First, the original position was listed for an education major (I’m a computer science major), so I didn’t even think to apply. I ended up applying for a different research fellowship through ITS, and was offered a position to help develop the website for Full Spectrum Learning.

The first year of my fellowship was heavily focused on the technical side of the project and figuring out how to explain the project. The major projects I helped with included creating and updating the website, interactive grid design, teaser videos, and updating the grid. More of the first-year process can be understood through this blog post.

The second year of our project focused on the promotion of the initiative throughout the campus community. Our major projects included creating social media accounts and mugs to give professors who gave us data for our survey. Talking about the survey, my large project of the semester was to create an automatic updating data grid. This was an incredibly large project and my reflection can be found here.

Like much of the world, my experience came to a screeching halt in March of 2020 when we were sent home. We still continued to work on projects that could be done remotely. However, most of our projects at that point focused on the promotion of FSL to the campus community, which was much harder to do remotely. To top it off, the data we were collecting was about how professors were delivering their courses to students. The big problem with this data now was everyone was shifting to online teaching/learning and the old and new data could not be mixed. Also, so many students and professors alike were trying to just keep their heads above water, and we didn’t want to ask them to do one more thing.

Overall, in fall of 2020, we decided to not continue the FSL initiative. It was a bit hard to hear all of our projects would not be completed, but we had reached a natural stopping point. I am very thankful for the opportunity I was given to be a part of the FSL team, and I learned so much more than I ever was expecting.

How did this initiative impact me?

So, with all this being said, how did this project impact me and my career as a student? I’ve talked a lot about what I’ve done, but maybe not how it changed my view of education. Coming into college, I knew a lot of the majors I didn’t want to be, and on top of that list was education. I’ve always realized my brain works differently than many others I know and always struggled to explain how I learn. However, FSL was a framework and explanation of education that I had never understood before.

FSL is based on the intersection of technology and engagement in the classroom. Before college, almost all of my classes had been run exactly the same. It may have varied a bit from subject to subject, but for the most part it was about being handed or told information and I was expected to regurgitate it back up on a test or essay. However, there are a multitude of different ways to teach and to learn and sometimes other approaches work better for me. This realization has been one of the biggest and most important of my college career. I think each student finding out how best they learn and study is the crucial step that is so needed mainly during that first year of college.

If you know me well, you know I’m not fond of presentations and talking in front of strangers. So, when I was asked to start presenting about my work with FSL and also how it includes the Knight Domains program, it was incredibly terrifying for me. There are three incredible speaking experiences that stick out to me throughout my fellowship.

1. Board of Trustees Presentation in October 2018 ~ This one was probably the most terrifying because I had only been an SNC student for about 2 months and the Board of Trustees oversees all of the college operations, so it was for sure overwhelming. However, they were very nice and receptive and gave me confidence for other presentations to come.
2. Domains Conference Presentation in June 2019 ~ The Domains Conference was the first major conference I attended with more than people from the local community. There were about 80 people from across the world, mainly in departments such as Academic Technology at their respective colleges. The biggest surprise of the presentation and conference as a whole was that SNC was a leader in the domains program and many other schools were looking to us on how to start their programs. I loved the opportunity to attend the conference and learn more about the importance and also how blessed I am to have the opportunities I do at SNC.
3. Digital Pedagogy Lab in August 2019 ~ Although I didn’t present in a sense, the way the conference is run is essentially a week-long class on a topic in higher learning. The course I took was Open Learning and honestly, I struggled a lot because I didn’t really understand most of what was being discussed. However, I still learned from that experience and how different and important each of our voices is.

Although I never expected this opportunity, the way it has changed my life can not be described. A small amount is listed above, but another huge piece is how it connected me to the Academic Technology team and eventually being able to start as a Tech Bar Consultant who teaches other students about digital literacies, mainly domains. I love being able to work for Tech Bar and it is a role that I probably would never have been able to have if it weren’t for my work first for FSL.

It is still bittersweet to see FSL come to an end, but I am so thankful for the past two and a half years.

The end of the semester was honestly a bit rough for most of the people around me, and I was no exception. About halfway through last semester, I got an offer to return to a company I had previously worked at, so I added my third job. This meant I was working about 15 hours a week between the two, and also during easily the hardest academic semester so far.

Because of the added job and loads of stress, I wasn’t able to work as much as I would have hoped, but the team was able to work to complete a few major projects!

The Logo

The major project of the last semester that we completed was being able to create the logo for FSL! Ruthie created the main design on paper and we worked to digitize it and create different colored/grayscale versions.

Promotional Items

After we had the logo, it was time to move into the promotional stage of the project!

Mugs

A large project that we accomplished was the creation of the mugs to hand out to faculty! Starting this week we were able to start handing them out to professors who filled out the form on the participate page of the website.

Postcards

The other major promotions we did last semester and again this semester has been creating postcards to send out to professors in order to get them to participate in our participate interactive grid! Here are the three different postcards we have recently sent out. The first is for Halloween, then Christmas, and most recently Valentine’s.

Next Steps

The team recently created an Instagram and Twitter (@FSLatSNC) and the next major step will be adding content for that! We were also able to film two new videos, so I will be starting to edit those next week. We also had a great response to the form of the next round of professors that we can reach out to for videos, so that will be a major part of this semester!

I am very glad to be getting back in a rhythm and balance of working both TechBar and FSL this semester!

This grid has been such a process and a learning experience for me. There have been a few major concepts I have learned including:

1. How much I love spreadsheets and formulas
2. How complicated a simple visualization actually is
3. How easy it is to become discouraged

1. How Much I Love Spreadsheets and Formulas

Now, this may not seem like much of a surprise if you know me, but for some reason, I forgot how much I love to write formulas and how satisfying it can be. I mean formulas basically combine my two favorite things: code and math.

This data grid uses a multitude of formulas. First of all, it takes the form responses (all in words [or strings]) and converts them into numbers [or integers]. The easiest way to solve this problem was to do all of the math calculations on a separate sheet of the same spreadsheet as the responses.

The newest formula I learned how to use was an Array Formula. The main idea of this formula is to be able to apply a specific formula to an entire column instead of just a specified range. This came into importance when for some reason all of the formulas liked to change line numbers once a response was added on the main sheet of the spreadsheet (it was odd). However, it was very helpful to have the array formula set and then never have to worry about it again. Other formulas used include a VLookup, Countif and many If/Then statements.

Here is what the spreadsheet of formulas looks like currently:

In case anyone else is interested in this, the way it works is:

1. The responses are translated into number format using a large if/then formula (columns G and H)
2. The corresponding intersection number is found by multiplying the engagement number by 10 and adding the technology number. This is solely for the purpose of creating a unique number for each intersection in order to be able to count the responses in accordance with each intersection (column J)
3. Column J is then used in a count if formula to see how many times each specific intersection has been responded to (the answer goes into column B)
4. This intersection number is then translated into the intersection name using 25 nested if/then formulas (column L)
5. Once the intersection count in column B is found, and the intersection name in column L is established, the specific intersection count can be found. This is found using a VLookup. The formula tries to find the intersection name of the response from column L and match it to the intersection name in column A. It then returns the count of that intersection found in column B. The final answer is then inserted into column I
6. Finally, the intersection count found in column I is translated into a word based on the number of times this course is on the grid. Currently, these words are low, medium, and high and that value then gets translated into column K

As you can see, a LOT of formulas and behind the scenes work is going on here. I love it because to me it is like a giant interlocking puzzle. This puzzle can be incredibly frustrating when one simple thing isn’t working and can seem like a lot of work for such a simple end result (see below), but for some reason, I continue to fall in love with this kind of work.

2. How Complicated this Simple Visual Actually Is

As you read earlier, there are a lot of puzzle pieces of formulas put together to make overall a pretty simple visualization. However, each of these formulas is necessary to make the grid happen. Here is an easy breakdown:

1. The engagement and technology numbers let the bubble know where to be placed on the grid
2. The intersection number is used to set the bubble size, but to get the number 4 different formulas are necessary
3. Lastly, the number field sets the color of the bubble to finish out the look of the grid

Besides the actual grid, I added the title and description along with the axis names.

The other major hurdle I recently had was trying to eliminate the data labels when a bubble was hovered over. The problem with these labels was they showed ALL of the information that was needed to place the bubble. This meant five pieces of information were shown. Some of these pieces of info were helpful like the Intersection Name and Count, but the rest was unnecessary. We decided the easiest thing would just be to get rid of it. There was an easy solution of putting a transparent rectangle over the top of the grid so when a mouse was on top of the grid the mouse was really hovering over the rectangle, not the grid.

3. How Easy it is to Become Discouraged

This grid has been almost a year-long process since the creation of the idea.

There were many problems I had absolutely no idea how to feel and it required me to look either on the internet or ask for help from those around me.

Even thinking of the formulas needed to get that information was a mental puzzle. I enjoy this type of project when it works (obviously), but sadly most days this isn’t the case.

There were many little obstacles on the road to this seemingly simple project. Many of these things I was overthinking, others I was just thinking about in a very different way.

Honestly, some days I look at my work and am impressed at how far the project has come. Meanwhile, others I feel saddened that it has taken this long to figure out something so “simple” looking back. There were many days that I felt so unmotivated to work because I would just stare at the screen and have no clue how to fix the problems staring back at me. I know this type of work is a process, but so frequently I feel like I have to know how to immediately do everything.

Overall, I have learned an incredible amount over the course of this project. The major lesson I have learned is how important it is to push through when you are stuck but also taking breaks is important. Also as much as I like to think that I have to know everything, I am thankful I have strong support around me and that I can always reach out when I am stuck.

As a reminder, my goals for last year were:

1. Understand the different styles of teaching and types of learning around the campus community.
2. Learning how to communicate in a group to gain teamwork skills
3. Become more fluent in shooting and editing videos
4. Develop a deeper understanding of WordPress and how to develop a more functional website.

A few of these goals I have decided I have completed to the level that I wanted to; mainly goals 1 and 3. I have refined two of my original goals to encompass more of the projects I am hoping to work on this year and then I created two newer goals.

Goal 1: Gain a deeper understanding of Google Forms and Google Sheets formulas and how that data can correspond to a visualization of data through Data Studio 

I have gained a lot of experience in this category already this summer and early this academic year, but I am hoping to continue to learn how much they can be conveyed with such a simple data set.

Strategies 1: Working with Taylor to Create the Data Grid

I have learned a lot about formulas and the possibilities inside Google Sheets with Taylor. I learned almost everything about formulas in Excel and everything is just a bit different. Also being able to understand the possibilities and connections of Google Forms and Sheets is a strong skill that might be helpful for Tech Bar and professors as well.

Measurement 1: Have a Working Data Grid that Changes Automatically when New Data is Added

The ultimate goal for the data grid is for it to be able to fill automatically when a professor fills out the form. This makes it easier for me as I don’t have to manually import anything and it can help the efficiency and speed. The other problem of Data Studio is making the data well represented visually. Input from the team once more data is added will help to understand how to combat this issue.

You can view the progress of this goal on our newly created Participate Page!

Goal 2: Understand how to become an effective leader of a group of students and how to effectively communicate and assign tasks to others

This is a similar goal to one that I created last year, but I wanted to add the leadership aspect to the goal. Before this fellowship, I was horrible and preferred not to work in groups. After just the first year, I feel comfortable in this position and I am hopeful that I can help to mentor the newer students who might have felt the same way as I did the first few months.

Strategies 2: Asking for Feeback

The easiest and most important way to know I am doing this well will be asking the team, especially the students for feedback. I know a major downfall already this year has been a slight lack of communication causing confusion. Making sure each student and member of the team knows their assigned tasks will be important to the flow and timeline of projects.

Measurement 2: Timeline of Tasks and Analyzing Feedback

A major part of knowing if I am doing well will be the feedback I receive from both the leadership team and other students. Making sure everyone is organized and tasks get done in a reasonable time frame is going to be important as well.

Goal 3: Understand on a deeper level the customization and plugin options in Elementor and WordPress themes (also comes from working with TechBar)

This goal is also a slightly adapted goal from one from last year. Coming into last year, I had no experience in WordPress and I still feel like sometimes I feel trapped in trying to change certain aspects of my site. I have learned a lot in the past year, but I want to continue to understand the higher-level options in WordPress and maybe other applications as well.

Strategies 3: Researching the Best Options

I think the major way to make sure we are using the best options is research. Most people use WordPress, but is it the best option for our purposes? I am not sure the answer to this question. My guess right now is yes, because it is the most user-friendly and looking forward would be the easiest to explain to whoever would take over for me. In my personal domain, I might eventually want to use something other than WordPress, especially if I decide to create a portfolio website later on in my college career.

Measurement 3: The Progression of the Website/Other Projects

The main way to see this progress will be looking at the progression of the website from the beginning of the year to the end. The blog has already been a large step in this goal, especially having to use specific plugin options on top of Elementor. This goal can also be seen in the transformation of my personal domain with the skills I learn through TechBar and the FSL website.

Goal from Susan

Goal 4: Organize and develop the Student Explanation Video with other team members, that will be shown on the Full Spectrum Learning site and shown to students before recording 

This video is something that I have been thinking is a good idea ever since we first started filming videos. I think many students are confused about what Full Spectrum Learning is and having a short video that explains many of the broad concepts will be very useful.

Strategies 4: Develop and Organize a Script and Visual 

An important factor of this video is making sure that we don’t rush into trying to create the final project too soon. The basis of making this a successful video is going to be the script. Making sure that the script explains what we want it to in collaboration with Lexi and Britney is going to be crucial. The next step would be brainstorming how we want to visualize the process and then working to put it all together.

Measurement 4: The Final Product and Approval

Creating a visually appealing and informational video that encompasses as much information in a short time that we can. Gaining approval from the rest of the team and officially publishing it to the FSL site or starting to show it to students as part of the process will be the ultimate goal.

I’m not going to lie saying the first six weeks were easy, sophomore year hit me much harder than freshman year. However, I am finally feeling like I have everything under a bit of control.

With that being said, I am also starting to get some projects rolling for this year with Full Spectrum Learning!

1. Data Grid

The major breakthrough I have had near the end of this week was the progress of the data grid! It took MANY months and a lot of trial and error, but I think I finally got it to a point I am happy with presenting to the rest of the college to hopefully get some data.

Here is the current progress of the grid:

It does not look like a lot currently, but I am excited to see how it grows when more data is added.

The major problems (and fixes) I have had with this report have been figuring out the data labels, the coloring, and getting the actual data to look correct.

The first problem was solved by making the data labels based on the intersection name instead of the actual class of data. We want a broad visualization of the data instead of class-specific and when you hovered over the point on the grid, only one class of information showed.

Second, Data Studio only allows 20 different colors to be used in a report, and there are 25 intersections on the grid. We decided to instead base the colors on the number of classes in a specific intersection. I have it set to three different levels of popularity, low, medium, and high. The shade of purple darkens the more popular it is. Because of the low amounts of data, there aren’t any intersections that reach the medium or high popularity level.

Lastly, the hardest problem of them all was just getting all of the data correctly adjusted on the grid. I figured out the easiest way to make it all work was to have all of the data on a separate sheet and auto-fill based on the new data that is filled in. Previously, when I added new rows of data from the form, the formulas on the other sheet would adjust and break. Working with Taylor, we figured out the easiest way to solve this problem would be using an Array Formula to fill the columns when the new data is added from the form. This allows the data grid to autofill seconds after the form is filled out.

2. Website Tweaks

A constant project I am working on is trying to add to and update the website. Currently, we are up to 9 videos on the interactive grid!

The major project of the few past weeks was adding a blog to the Full Spectrum Learning site! I found a plugin named Premium Addons for Elementor that allows me to show previews of the blog posts on a blog landing page. This also allows me to use Elementor to create a base and then add the previews without changing the theme of the site.

I also added a featured post section featuring three different works from professors and students.

Currently, there are six blog posts on the site. The majority of these are implementation reports from the SNC DigPINS site. I worked with Taylor to set up syndication of the blogs, meaning each time a blog is posted on DigPINS with that category, the post automatically is created on the Full Spectrum site. This process uses a plugin called FeedWordPress. Another great thing about this plugin is that when the link to the post is clicked, it brings the post to the original home. This makes sure that each post is not creating a duplicate, causing other issues.

For the posts not on the DigPINS site, we are using a plugin called Quick Page/Post Redirect. This allows a post to be redirected to the original when clicked, allowing the individual’s site to be featured. With this plugin, only the first few lines that appear on the preview need to be copied, the rest is not seen due to the automatic redirect.

Last week we updated the Full Spectrum Learning website to include the blog and a few minor other changes including changing the feature colors to purple and adding a bit more information.

You can check out the changes here: https://fullspectrumlearning.knight.domains/blog/

3. Tech Bar

This year I have had the opportunity to become a Tech Bar consultant and I am really enjoying this new opportunity. Even though Tech Bar and FSL are not directly connected, they overlap a lot. I appreciate being able to explain my passion for websites and offering help to students who may not know where to start.

These first few weeks have been a bit hectic, but looking back a lot of progress has been made for Full Spectrum Learning especially with the Data Grid and Website in only a little over the first month!

Three words drove the experience of this conference for me: Overwhelming. Reflective. Hopeful.

Overwhelming

A major feeling I had the whole week was feeling overwhelmed with topics, jargon, and just how much information was being thrown at me, but by the end of the week it all settled down and I was able to better experience and learn.

Reflective

The conference helped me to do a lot of reflecting on my life, especially in the past year. I was really able to connect with schools across the country and learn how lucky I am to attend St. Norbert with the opportunities that I have had in my first year. On the plane ride home I really reflected on how much I have learned and how far I have come since starting school less than a year ago; a delayed plane and little sleep will make you a little bit delirious and help with that.

Hopeful

One of the major themes that I saw with the conference was the hope of the future of education. Sure, many things in the educational system are corrupt, but I believe that the community that attended this conference will do anything in its power to hold on and fix that system. It may be an endless battle, but the more the community of educators grows and sticks together, the better shape we will be in.

Here is a more indepth perspective of what it is like to be one of the only students at this conference.

The “Student Perspective”

Being one of the only students at the conference, I was tasked with trying to show and provide the “Student Perspective” of the conference. At the beginning of the week, I felt a lot of pressure to be able to know all the answers and be able to explain how each student feels. I eventually learned that this wasn’t the case at all; they just wanted to hear our thoughts. No two students are the same and most students today are not even the “traditional” college student.

One thing that I really struggled with was understanding the concepts. One professor described it as, “Entering into a graduate level class on a topic you didn’t really understand to start.” Especially because I chose the track I was in because I didn’t understand it and wanted to learn more about it. Monday was overwhelming, but Tuesday is when I crashed and burned. Luckily, later in the week I felt more inclined to speak up when I didn’t understand and did get a lot out of the course.

I was able to participate in a Virtually Connecting session with a few other students, mainly graduate students. These students also expressed their confusion and hardships of their classes; it was really nice to hear they were struggling (that sounds bad), but then I knew that I wasn’t alone. Honestly, I felt a bit dumb because I didn’t understand everything, but realized that the purpose isn’t to understand everything, it is to connect with so many in the community and learn together.

Differences for Students

I would say the biggest difference for me as a student is it just was language I really wasn’t used to. Almost all of the participants in my cohort were experts or at least had multiple years of experience in the field. The first few days were really spent understanding different topics and terms associated with Open Learning. The other difficulty is that many terms in Open Learning don’t have a clear and simple definition; they are usually long and complex, just like the ideas.

The other major differences for the students are age and experience. Now this may seem obvious, but most of the other students were graduate students. This means they were at least three years older than I am. That doesn’t seem like a lot; however, I have only been in college in these types of atmospheres for one year. Being exposed to this for at least four full years would make an incredibly large difference in my understanding. Even after one week in that environment, I feel like I understand so much more about Open Pedagogy and the education system in general.

This conference is an incredibly unique experience for any student, but especially a rising sophomore undergraduate. The major problem I think I will encounter after the conference is how to bring this information back to the campus. Personally, I feel like blogging is the best idea for me to start opening conversations with professors on how this type of learning has shaped my experience and the ways to implement it. The other hardship of the conference is understanding that everyone at the conference may be on board with this solution, but the same struggles we faced before the conference will more than likely continue to remain when we leave. This sounds pessimistic (and it is), but it is important to understand that the world doesn’t magically change (sadly). Now, in saying that, I think conferences are incredibly important to understand the problems that other schools are facing and to grow a community of support. The problems might not be magically fixed, but you may now be able to lean on someone from a different university to help you solve that problem.

Main (Sad) Takeaways

I have many ideas and takeaways from this conference. Sadly, not everything at this conference was sunshine and rainbows; I also heard the dark side to the higher education systems across the country.

Creating Change

The most shocking thing to me was how hard it can be to create this change. The mass amount of stories I heard about no administration listening to professors and taking their work for granted was absolutely heartbreaking. Compared to other universities around the world, I feel like St. Norbert is more open to change and listening to more of its faculty and students. I am not saying that we are perfect, believe me no college is, but I feel like the smaller school allows for more communication across departments and levels of administration.

Lack of Access in Other Countries

One surprising issue that I feel completely ignorant about is the access issues in other countries. On Tuesday, our track had the incredible opportunity to video call Maha Bali. She talked about a lot of the apps and other platforms that are not available in her home country of Egypt. She teaches at an American University there, but still encounters the stricter rules about the government and what she can talk about. I was completely taken aback by some of the problems she mentioned that I would have never imagined, and that I take for granted each and every day. 

How Open Access Isn’t Always the Best

Another powerful activity we had the chance to work on was the challenges and strategies of open learning. This was a bit of a disheartening activity, because the main goal was to be incredibly critical of the teaching method and idea that we were spending the whole week trying to promote. However, I did really learn a lot from this activity and now have a few ideas to try to talk to faculty who claim they can’t do it. This could be because of lack of resources (especially time) or just a pure level of confusion.

This Also Brought Up How Some Students Don’t Want Everything In The Open And How Professors Need To Approach That. I Explained This More In My Last Blog: What In The World Is Open Learning? A Student’s Tale.

Dark Side of Textbooks

The most shocking fact I learned is that most professors who write and collaborate on textbooks usually don’t get paid. They can occasionally get compensated, but it is usually only about 5 to 8 percent of the sales. Other professors, usually at larger colleges may receive grants to help them write the book, but many are just left to fend for themselves. If the money isn’t going to to the professor who wrote the book, who is stealing college student’s valuable money?

I also learned about how many students struggle with textbook prices. It is no secret that college textbooks are incredibly expensive; many students after paying thousands and thousands for tuition can no longer afford textbooks. Some students just decide not to by the textbook and let their grades suffer, or try to transfer into a different class.

Lessons Learned

I had a few major lessons that I was able to learn during this conference. The major two were being able to admit when you are confused, and it’s okay to take a break.

The first lesson for me has always been a problem. I never like to admit that I can’t do everything and it usually just leaves me stressed and upset with no one other than myself. This conference the first few days when I was struggling I didn’t want to admit I didn’t understand anything, but instead I stayed true to myself and pretended that everything would be okay. Quickly, I learned that if I wanted to get anything out of this experience I needed to suck it up and admit that I was confused. I was able to reach out to one of our smaller groups, and they helped me understand some of the terms and items I was utterly confused on. Each one of them were all so incredibly helpful and empathic explaining that they would have never understood any of this at the age of 19. Soon after that, I was able to start understanding many items much better, and all because I sucked up my pride and asked for help.

Secondly, with all of this new information, I realized the importance of a good break. There were a few points in the day, usually after lunch, when my brain would just shut down for a bit. I would be confused about the tiniest things and would feel frustrated by not understanding what I just worked so hard to understand. However, a bathroom or water break, a walk around the floor, and a good song to center myself always did the trick. This is one lesson that I am hoping to start applying to my everyday life. I have a very bad habit of pretending everything is okay and pushing myself each day to exhaustion by doing so many activities that I very rarely breathe and actually live the life I have worked so hard to create.

Most Impactful

Robin DeRosa’s Keynote was incredibly impactful for me coming from a different perspective. It was heartbreaking to hear the stats and stories, but I was just appalled that I had no idea any of this was happening. One major takeaway from both conferences I have been able to attend this summer is how much of a bubble I am in. I have quickly learned that life is much different at St. Norbert than the rest of the world. I have struggled with this a lot. I am so lucky and blessed I get to go to such an incredible university and have the opportunities I am having, but I hear these stories from other universities and feel crushed. 

Favorite Quote

My favorite quote of the conference was from Noemi Bartolucci during the Friday opening remarks. It went something like this, “Bask in uncertainty because those moments are when you learn the most.” This quote really hit me and made me think of this past year because it really framed my past year perfectly. Almost all of my experiences I have had this past year were things I never thought I would experience. The FSL fellowship is the major example, but even experiences in my faith and in classes are nothing like I had expected. My biggest insecurity is my inability to trust people, especially in my faith. Each time I read this quote I step back for a second and breathe in and out and relax and try to trust.

I am also incredibly thankful that I was able to experience this conference with another student by my side and we were able to bounce ideas off each other and most importantly laugh it off when we were lost together and try to pick up the pieces of our brain.

Simple Definition

Open Learning is the art of professors and students actively collaboratively learning together through projects while using open resource materials.

Many Different Parts of the Open

Through the course of this week I have discovered there are three main aspects that have stuck out to me about the open: full collaboration, free access to textbooks, and project based learning. These aren’t the only options and ideas of the open, these are just the ones that resonated with me.

Full Collaboration

The main part of my experience in the open has been based on the full collaboration of professors and students. During my first year at the college, I have been involved in a Full Spectrum Learning [LINK] (FSL) Research Fellowship and it is my first truly open experience. The working group is truly collaborative with each member always feeling free to express their opinions and ideas. I never felt like it was professor over student, but instead we were all equals; that is one of the most important parts about open learning and collaboration. A major point of open learning means that the professors and students are learning together to reach a common goal.

Free Access to Textbooks

One of the most well-known aspects of Open Pedagogy in my experience has been Open Educational Resources (OERs) or free access to textbooks/course materials. However, this is the one main point of Open Pedagogy I have not experienced or explored, because my open experience didn’t first happen in a class, it happened through my fellowship. Open access means that the textbooks are free, which is appealing to students, but it can create problems for professors (see challenges). These textbooks can be created by professors using open source materials, but they can also be created in collaboration with the students using project learning.

Project Learning

The most intriguing part of the open for me is project based learning. This concept means that students work on a collaborative formative project instead of other means of assessment (a test for example). This also allows for more general course assignments and freedom for students to make the projects reflect their work and show more of their personality through their work.

The main example of this combines OERs and Project Learning by having students create their own open sourced textbook for the class. Each student can help create a chapter of the book and be the “expert” on that chapter and throughout the class they can go through different revisions to help grow the book. Students can then help to teach others about their specific topic. This project can help the future years of students as they can continue to build on the first version of the textbooks. 

Another example at St. Norbert would be to use the domains project to help center student learning. The extreme example that would help focus project learning throughout the student experience would be having students use domains throughout their entire four year program. Even having individual classes embrace domains and allowing for a general framework for a project, and then students can form the project into their own creation and let their creativity show. Students having their own domain allows them to have a space that they can fully create into their own place on the web.

As a student, having more hands-on and project learning like this is really appealing to me; this really takes owning the learning to the next level. These projects give students the freedom to let their personality show in their work and it goes beyond the end of the class, it is something that can continue to grow and help others.

Why Should We Care/Benefits to Students

So you may be thinking “Why does this matter to me?” And honestly and simply from the student perspective, it is because I hope you care about us, the students. 

Truly Unique Experience

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about the 10 most valuable learning experiences [LINK] I had during my first year of college. What I learned while reflecting, is that most of these learning experiences hadn’t happened in the classroom, but instead through my research fellowship because of how unique of an experience it truly is. The research fellowship is the perfect example of open pedagogy; each person on the team is an equal and we are able to help advance the initiative by each sharing our ideas.

Students are More Invested

Personally, my biggest investment in Open Learning is the opportunity for my assignments to live past the end of the course. I can’t express how disheartening it is to work hours and hours on assignments just to know that I will be given a grade and maybe feedback and that assignment will be thrown out forever. With open learning, students are working with professors on projects collaboratively on projects with the goal being student work continuing to help the next class of students. As a student, I know I would work much harder on an assignment that I knew would continue after my grade, or especially if it would be published in the open for any class to use. Students also are given more freedom with their assignments and it allows them to ultimately pick the outcome of the course.

Little to No Textbook Cost

Hands down, the biggest benefit to students is the open resource textbooks and materials because they are all free. Due to the large amount that textbooks cost students, many students are deciding to let their grades take a hit instead of their bank accounts. This graph shows research from the Florida Virtual Campus about how the price of textbooks impacts students.

Students are already struggling through thousands of dollars of debt to even attend class, and then have to shell out hundreds or even thousands of dollars for textbooks for ONE semester. Having resources in the open can really help students who may not want to admit that they have an issue of paying for materials.

Closer to the Working World

When a student graduates and gains a job, they are going to be working mainly in open learning. They will be working to accomplish projects in groups of people to help the company to succeed. Very few or none of their assignments will ever be thrown out, they are all helping the company to grow. Very few times will a worker be in a lecture situation, but instead they will have responsibility in that project.

Challenges

Of course there are going to be challenges when implementing this type of learning. If there weren’t most people would already be on board!

Lack of Resources

The main challenge for faculty to implement this in their own classes is a lack of resources. This can come in the form of time, money, or open resources.

In order for professors to have time, an option would be asking your university for a course release. Obviously not every university is going to drop everything and let you do this. 

Another solution to these problems is to have your students draft the textbook. I outlined this solution a bit above, but teaching students about open resources and copyright issues (reach out to your librarians to help!) and then working directly with them to each become experts in certain topics for the class and then allowing students to work with the professor to find a way to show/teach the rest of the class about their assigned topic. This means that the professor would not have to take valuable time to draft their own textbook but instead have students own their own learning.

Lack of Willingness to Change

Many people that I have encountered are always worried to fail and don’t want to change. However, if this year has taught me anything, it is that most of my most valuable learning experiences happened when I took a chance and jumped out of my comfort zone. Sure, I was terrified and didn’t really know what I was doing, but I just trusted the process. 

Students might not understand what is happening, simply because they have never experienced this type of learning. I was so used to being told what to do, that I felt uncomfortable planning my own goals and initiatives for my fellowship. However, now I feel like I am in control of my own learning and each person on the team is able to trust each other.

Even if the class doesn’t go perfectly according to plan, there is a large chance that at least one student will be impacted by the new way of teaching. Opening up a dialogue with the students about what is impactful and what is helping them is also crucial to the process. The class should be forever changing and shaping to the student’s needs.

Accessibility Issues

The major concern of open materials in open learning is the accessibility issues that can appear. This can come in a variety of forms; anything from lack of internet, to language barriers, to learning disabilities.

Internet connection can be a major issue, especially for rural communities. Personally, I didn’t have internet growing up, simply because of the location I lived at. Now, at school I constantly have internet, but if a student lives off-campus, this may not be the case. Many open classes are focused online, and making sure that you provide a safe and welcoming environment for students to talk about the issues they may have is important. However, not all students may want to admit this, and that is okay too. Making sure that there is a backup plan, such as a printable or handwritable textbook is also important.

Another issue that can appear is a language barrier. Making sure that each activity and reading is available in multiple different languages is important to make students know that they are supported in the class. Many large platforms, such as PressBooks, allows multiple languages while it is embedded in your site.

Learning disabilities can also be an obstacle in learning. Online books are great for some students, but can be challenging for some; the blind, for example. Having accessibility tags and having a platform that supports audio accessibility and other disabilities can make the classroom feel more welcoming for many students. If you are at all concerned, talk to your librarians or reach out to someone else you are close to that you can look to as an example.

Overall, just allowing for a welcoming and safe atmosphere for students is important to making them feel safe and welcome and like they belong in the classroom. Students should feel like they are allowed to bring their full selves into the class, just as professors should be bringing their full selves in the classroom as well. Above all else, please remember your students are humans first. As another student, Ruthie Tucker said, “It’s about making knowledge more accessible to all students”

Privacy Issues

One of the biggest concerns with work being in the open, is people who are trying to stay hidden. There are some people who should not have their work it the open; an extreme example of this would be a person involved in a domestic abuse case trying to remain in hiding. It is important to have a conversation about what being in the open means with the students in the class and how accessible their information and assignments might be.

While looking through a Twitter chat on this topic, I stumbled upon a tweet from Sarah Honeychurch (@NomadWarMachine) saying “Options rather than opt outs.” Only showing students an opt out can make it feel like they are trying to get out of the original assignment and can feel disconnected from the group. Having students have options and explaining why they chose this option can make students feel like they are more in control of the assignment instead of being told they can do the assignment or something different.

Lack of Understanding

Personally, I think the biggest problem that Open Learning is facing is a lack of understanding around the topic. I am hoping that blog posts like these or just more information about the open in general can help to gain knowledge. I think a lot of professors are doing parts of Open Learning without actually knowing about it!

Supplies/Resources

There are many resources available to both professors and students to help promote and use these practices in the classroom!

Hypothesis

The newest tool I have learned about is Hypothesis. This lets you annotate online articles and PDFs either in a private group or in the public. This tool can really help cut down on paper annotations that are currently happening and save time, money, and resources. I have not explored this tool much further, but I am excited to see how it can help me in the future.

Pressbooks

Another tool that I haven’t explored yet, but have heard very good things about is PressBooks. PressBooks is very similar to WordPress and used to be a plug-in for WordPress. PressBooks is an open source publishing application that allows books to be shared across the web. It lets you easily create and design a  book of information. This tool is great for classes that want to work on an open source textbook together.

Domain of One’s Own (DoOO)

An initiative on St. Norbert’s campus that is helping to promote this different type of learning is Knight Domains. This allows each student to claim ownership of their own domain while they are a student. The professor could each have students write about different topics and then use Hypothesis to annotate each student’s topics. This would help students to grow in their digital skills and introduce them to more platforms they may have not discovered yet.

Closing Notes

The major point to make about Open Learning is you don’t have to jump into the deep end. Any small change you can make towards this type of learning can really impact students. Please always be open to feedback from students and help them to realize that they don’t always have to be perfect and it is okay to fail right alongside you. Growth is important for students, but also the professor. I am thankful I have had this experience of learning that not many students get to experience; I hope that I can inspire professors to be open about what works for their students and allowing them to have this different type of learning.

Thank you to Ruthie Tucker for being my partner in crime and fellow Research Fellow and helping me to conceptualize all of my crazy thoughts.

1. Working Collaboratively in a Group with Professors/Faculty

The whole of my research fellowship was an experience I was not expecting at all. From the first day, I was surprised when they asked me to create my own goals for the project and really wanted me to shape my own experience. The working team is now comprised of three faculty members and four students and from the start we were all equals. All of our ideas were highly valued and accepted to bring the project to the next level. This experience was and continues to be truly unique from any experience I have ever heard of from students in similar positions all the way to workers in the corporate world. As you will see later in this list, most of my experiences came from opportunities that stemmed from this fellowship instead of experiences in the classroom because how unique of an experience this fellowship has been.

2. Seeing My Hard Work Pay Off

During second semester this past year, right around Easter I started to get mildly sick. It wasn’t anything serious, but it did make me incredibly tired and made it hard to do much during that full week. Of course, this came at a bad time for me. That week I had two large exams, one in Computer Science Data Structures and Linear Algebra. To top it off, the first-year honors students had dinner at President Bruess’ house the night in between them. Anyway, I studied so much for Computer Science that, I wasn’t able to study as much for my Linear Algebra exam as I would have hoped and ended up getting a 59%. Before this exam, I was at a comfortable A, but after I was at a pretty low AB. I could have given up easily and not studied for the exam and accepted an AB or even a B. However, I decided to try to work my butt off and study to try to get the near-perfect score I needed on the exam to get an A in the class. The week leading up to the exam was spent relearning the whole class, and the day before was spent with over six hours in the library straight. I still was worried and stressed and it was a leading factor in me falling off my loft that night (it’s not a fun story). That morning I just decided to do my best and be proud of how hard I tried. When grades came out a few weeks later, I saw that all of my hard work paid off and I was able to ace the class. This class really just taught me the necessity of hard work and being able to work for what you want and never giving up, no matter how hard the road may seem.

3. Creating and Designing the Full Spectrum Learning Website

This project was the main focus of my research fellowship this year, and also one of the most I am most proud of. I had website experience from FBLA in high school, but this project is truly the one I love the most and am able to show off to people all over the world. People from all around the country and even the world have been able to see my work in the website and the evolution of the grid and it is truly humbling that they decided to trust me with the process and design of the website to show this idea. I have learned a multitude of things from creating the FSL website and using that work to advance my personal domains as well. The main skills that creating these websites have helped me with is understanding WordPress and especially the Elementor plug-in. 

The page on the website I am most proud of is the interactive grid. There are a few reasons for this decision. First, it is the part of the site that shows off my partner and I’s hard work with the teaser class videos. Second, I tried to use a plug in to design the table, but it didn’t work well, so I decided to go back to my roots and use HTML and CSS to code the table myself. Because of the lack of responsiveness of a table on a website, I had to create multiple media queries to fake a responsive table by creating a new table for smaller screens. Lastly, this was the page I needed the most help with. I am not great about asking for help when I am struggling, and this page really required me to go out of my comfort zone to work in a group with tech bar students or the staff of academic technology if I was struggling. The main item of the page that I would say I needed the most help with was the axis rollovers. Each element of both axes have rollovers explaining what the names mean and add are based on a segment of HTML and CSS code that work together. I tried to use rollovers in the past, and wasn’t able to get them to work so this was a big step for me when they actually worked. Being able to show my work to the public and have it all be a big learning experience was really impactful for me this past year.

4. Presenting at Domains 2019

Earlier this summer, I had the incredible opportunity to present at Reclaim Hosting’s 2019 Domains Conference in Durham, North Carolina. I had never presented at a conference outside of St. Norbert, and this was a very new experience for me. The main surprise for me was the range of schools that had representation. It was also very interesting for me to understand the view of St. Norbert as a Domain of One’s Own school and really being an example for those programs trying to imitate us. I really did not know what to expect, but I came out of that conference for a deep appreciation for the administration of St. Norbert, and I got a bit of an inside look of how much planning and support needs to go into the ability to have that kind of a program. This was also the first conference where I really had the opportunity to show and explain Full Spectrum Learning (FSL) to those outside of the college and show my work of the website off. The response was incredibly positive, and it was really reassuring to me that my work was making a difference and had a purpose.

5. Presenting to the Board of Trustees

One of the most terrifying, yet rewarding, days of my life happened in early October, when we had the opportunity to present to the Board of Trustees for the college. If you don’t know, the Board of Trustees oversees the college and the president, meaning the lowest on the totem pole in the room for those few hours was the president of the college… so you can probably see why I was a bit nervous. The presentation itself went really smoothly and the feedback was incredibly positive. I started to learn how much I appreciate talking about my own domain and explaining it to those who may not otherwise even think about this kind of digital space. This presentation also lead me into speaking for a multitude of different conferences and presentations on campus including the SyNC Business conference, the Financial Planning Group, and the Hire A Knight Business Conference. All of these experiences have helped me realize how much I appreciate my own domain and how I want to teach others about creating their own domains. These opportunities have also helped me to come out of my shell and be able to show a bit of my personality to others. As anyone close to me would tell you, I am terrified of strangers and if you told me that I would be giving these presentations, I would have had so much anxiety. I still get incredibly nervous before presentations, but I feel incredibly accomplished and come out of them with a new appreciation for my work and sharing it with others.

6. Attending Computer Science Capstones

Being able to see the Computer Science Capstones was a really meaningful experience for me to really see what the goal is. It can be easy to miss the “point” of intro classes and wonder ‘Why am I doing this?’ However, watching each capstone presentation I saw each piece of the work that I had been learning over the past two semesters. Also, being able to see the real world implications of the hard work of the four years of my degree was really impactful. The range of projects was also incredibly inspiring. Knowing that all of the students had (almost) all of the same classes up to their capstones but they all produced wildly different projects. From different coding languages, to design, the variety just amazed me. Some of my favorite projects included a grass cutting simulation, a positive affirmation app, and a dance program that allowed users to create routines based on their own dance moves. A few of the students also expressed their hardships of their first years and how they pushed through which was inspiring to be able to hear, especially because I had thought about changing my major when times were hard. The main benefit of allowing students to see these presentations helps show the hard work of all the seniors while also inspiring the underclassmen to continue on and push through.

7. Attending Digital Pedagogy Lab

This summer, in August I got the experience of attending my second academic conference, Digital Pedagogy Lab, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This conference is truly unique as you are fully collaborating in specific groups of twenty or less for the entire week. I was in the Critical Open Pedagogy track with another student, Ruthie. Honestly, this kind of conference is not easy for students to attend, especially students as young as we are. Most of the concepts of Open Pedagogy can be hard for anyone to understand, and the advanced language was really hard to get through at first. However, it was a great experience to hear and understand the different experiences that each person in the group has had at their own universities across the world. Each day I felt more comfortable and started to understand how I needed to implement what I am learning in to what I am working on with Full Spectrum Learning and how to promote it to the larger campus community especially certain professors. It was a truly unique opportunity that I never thought I would have imagined that I would have especially after only my first year of school and none of this would have been possible without me taking a whim and applying for a research fellowship.

8. Representing the college

One experience that I never thought I would have would be representing St. Norbert while traveling and around the community and the country. Through my work with Full Spectrum Learning I have had the ability to attend two major conferences this summer, Domains 2019 and Digital Pedagogy Lab (see above). There, I was representing the college and even the state on a very large scale. At these conferences, some of the attendees have never heard of St. Norbert, and I am the first student they have met and their first experience. Closer to home, on campus I have presented to a variety of committees and conferences and there I was also representing the college. Many of the conferences included employers from local businesses and corporations. I mainly present my experience using domains, but I am usually one of two examples that they see and hear from. I never would have imagined that I would be in this position, especially in my first year, but looking back it is extremely humbling that my bosses believed in me and trusted me with these presentations.

9. Helping others set up their own domain

This year, I haven’t taught in the “traditional sense” in front of a group, however, I have started to teach students about domains one on one. I was not a tech bar consultant this past year, however, there were a few times when someone called in sick or wasn’t available that I stepped in to help them as emergency back-up. Usually, these appointments centered around domains and I got to help them set them up. This isn’t a way of teaching that I ever thought I would experience, but it has become my favorite way to teach. Being able to show the students the benefits of their domain and help me to show them and help them with questions they have has been a really impactful experience. Also, it helps me to explain to others what I am passionate about and what I fell in love with. Also, knowing they have the support that they need on campus can be incredibly important and I am glad that I can continue to be a part of tech bar as a consultant next year!

10. Understanding Hidden Figures

Lastly, my tenth most valuable experience is a little bit different from the others. I recently rewatched the movie “Hidden Figures” about the women computers involved in the space race. During one scene when the main character has a mental breakthrough and discovers what equation to use for the “go no go” coordinates of the landing, I realized that I actually had learned this equation a few months earlier in Linear Algebra. This is a bit different of an example, but I was glad to see a real life example of the work I am trying to accomplish as part of my degree.

Thank you

I just want to end by saying thank you to everyone involved in my learning experiences over my first year, especially my research fellowship. I would have never imagined I would have most of these experiences in all four years, let alone only my first year. I am blessed to be able to attend such an amazing school and be open to such caring faculty and staff. I honestly just can’t say thank you enough for each experience and each person who cares for me and has trusted and believed in me each and every day, especially when I couldn’t believe in myself or my work.

Accessibility

In the Open it can be really important to make sure that every student has the correct materials and opportunities. Textbook prices cause students not to be able to pass a class that they need or even drop a class; however, it is important to make sure that every student has the correct materials in this new space. One thing I struggled with as a kid was not having proper internet connection. It wasn’t because of the price (but that is an issue), but instead just because it wasn’t offered where I lived. I had to plan ahead to make sure that I could finish my homework with internet at school or would have to find a different way, and it was a stressful part of my educational journey. Also making sure that the formats are accessible for all people, especially those with disabilities or those speaking a different language is crucial.

Borrow

It is important for the open community to help support each other. Borrowing ideas from others and helping to support even across the country and the world is important. The collaboration of the community is crucial to help us all to thrive. Putting open textbooks out on sites such as PressBooks for other classes to also use is important to help students learn more and the outreach to be greater.

Collaboration

In my experience, one of the best parts of open learning is the direct collaboration. In my experience the professors and students were equal and we were all working towards one central goal. Have a project that students feel like they can work on and it won’t be thrown away at the end of the semester can be extremely valuable. Personally, I think working with students to create their own textbook that then can help the next class expand and learn for can be a really unique and valuable experience to students.

Danger

Open education isn’t always easy and won’t be sunshine and rainbows, but it can make a world of difference for students or the people around you. It can be hard to get started in the open, especially with limited time, money, and energy. Revising a full class to make it open can really be draining and not every aspect will always work. However, each moment is a learning opportunity for you and reaching out to the open community can be extremely helpful.

Experience

Even though the term “Student Experience” might haunt me in my grave because no student has the same experience, it is important to put the students first. Personally, I believe offering a wide variety of courses to students can be the answer to have them have the best journey while in higher ed.

Freedom

A great benefit of OER is the freedom that it can provide. In the open, student assignments have more of a framework instead of a strict rule of requirements. This allows students to use their creativity and let their personality shine through on the assignment and truly turn it into their own.

I am excited to see what the next few day of the conference hold and the future for the Open Pedagogy Community!

The Full Spectrum Learning Grid

In the beginning of last year, the grid featured a green axis and a gold axis and had language more focused to the faculty and those in education. Ruthie and I simplified the language and got to work on trying to recreate the old grid. We also added axis and intersection names to make it easier to focus on certain intersections.

Thanks to a conversation with Autumm back in the beginning of November, we started to develop the color gird. Originally, the color grid only focused on color on the axis, but we eventually added in the intersection colors. However, there was separation between each intersection and it led to an optical illusion of phantom dots in between intersections.

I had created a square block grid only for the intention of gaining the hexadecimal codes for the intersection color, but we decided that with a little bit of work, that would look the best for the framework. The colors made it look the cleanest and it showed the gradient of colors across the grid from light to dark. I felt like this made the idea of Full Spectrum Learning and the grid the easiest to understand and visually show the idea of the intersection of different types of engagement and technology.

Today, that expanded grid is the basis and framework for Full Spectrum Learning.

The Website

One of the main reasons I was hired for the FSL position was to help create a new website. This website, like many others I have made, has multiple variations. The original website I created first semester can be found here.

During J-Term, Ruthie messaged me about a plug-in called Elementor. After watching a 2 hour YouTube video and spending countless hours playing around, the new FSL website was born. This website is constantly changing and I have a subdomain off of my domain where I can play around with different changes and additions. The current website can be found here.

The Interactive Grid

The main addition to FSL this past year was the creation and introduction of the Interactive Grid on the Website.

Trying to create a responsive table that is six columns by six rows turned out to be more challenging than I was expecting. After many different plug-ins fighting with not liking Elementor, with Ben’s help we decided to go for an HTML coded table. A major benefit of this was the ability to easily add CSS with responsive div tags. To make sure this worked, I had to transfer back and forth from many different tabs and also pulled in Dreamweaver to solve some of the problems I was having. I have learned through this how frustrating coding can be and how easy it is for everything not to work just because your minimum and maximum parameters are in the wrong order (that one took me a bit too long to figure out…).

After the Interactive Grid was created, we had to figure out how to create videos that would be stored there.

Each video has gone through multiple changes and iterations to become what it is today. Below is the very first video we made featuring Dr. Riggle’s Educational Psychology class and its evolution from November to the current version. Many things on the video have changed including the music, the intro video and the addition of explaining what the axes mean.

The newest additions to the page are the new thumbnail videos! We wanted to create a uniform look to the page and all of the videos, so I decided to add the intersection color to the thumbnail to increase the readability and aesthetic appeal of both the interactive grid and the YouTube channel.

Looking Forward

Research Fellowships are two year programs, and I am excited for what next year will hold. I can’t even imagine how much we will accomplish next year, especially after looking back on how much we have grown over this year.

Some exciting projects we are working on include course pages featuring a more in-depth explanation of the course, and the syllabus. We would also like to feature the full interviews with both the professor and the student about the class. We also want to continue filling up the interactive grid with more videos, eventually hoping to find a class to fill every intersection.

A twist that we want to add is also seeing how the student perspective would change the grid. Explaining to the students what Full Spectrum Learning is and understanding the student’s perspective of how it lands on the grid can be a valuable addition. We are also looking to add a blog to the site with reactions from professors and students about their classes and different pedagogies.

The main goal for next year is to start promoting this initiative. We need to start explaining to the campus what Full Spectrum Learning is and why it is important for the campus community. The whole team has worked very hard to get FSL where it is today, and that work should be shown and celebrated by others as well.

It is incredible to look back and see how much the whole team has accomplished this past year. It is weird for me to think about the fact that I applied for a different position and was offered this one; today, I couldn’t imagine not being a part of this team. Most importantly, out of this experience I learned how to work better in a team and not feel like I have to control everything. I could not have asked for a better partner than Ruthie and I am so blessed that we were paired together. I’ve gained a forever friend and the best coworker ever.