Dr. Lisa Dieker, a professor at the University of Kansas in the Department of Special Education, and Dr. Rebecca Hines, a professor at the University of Central Florida in the College of Community Innovation and Education, have worked with schools and parents across the country. Dr. Dieker directs a center in the Achievement and Assessment Institute called Flexible Learning through Innovations in Technology in Education (FLITE) and Dr. Hines directs several doctoral grants and the teacher preparation program. In this podcast, they take a fun and informal look at "practical" solutions from teachers, parents, and people with disabilities. The approach in this podcast is to provide fast, flexible thinking about "real" life problems. This podcast is not about the "legal" approach but their best advice from personal and professional experience.
In today’s episode, Dr. Lisa Dieker interviews our very own, Dr. Rebecca Hines as she talks about how to reimagine education during this pandemic.
Lisa Dieker:
Welcome to practical access. I am Lisa Dieker
Rebecca Hines:
And I'm Rebecca Hines. Lisa, who do we have today?
Lisa Dieker:
Well, we have another friend and colleague of mine happens to be a very dear friend and colleague of mine, her name is Dr. Rebecca Hines, and this is one of those podcasts, you have to listen to the two of us. But literally, you get a chance to hear from an expert. And if you didn't know, Dr. Hines is actually an expert in so many things. But if you really ever want to take a box, and rip it apart and blow
Rebecca Hines:
Right?
Lisa Dieker:
Well, Dr. Hines.
Rebecca Hines:
As you know, I am a definitely someone who, you know, I do try to look at our field and think about, you know, what's what's missing, if you will, you know, and I and I, I am constantly looking outside of our field to consider what we need to bring in. And it's interesting. We both been a part of an OSEP project, on recruiting and retaining special education teachers, and experts
Lisa Dieker:
So what what would be like my go to where do I start? I mean, if you if you were in charge of the world, for instructional design for online, like what's the first two things that you're like, I wish every classroom had blank?
Rebecca Hines:
Well, I wish every virtual classroom had a two camera shoot, to be honest, Lisa, I wish you know, it's easy enough these days. And this is something I saw really quickly was done fantastically by some art teachers I was working with in back in the spring, when we were doing a live feed from nine to three every day of what we called edutainment, just arts and other mini my students at home. Now, I know that a lot of teachers right now are teaching both at school, you know, and broadcasting to kids at home, in some cases, especially here in Florida. But even then I'd have a little studio in my classroom. So hey, let's let's head to the studio, so that it felt like something fun and a new lively element to our to our class.
Lisa Dieker:
So what is some, you know, you've done so much, since I know you so well, when we keep up with each other pretty regularly. You've done so much in both brick and mortar online since COVID has hit? What are some other things that are out of the box that maybe our listeners don't know about? That I do? That you might recommend other schools think about such as your entertainment, some of
Rebecca Hines:
Well, one of the things that's been really interesting and it like just has my my brain going a mile a minute right now is we set up and mobilized for for this school year in just recently launched what we're calling an online learning lab, so that our undergraduates at UCF can they log in, they have guidance from our doctoral scholars that they log in, in the morning from nine the assistant to help you with that, you know, while we move on. So I think there's a lot of potential here to bring in volunteers, whether it's from universities or elsewhere to help support students.
Lisa Dieker:
Yeah, I actually have a district that's partnering and working on a plan with assisted living, because again, many of those people are so socially isolated, to some teachers in assisted living that, you know, are still very willing, they might need a little bit of technology support in some cases, or some equipment, but think about a retired teacher that could maybe be in your class.
Rebecca Hines:
think I think some of the things that that we've talked about in other episodes that may or may not have aired. One thing that you mentioned is that idea of making sure that your audience is engaged by periodically asking questions that they respond to in the chat. And I think it's important to note too, that if you have students at home who are not able to write or you know, while I was talking on any given in a given session. So I do think that that idea of having a system and having almost in your mind this every x number of minutes, I'm going to ask students to respond in some way, whether it's to hold up a whiteboard, you know, hold up a piece of paper cameras on, but to make sure they're engaged. But I think that if we don't change our delivery, we still risk losing our I've shared this, you know, the school that we're working with, they did just send out the school district sent out a survey and had over 1000 responses. And it's a very, very small Charter School District. But the survey asked teachers, I mean, as parents, whether they thought their kids were learning more, the same or less in this new kind of mixed environment. And more parents thought kids
Lisa Dieker:
Well, thank you, Dr. Hines, amazing expert as always. And again, I think just really great practical things for our listeners to think about. So please keep sending us your questions. We will continue this season to have guests as well as you'll get a chance to hear from us as our own experts every once in a while. So thank you again Dr. Hines, my friend Becky, and please send us a
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