6 Steps to Engage Educators in Virtual Worklabs

Purpose & objective

In a heightened time of isolation, organized virtual worklabs encourage educators to continue their path as lifelong learners. Through our experience and success on both ends of virtual worklabs, we have concluded that there are six steps to engaging and productive worklabs for adult learners. The six steps are: 1. Set-up (e.g., comfortable with the platform, flexible timing, working links), 2. Check-in (state goals, share good news, questions, share new content), 3. Work (independent, feedback (e.g., verbal, textual), small group, 1:1), 4. Mid-point check-in (brief reconnect for mental break, questions, share struggles, non-academic content), 5. Work (independent, feedback (e.g., verbal, textual), small group, 1:1), 6. Wrap-up (share progress, next steps). This process provides consistency and holds participants accountable for course work, professional development learning goals, or other independent work in a virtual setting.

The use of virtual worklabs with educators supports best practices for andragogy (adult education) by allowing independence, immediacy, and digital accountability. Best practices for adult learners are often left out of professional development and teacher education courses. As well, it is important to remember adults need differentiation and their learning should be augmented with UDL (Universal Design for Learning) principles (e.g., allowing for choice, offering feedback in multiple forms, multimodality). Setting up virtual worklabs effectively can support these needed elements for adult learners, thus modeling and transferring into our PK-12 classrooms.

Virtual worklabs utilize not only a meeting platform (e.g., Meets, Zoom) but can integrate the use of collaborative docs for goal setting, add-ons or extensions to enhance digital tools used during worklabs (e.g., screencasts for short “how-tos”), or variations in the setting (e.g., breakouts, 1:1, hyflex setting). The options to personalize and repeat engaging virtual worklabs are wide, yet provide a reminder that organized and purposeful virtual settings support all learners. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of how virtual worklabs can be embedded successfully in their own practice and recognize the need to integrate best practices for adult learners in a virtual setting.

Outline

-(5 minutes) Introduction; Overview of virtual worklabs and andragogy; understanding who is in the audience (quick poll)
-(15 minutes) Breakdown of the six steps for engaging virtual worklabs
Brief overview of examples and need for UDL and differentiation for adults
(5 minutes) Peer-to-peer discussion: examples of each step for different settings (e.g., professional development, individual coaching, independent goals, teacher education courses, hyflex)
Brief overview of examples and need for UDL and differentiation for adults
-(5 minutes) Questions, Closure

Supporting research

Please see our initial research published below, in addition to supplementary research related to our topic.
Boutelier, S., Gibson, S., Leal, C., & Ludwig, N. (2020). Teacher education during isolation: Virtual worklabs for community and accountability. In Ferdig, R.E., Baumgartner, E., Hartshorne, R., Kaplan-Rakowski, R. & Mouza, C. (Eds.), Teaching, Technology, and Teacher Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Stories from the Field (pp. 473-477). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/p/216903/