Global Online Learning with Safary Wa-Mbaleka and Leni Casimiro

One of the themes I’ve been exploring here on the podcast is how teaching and learning in higher education has changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Months of emergency remote teaching followed by more planned online and blended teaching has resulted in an acceleration of the role of online teaching in higher education. 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka is associate professor of leadership in higher education at Bethel University in Minnesota, and Leni Casimiro is professor and chair of education at the Adventist International Institute for Advanced Studies in the Philippines. They, along with Kelvin Thompson are editors of the new Sage Handbook of Online Higher Education out this month.

On this episode, I talk with Safary and Leni. We had a lively conversation about the changing state of online education around the world and how higher education faculty and staff can respond to those changes.

Episode Resources

·       Safary Wa-Mbeleka’s faculty page, https://www.bethel.edu/academics/faculty/safary-wa-mbaleka

·       Leni Casimiro’s faculty page, https://www.aiias.edu/education-department/name/leni-casimiro/ 

·       The Sage Handbook of Online Higher Education, https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-handbook-of-online-higher-education/book281802 

Podcast Links:

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Transcript

Derek Bruff 0:06
Welcome to the Intentional Teaching, a podcast aimed at educators to help them develop foundational teaching skills and explore new ideas in teaching. I’m your host, Derek Bruff. I hope this podcast helps you be more intentional in how you teach and in how you develop as a teacher over time.

One of the themes I’ve been exploring here on the podcast is how teaching and learning in higher education has changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Months of emergency remote teaching followed by more planned online and blended teaching has resulted in an acceleration of the role of online teaching in higher education. On this episode of Intentional Teaching, I talk with two of the editors of a new book that takes a distinctly global look at online higher education and offers a wealth of advice for faculty teaching online and academic leaders developing new online offerings.

Safary Wa-Mbaleka is associate professor of leadership in higher education at Bethel University in Minnestoa, and Leni Casimiro is professor and chair of education at the Adventist International Institute for Advanced Studies in the Philippines. They, along with Kelvin Thompson, vice provost for online strategy and teaching innovation at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, are editors of the new Sage Handbook of Online Higher Education out this month. Kelvin and I are Twitter friends from way back, and he encouraged me to talk to Safary and Leni about the book. We had a lively conversation about the changing state of online education around the world and how higher education faculty and staff can respond to those changes. 

Well, Safary, Leni, thank you for coming on the podcast. I'm excited to talk to you about your new book and the work that you've done around it. So thanks for being on the podcast tonight. 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 1:53
Thank you so much for the invitation and glad to be here. 

Leni Casimiro 1:56
A privilege. 

Derek Bruff 1:58
Yes. Well, and I said tonight, but it's only tonight for some of us. It is, I think tomorrow morning for you, Leni. Is that right? 

So we have a lot of time zones happening right now. Before we talk about the book, I'd like to ask you a question I ask all of my guests that's a little more general. Can you tell us about a time when you realized you wanted to be an educator? 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 2:24
Mm hmm. Leni, do you want to take that first? 

Leni Casimiro 2:28
I never wanted to. 

My my first thought before when I was young is that it's difficult to deal with human beings. You always have differences with people. And so I said I will never be an educator because educators are dealing with human beings all the time. 

Derek Bruff 2:52
It's true. 

Leni Casimiro 2:53
But I found myself in this life because when you learn something you need to share and you definitely should share with people, not with animals! 

So you can never be away from people. You will always be dealing with people. So I learned to love education. 

I never regret. I am an educator. 

Derek Bruff 3:19
That's great. That's great. What about you, Safary? 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 3:23
Ah, You know, it's a funny story how you asked that question. Because it took me way back to my high school. Because that's where this story starts. 

I never thought of myself as an educator. Some people thought I would be a preacher. And that's why when I speak, some people think that I'm preaching and other people thought... my brother specifically, who helped me out a bit with financially in high school. What I need to do nursing, because that was the thing that, you know, if you get nursing, you get a career, you know, you get a job and money. But fast forward, things didn't go that way. I found myself taking up education. And when I went, I was so scared. When I went to for my practicum, I found a classroom that was doing practicum in a middle school, classes were just chaotic. And when I would stand up to to teach for my practicum, there would be some order happening in the classroom. So wait a minute. There's something going on here. Maybe I'm a teacher, maybe after all, I'm a teacher. And then when I graduated, there was this principal where I did my practicum, he was all over me, wanted to hire me, and I was running for my life. And later on I found myself in the classroom decades ago, and from there I have been from elementary to higher ed, and now I'm in higher ed. I just feel like this is where I belong. I enjoy classroom. I've been in administration, but still I want to teach whether it's a virtual classroom or a face to face classroom. I still want to have the teaching, the education part. 

Derek Bruff 5:11
That's great. That's great. There's a lot of passion there, even if it didn't start that way in Leni's case. 

So let's talk about this book, The Sage Handbook of Online Higher Education. What led the two of you to be involved with this project? 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 5:28
I think the beginning of this project was really COVID 19. COVID 19 played a big role in this. I started with the idea of of this handbook when I was... I found that I was being invited to speak to give sessions, webinars on online education. And eventually I started something that I was sharing like every week I think I started maybe twice a week, just video clips of 2 to 5 minutes of specific topic on online teaching because many people were struggling around the world. And before I knew it, there was just so much high demand on online education. There was a lot of misconceptions that were going on.

And I said, Maybe we need a book, a handbook that will put everything together because each one will ask for something. We want to know about assessment. We want to know how to design, we want to know about the technology, want to know about this. And the more I looked at the textbooks that were available, it was like, we do not really have something that has just like one stop place where you can learn almost everything that you need to know to to run your online programs, to design and run quality online programs and courses and teaching and supporting people.

So that's how it started. I was hesitant, but I said, you know, for something like this to work, I think I need that global perspective, which turned out to be something that Sage also wants. So I remembered to my colleague in the Philippines, Dr. Leni, who was my colleague before I was working in the Philippines, and she was at that time and she is still the director of the online education of that university. I said I think she should be one of the editors. And then I remembered Kelvin, who is a vice provost right now in [University of Louisville]. And so I remember I had worked with him at the University of Central Florida, and I know that he has done, I mean, he has done a lot in online education in the United States.

So I said maybe... at that time I was working at in Kenya. So I said, okay, if since I'm in Kenya, right now, I can do some work about Africa. Leni was doing some work about to Asia. Kelvin would bring in Canada and the U.S. and with that, maybe we can share Europe and Australia. And then try to get something that much more global to get to these voices from the global perspective. And so that's how this whole project came together. And when I contacted the two of them, both of them said, okay, we're busy, but we're in, and I say thank you, let's do it. I don't know about Leni how this whole thing unfolded? 

Leni Casimiro 8:35
Yeah, it was providence. When Safari mentioned to me that Sage wanted a global perspective and perhaps somebody from Asia and preferably a woman. Wow. I said, I think this is really meant for me so I cannot say no.

Derek Bruff 9:03
Yeah, let's talk about that global perspective, because it really is. It is. I mean, just looking at the table of contents and the contributors, I mean, there's a whole section where each chapter looks at a different geographical region and how online learning looks there. So I'm curious, what what have you two learned about online education through this international collaboration? 

Leni Casimiro 9:27
Yeah, I would say looking at that section, the international flavor of education, I can see a lot of similarities, of course, in terms of principles. But the way we deal with the realities in various contexts, you can see differences and you can just imagine... you can appreciate the creativity people use in dealing with various issues. And no one can say that one is better than the other because we deal with different issues. One thing that's successful in the US, for example, may not be applicable in Africa or in Asia because they deal with different issues and contexts and so it was a great discovery, a really colorful way of presenting online education.

But one thing that I can see there, that's also a valuable lesson, is that every school nowadays offering online education is global. We have a connected world. And for example, if you're a university in the US, you may have a student in Africa, you may have a student in Asia, in Australia and in South America. And so studying these chapters based on this book will enlighten you on the realities of these students who come from these various places of the world. So it's really a nice mixture of topics written in that particular section of this book. 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 11:08
Yeah, I think for me, what I learned in addition to what Leni has shared, which I fully agree with, there are some common issues that were kind of crossing our different regions. One was the issue of people hesitating about quality of online education, and this was primarily due to the fact that it was... this was emergency remote teaching. So people are doing this as an emergency. And for some people that is what they knew as online education. And because of that, there was a lot of damage that was done because of the emergency nature of how they feel. So that was one where people had many different definitions of what they called online education. And for some of us, really being an educator in online education for a couple of decades, it was like, okay, people, this is not online education. It's a lot more than that. If we want to talk about online education, why not just just call it emergency remote teaching?

The other thing was--that continues to be even today to be a challenge, the common challenge--is the challenge of assessment. And now with artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, it is even harder. I was I was grading some assignments just a couple of hours ago, and I quickly realized that people had just copied and pasted from ChatGPT and, you know, for somebody who has been teaching in higher ed for a couple of decades, you can easily tell when somebody is presenting the work that is not theirs because it's just different tone, even without checking it with software. So the assessment, how to make sure the assessment online was was valid, was authentic, people not cheating and things like that. 

Derek Bruff 13:22
So let me ask a couple of follow up questions because you guys just raised a lot of different issues and common challenges. So let me start with you, Leni. So you mentioned, you know, U.S. educational institutions are likely to have students from all over the world and I know a lot of the listeners of Intentional Teaching are based in North America. And so can you give an example or two of something that either a faculty member teaching online or maybe a an online administrator might not realize about some international students, like something that maybe isn't... like there's a difference that may not be obvious to someone who's who hasn't done a lot of international teaching in the past. 

Leni Casimiro 14:07
Oh, yeah. It is possible, for example, when you're teaching and you've been used to using certain platforms or tools that normally are accessible to your students around you. But then there are parts of the world where students cannot easily access certain tools. That's why we need to use the blended approach once in a while, in such a way that you have flexibility in the use of platforms, what is accessible. For example, normally online learning nowadays is through video conferencing and in other parts of the world, electricity is really very slow. And internet access is also problematic, intermittent. That would be a big challenge. And so what we tell professors is to record every time they have a video conference and have it available for on demand access to students who cannot really be there during the time or who can have a problematic connection.

And then we may also consider the multimodal presentation or preparation of courses like text, video, audio and many other ways so that students in other parts of the world can also access. Basically in poorer countries, I won't say what countries they are, but there are countries who have difficulty in electricity, as Dr. Safary has said earlier. And also internet access. It's really terrible.

And that just that even the personal computer gadgets that they are using sometimes in low income countries, students may have old computers that may not be capable of whatever demands that teachers may have. In many ways, I also observe that teachers require some video production from students. It is already very common. You see these days just your cell phone, you can do video production. But in other parts of the world, it's a real challenge. Never ask them, never just require them to submit a video. Otherwise it will take their attention from learning to technology.

So those are some examples. Basic ones, though, but that only highlights we need to differ in the way we deal with people from different parts of the world. The basic skill that we should then have is to know your students, where they come from, their capabilities. And so that makes your online teaching the best experience for them. If you address their needs and adjust your teaching according to their needs. 

Derek Bruff 17:26
Highly variable Internet access has been a state of online education for quite some time if you're teaching internationally. And so I think that's a useful reminder. Safary You had mentioned academic integrity issues and particularly around assessment, and I'm wondering if if those took on different flavors in different cultures or different parts of the world that you could tell. 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 17:49
That is a very hot topic. It's very complex because, yes, we have strategies that have been established in the field on how to deal with that. I always believe personally that that the best strategy is to train the students how to do things right. Because if it's about catching them doing something wrong, they will always come up with strategies that the teacher will not know. Now this ChatGPT right now, what the students know is much more than what the professors know. That is almost common everywhere in the world. But if we can work with the students, first of all, to teach them, I am talking about higher education, of course, teaching them the right thing to do and how to do it right, because they may we may teach them the right thing to do, but they don't know how to do it. And I've had some students in different countries where they were plagiarizing not because they they want to plagiarize, but because they thought that's good, you have been able to find that information. Just imagine somebody who checks their email maybe once a month or twice a month, and they have, you know, internet connection, maybe once a week, access to Internet connection. Many of them may not know that cutting and pasting is a problem.

So, first of all, we need to teach them the right thing to do and how to do it right. For higher ed we need to teach them how to find the resources, how to synthesize those resources and how to write [or] present that information with our own words and let them understand this is unethical to do this. This is actually against your grade when you are doing this. This is not going to help you in the long run. And you may be a quick fix, but it's not going to help you in the long run. You are having pieces that you are going to write or a dissertation you are going to write later on, and that you may never complete your dissertation and that will be really too late. You will have already spent a lot of money. And some of the things I talk about whenever I teach academic writing, I give them examples of people who have lost prestigious positions because of plagiarism. 

Derek Bruff 20:17
Well, yeah. And I find that it's easy for instructors to assume their students know how to do certain types of academic writing or production, when in fact those students have not been trained, they haven't been taught how to how to how to use those tools or write in those ways. And so I like how you phrase that, teach them the right thing to do in the in the right way, the right way to get there. 

Yeah. I'm also remembering I did some consulting work in the Middle East some time ago and I was talking to faculty members there who said that, you know, sometimes there are kind of different there are competing cultural values. So they were talking about students who, you know, if I'm a student in your class and I get sick and I can't take the exam, my brother or my cousin would jump in and take it for me because that's what you do. You take care of family, right? Like you support your family and you help your family out and that's it. And there's a tension there, right? It's it's in conflict with their academic values of academic integrity, but it's also a cultural value that is is worthy, right? Like, Yes, you should take care of your family. Right. 

Leni Casimiro 21:26
Can I add to that? I observe that in communal cultures, you know, communal cultures, they are they tend to live by groups. And that group value is important. They can see that they don't consider it cheating. It's collaborative learning, It's collaborative learning. And so they they they say it's it's not it's not really cheating, but helping others. And so it really has some cultural color there. But it's not bad to help. But as you said, we need to help also to teach them how to, you know, do the academic writing. Otherwise it will be plagiarizing, you know? 

Derek Bruff 22:20
Yeah, well, and I often talk to my students about about entering into professional communities that have certain norms and expectations and, you know, if you want to be a doctor, if you want to be a journalist, these are professional communities. And sometimes the norms and expectations are stated and clear and codified, and other times they're informal and unstated and you have to figure out what they are. But that's part of being a professional is kind of figuring out what those norms and expectations are and then finding a way to navigate successfully in there. And so sometimes I'll just say, look, we have our own norms and expectations in academia, and part of what you're doing as a student is practicing this process, right? And so and when you graduate and you go into your profession, you have to do it again. You have to figure out what those norms and expectations are. 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 23:12
Yeah. And and adding to that, this is the reason why I always firmly believe in the first quarter of any online program to be introduction to online learning. 

Derek Bruff 23:26
Yeah say more about it. 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 23:28
Because you know everywhere I have been asked to design an online program, I will always make that a very first class because then the standard of the university is established, the best practices, the expectations. So if a student comes from a culture like that they will know that individual work is expected, academic integrity is expected. And this is the definition of academic integrity. So from before they take any other class, they have all of those expectations clearly laid out so that if ever later on, they they do... They they are caught in the plagiarism, they they know they have been prepared for that. It should not come as a shock any more because for some of the students, it may come as a shock genuinely because they didn't think it was a big deal. 

Derek Bruff 24:23
Let me ask a slightly different question. I know both of you have been involved in online education for a long time. And you said this book kind of came out... the origin of this book is is because of the pandemic teaching that happened in 2020. I'm curious, though, if you can imagine this book having come out five years ago in 2018 and what that version of the book would look like... What would be different about this, this the version that's actually coming out? Like what what do you think is change in online education in the last five years? 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 24:59
Personally, let me go first. Personally, I think that we wouldn't have been too much focus on the geographical input of the different regions of the world as much as we did for this book, because we would have probably approached it more from the American perspective because most of the literature comes from there. We wouldn't have known the challenges that other people are facing, so therefore we wouldn't have approached it from the challenges people are facing. It would have been more of, okay, let's put things together that we already know in the literature in the United States, because the United States produces probably the majority of the literature on this topic. Of course, we wouldn't have had emergency remote teaching, which is one of the chapters that we have, wouldn't have that had that that chapter as well. I don't know about Leni? 

Leni Casimiro 25:54
Yeah. Before pandemic, actually when I wrote my dissertation, it was about online education already way back in 2007, I went to the U.S. to do my lit review from the Philippines. I travelled to the U.S. to do my lit review. Just imagine. We don't have enough materials during that time in this part of the world. But then writing the book after the pandemic, or even it was during the pandemic, even, I saw a lot of discoveries on the possible... Two ways, on the positive and negative. One is for the negative, we saw all the challenges that online learning could face. And the positive side is that we also saw a lot of ways how online learning can be utilized to further improve the field of education. And so I believe the pandemic served its best purpose in in improving the way online learning is done.

And so this book definitely focuses on the best of what can be learned, because at this time, online learning has already spread so much that even those institutions who never thought of offering online education have started, you see? That's why it is thus the best time for this book to be written, because it was like a fertile ground. The pandemic was a fertile ground for us to examine. Everything is like a laboratory table where we saw how online learning is really pictured by everyone or can be used by everyone. That was really great experience. 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 27:52
If I may add something to that, I think the pandemic also connected the world because everybody was at home and were trying to find resources. Everybody was trying to find resources. And so I can I can clearly remember people that we invited to be contributors to this handbook that I wouldn't have known if it wasn't for COVID 19. So people who had, for example, invited me to speak and I, in the process discovered some experts there. There were places, for example, where we I was invited to be part of the training for the MasterCard Foundation initiative, where I met other experts that I didn't know who were recruited to to give trainings to faculty, hundreds of faculty around the continent of Africa. So those ended up contributing some chapters that there was no way I was going to know them. And so that really it was another input, another contribution of COVID 19 to get a network of experts in online education, but from a much more multiple perspective than what has been in the past. 

Derek Bruff 29:10
That's really fascinating. So you guys also... I think... So there are a lot of contributors in the book, but I know that that you two in particular contributed certain chapters. And one of those chapters is on leadership in online higher education. And so I'm wondering what as as we look ahead to the next five years in the world of online higher ed, what recommendations or advice would you give to leaders, to program administrators, to others who are involved in leading online higher ed initiatives? 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 29:44
Yes, I want to add a few points here to the good points that Dr. Leni has shared. I think that leaders today, educational leaders, administrators, need to understand that online education is the present and the future of education. It's not going away. It's here to stay. Number two, they need to understand that the survival of their institutions depends on online education. And this is already a reality in the United States. And that was predicted, I would say, about a decade ago, that any university that resists online education is going to disappear. And some have disappeared. Some colleges, institutions and small colleges have disappeared. Right now in the U.S., I don't know if there is any university or college that doesn't offer some online courses. I doubt it. I doubt it.

Number three, I think people need to understand that while COVID 19 was an exceptionally strange and rare phenomenon, there will always be calamities that happen. So whenever this happens, the online modality is there. Even if you're teaching face to face, you can always use the online modalities. And I think we in one of the chapters, we talk about that specificly, that this is a time to strengthen the infrastructures so that if ever there's a typhoon, for example, a storm, which is a common thing here in the United States and in the Philippines as well. If it knocks down electricity and everything for one whole week, maybe people can just move online and continue with education.

I believe that online education is also kind of a social justice or democratization of education issue because it helps to give access to people who don't have access to education. Think about single mothers who are working full time, single parents, single fathers who just cannot to go to a face to face class. But they can spend an hour or two in the evening to study. So if we really care about everyone to have access to education, then we need to invest in online education because people can study around the clock.

And for that reason, they need to invest in the right infrastructures, the right expertise, because sometimes people think that is, yes, common sense and all. Online education does not run on common sense alone. Common sense is limited. We need experts. So if your university doesn't have an expert, this is a time to invest in expertise. Either hire new personnel or train, send some of that kind of personnel for upgrading in online education. 

Derek Bruff 32:34
Well, I know a lot of my audience are... They're not in maybe administrative positions, but they are instructors, they're faculty. What advice would you give them looking ahead to the next several years? What how should they be developing their own skills or are there experiences they should be looking for so they can continue to be effective as faculty, as as online education continues to grow? 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 33:01
Regular professional development is very important. I think we need to continuously upgrade ourselves on the issues of online education and for those who come from countries where online education is not strong yet, please get the training, get the skills, because these are skills, this expertise that will continue to be in demand. If you have all your your education, your doctorate, your master's with face to face you have all that knowledge. But the world is headed into much more online education. It's not going to replace face to face education. I don't believe it will ever phase out face to face education, but we I predict that will see much more and more and more integration of online modality in our teaching today. So it is time to fully embrace it. 

Leni Casimiro 33:51
Yeah, yeah. If you look at the initiatives, even by the U.N. and World Economic Forum, Education 4.0 already emphasizes the integration of technology in teaching and learning. Skills our students have to be developed in this area, so you cannot really avoid online education at this time. So everyone must now learn how to do online education. And the other thing is that it's no longer difficult to learn how to do it. Books are available like this book. Internet sources are available. My experience before of going to the U.S. just to learn about the the deep things about online education is no longer an experience for everyone, even in Asia or Africa or other remote areas of the world. They can easily learn if they want to. 

Derek Bruff 34:51
Yeah, well, thank you for that. And I think I what I'm hearing from both of you is, is that higher education needs people who are skilled in education. And whether that's a leader of an online program or a faculty member who is who is developing their skill set in teaching online, I think it's... You know, if you've got a Ph.D. in chemistry or sociology, you've been trained in those disciplines. But there is the kind of profession of educator that is unavoidable, right? And I think the more we can see ourselves as professional educators and think about how do we build the people, whether you're the person or you're you're trying to build up support and infrastructure, but how can we get the right people in there who are bringing the expertise that's needed for the challenges that we're facing? So and I know your book is going to help a lot of people explore that landscape and understand what kinds of expertise that they need to develop.

Thank you both. This has been delightful and I know I'm going to encourage my listeners to go check out this book and I'm excited to see it and its contribution to the literature around the world. So thank you. Thank you for being here on the podcast and sharing with us. 

Safary Wa-Mbaleka 36:11
Thank you so much for the invitation. It was a great pleasure sharing these ideas with you. 

Leni Casimiro 36:17
Yes, Thank you very much. 

Derek Bruff 36:23
That was Safary Wa-Mbaleka, associate professor of leadership in higher education at Bethel University in Minnestoa, and Leni Casimiro, professor and chair of education at the Adventist International Institute for Advanced Studies in the Philippines. Thanks to both of them for coming on the podcast and sharing their experiences with online education and with editing their new book, The Sage Handbook of Online Higher Education. And thanks to their co-editor, Kelvin Thompson, for connecting us!

In the show notes, you’ll find links to more information about Safary and Leni and their new book. As Safary said during our conversation, Online education does not run on common sense alone, and I hope this book will be useful to faculty, staff, and administrators who are trying to build robust online programs.

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association. In the show notes, you’ll find a link to the UPCEA website, where you can find out about their research, networking opportunities, and professional development offerings.

This episode of Intentional Teaching was produced and edited by me, Derek Bruff. See the show notes for links to my website, the Intentional Teaching newsletter, and my Patreon, where you can help support the show for just a few bucks a month. If you’ve found this or any episode of Intentional Teaching useful, would you consider sharing it with a colleague? That would mean a lot.