construct “guided pathways” through course material

The (relatively) recent integration of PCC’s Google Mail with D2L means that email for your online class can be managed using the full suite of Google automation tools, enabling “super-intelligent” agents that can, for example,

• Use templates to generate customized automated email for students
• Automatically generate a custom “I received your email, you are 5th in my queue at present” type of email
• Automatically prioritize incoming mail based on student success factors, such as highlighting messages from students who are in danger of failing a class

The “technically-minded instructor” can achieve even more using tools such as Javascript or Python, but these tools have a fairly steep learning curve. Effective use of the available automation tools involves using the tools to implement a strategy for instructor presence, not just using the tools to reduce labor or (even worse) because they are there. There is no “one size fits all” strategy – every instructor must decide for themselves what level of instructor presence is appropriate for a class, and what techniques should be used to maintain the appropriate level of instructor presence. Once those decisions are made, however, automation can help reduce the workload of implementing the strategy.

For example, here are some things I do in my online classes. I do not do all of these for every class – this is taken from several different classes:

1. Any student who does not complete at least one quiz each week should receive an email warning them that they are falling behind schedule
2. Any student who does not log into the course for three consecutive days should receive an email warning that they are not meeting attendance expectations
3. I want all Discussion posts forwarded to me by email so that I can read them without manually logging into the class, and I want my email reply to be posted as a reply to the Discussion post (again, without manually logging into the class).
4. I want Assignment submissions forwarded to me as email attachments so I can grade them without logging in. I want my email reply to become the Assignment feedback posted to the student’s Dropbox.
5. I want to be alerted when a student emails me asking for an virtual or in-person meeting, rather than waiting until I happen to read my email.

Items (1) and (2) are done with Intelligent Agents in D2L. While I certainly don’t like “robot courses”, I do find “robot nagging” useful at times. Items (3), (4), and (5) are done with Google automation. There might be a clever way of doing this in D2L – I’m just more familiar with what can be done in Google. The main advantage of (3) and (4) is that email fits into my workflow better than needing to log into the Discussion or Assignment tools. The students get the same posting or assignment feedback, but I save time by keeping my workflow smooth. The advantage of (5) is that I may have time for the meeting sooner rather than later.

Conclusion

Instructor presence in an online class is an important factor in building student engagement and, ultimately, student success in a course. Presence is enhanced when the instructor is both available to students and actively engaged with students. PCC’s D2L Brightspace and Google environments support a variety of automation tools that can help reduce the workload involved in maintaining a high degree of instructor presence.

Copyright:

In the field of distance education, you’ll commonly hear the phrase, “we are building the plane while flying it.” I hate flying, so I’m not a fan of this metaphor. In fact, I hate flying so much, I can’t believe I’m even writing this post. My palms are sweaty just thinking about flying. (Maybe this is a quest to squeeze some meaning and purpose out of my years of embarrassment and shame.)  Nonetheless…

imagine the plane as your course, the students as passengers and crew, and you as the pilot.

As online faculty, we need to make “inflight” tweaks to courses, prepare our students for a smooth landing, and simultaneously prep the plane for the next takeoff. Oh, and sometimes we’re flying two or more planes at the same time! (I’m already seeing there are limits to this metaphor because the idea of flying two planes at once is ridiculous, but please stay onboard with me if you can bear it. I think we can get somewhere with this.)

The following are my reflections from some not-so-smooth flights over the years teaching online at PCC.

A safe and on-time takeoff is imperative

Course content copied? Check. Dates changed? Check. Welcome message posted? Check. Discussions updated? Check. For a complete list of pre-flight safety checks, check out the Getting Your Class Ready at the Start of Each Term page. (I once learned the hard way about a “Delete all module content” button the night before the start of the term. Don’t worry, it’s hard to find. I don’t recommend getting your course ready the night before the start of the term.)

One of my most memorable flights was a departure out of Long Beach. It was so windy that day that I thought the palm trees were going to snap. I spent the entire time at the gate considering taking a different flight the next day. I boarded the plane anyway. The captain never mentioned the wind and within a few minutes we were at our cruising altitude. Because of the experience of the pilot, you wouldn’t have known that we were flying out in high winds. Course takeoff sets the tone for the entire term.

Don’t wait until takeoff to make sure your students are aboard 

An updated Course Details Page prior to registration helps students learn about your course and decide if this is a flight they might want to take. Will there by cushy seats? An onboard meal? Other entertainment? Will they be asked to shape their learning experiences by playing the roles of crew, captain, and passenger at different points in the flight? One to two weeks prior to the start of the term, send your students a personalized email message about the course (“This is your captain…”) and include a copy of the syllabus. This sort of communication will help make sure that the students are in their seats with their seatbelts fastened for a safe and on-time start-of-term takeoff.

Oh, no! There’s turbulence

You’ve done everything you can to ensure a safe and on-time departure. Your crew and passengers know what to do in the case of catastrophic events, but you have suddenly been caught off guard by unexpected mid-flight turbulence. Do not panic. Once the captain and flight crew are caught panicking, there’s little hope for the passengers (especially ones like me). Remember that turbulence is normal. No matter how hard you’ve worked to follow the best flight path, sometimes we can’t predict what will work for our students in a given term. Sometimes there are outages. (An outage sounds extra scary in this metaphor). Sometimes there are snowstorms. Sometimes our beautifully crafted assignments fail. Sometimes we screw up release dates. Sometimes we forget to grade a late assignment.

Most students are forgiving of a little mid-flight turbulence– they just want to know you are there and are working on a plan to get things back on track. Your presence in the course and ability to make reasonable and timely changes to the flight path or altitude is what our students appreciate. Students will panic a little (OK, some a lot) when they can’t find the captain or a single member of the flight crew to assure them that there will be a return to smooth travels soon. Monitor your emails. Pay attention when several students have not submitted a quiz, an assignment, or failed to participate in a discussion. Were your deadlines unclear? Were the assignment details vague? Was there a broken link? This sort of inflight course monitoring helps you make in-the-moment adjustments so that you can get back in the air quickly. Maybe you’ll need to drop altitudes a bit so the cabin will quickly resume regular functions. Most of all, our students want to know we are still onboard with them.

Don’t forget to enjoy the view from the cockpit

Sure. There may seem like there are a lot more things to screw up in an online course compared with a face-to-face course. (Remember, my run-in with the “Delete all module content” button? Yeah, you get the idea.) There are the emails to respond to, the messed up due dates, the broken links, the videos that won’t play, and a seemingly endless ways I have managed to make my own job as an online instructor harder than it should be. However, do not forget that online learning is the only option for some of our students. Many students are juggling life demands that don’t permit for on-campus instruction. You get the chance to provide high-quality online education for these students. You get to share your passion for your discipline. You get to immerse them in media that you might not otherwise get the chance to in a face-to-face setting. You get to see the students grow and engage with their peers.

Be forgiving of your mistakes (trust me, this is a big one) and use the friendly staff at the Faculty Help Desk for when you need help you can’t find in the manual. (When I first met Donna Swanson, I wanted to hug her. I don’t hug and I don’t fly. That’s how patient she’s been with me over the years and I’ve screwed up a lot.) Most of all, don’t forget to enjoy the view from 39,000 feet. When you’ve reached cruising altitude, you really get to teach. That is, after all, why you got into this work.

Prepare for landing

Let’s face it. We’re on a quarter system so we are constantly preparing for landing when it seems we just reached cruising altitude. Send Course Progress Notifications (CPNs) at critical points in the term to students who are struggling. (I’ve sometimes sent them to students doing well in my courses, too.) CPNs can be especially helpful after midterms. Get caught up on your grading and try to return feedback on critical assignments as quickly as possible. (I know this one is not easy. I used to provide myself small rewards for every five assignments I graded. I recommend, coffee, water, nut-free snacks, and little flight wing pins.) Make sure students know the impact of not submitting higher-stakes exams and assignments, as well as the impact of not participating in key end-of-term discussions. Send a few extra reminders about key due dates. You can help ready them for a smooth landing. You’ve been cleared for landing. It’s time to bring this plane, its crew, and your students in for a smooth landing.

Wait. Another takeoff? But I just landed this thing!

You’ve landed the plane. The crew and passengers have safely disembarked. You fill out your final entry in the flight log. You think about what worked and what didn’t. You reflect on choices made during times of turbulence. Did you do the right thing? Was that assignment worth it? Did students achieve the outcomes of the course? How many stayed onboard? You check current weather conditions. You make changes based on the past flight experiences, your expertise, and feedback from the crew and passengers…and you get ready to do it again all because you love the views from 39,000 feet.