Online. Face-to-face. Hybrid. Blended. Flipped, the pandemic changed teaching forever! The AGENDA model was developed in response to the teaching needs of instructors and learning needs of students in synchronous online course meetings. The model tasks instructors and/or instructional design teams with intentionally planning every element of the synchronous session.
Online. Face-to-face. Hybrid. Blended. Flipped. Hyflex. Flexbrid (just kidding, that last one isn’t a thing . . . yet!). Through this pandemic, we have all tried just about every model of teaching imaginable. Certainly, some have been more effective than others.
Regardless of the specific approaches we used, a standard for most models of teaching in the new norm is to blend components of asynchronous online teaching with regular online synchronous sessions. Often, instructors use these synchronous sessions just as they do their traditional, face-to-face sessions, primarily focusing on delivering content with some degree of student involvement. However effective this approach might have been in face-to-face settings, it has proven ineffective online due largely to the challenges of keeping students engaged and on-task for the duration, or even for short segments, of online synchronous sessions.
Student engagement never happens by accident and the need to intentionally plan and facilitate active student engagement is that much more pronounced when translating face-to-face sessions to synchronous online formats.
The AGENDA model was developed in response to the teaching needs of instructors and the learning needs of students in synchronous online course meetings. The model focuses on:
Active learning,
Guided teaching,
Engaged participation,
Necessary content,
Dynamic interaction, and
Applied demonstration
The model tasks instructors and/or instructional design teams with intentionally planning every element of the synchronous session, including what content to share when and for how long, what questions to ask, what activities to engage in and how students can interact successfully in them, and more.
The AGENDA model can be used to plan effective online synchronous sessions for all content areas and levels of learning.
The result of planning these sessions ahead is that students take active roles in their learning and the overall learning of the class community, resulting in more engaged sessions and improved course outcomes.
This session will allow participants to a) explain the characteristics of an effective synchronous session; b) describe the elements of the AGENDA model; and c) utilize the AGENDA model to create engaging, active learning focused synchronous sessions