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One of the most significant challenges I&nbsp;faced&nbsp;when having to suddenly move my classes online at the delayed start of the Japanese academic&nbsp;year in May 2020&nbsp;concerned the course material that had presupposed&nbsp;lengthy in-class conversations.&nbsp;&nbsp;

A mixture of international and home students had&nbsp;usually been&nbsp;spending half the class time&nbsp;in group discussions around&nbsp;a&nbsp;carefully planned series of questions about&nbsp;each&nbsp;week’s topic.&nbsp;&nbsp;

By&nbsp;“carefully planned”, I mean my questions aimed&nbsp;to&nbsp;provoke&nbsp;debate because they relied on tasks that&nbsp;gradually&nbsp;forced the students&nbsp;to find a common answer on topics that&nbsp;were bound to&nbsp;initially create cognitive divides within the group.&nbsp;

A simple example: “What makes something&nbsp;‘more religious’,&nbsp;but is not necessary for that something to be religious?” is a question that never gets the same individual answer, but works very well for a group that&nbsp;is&nbsp;asked to collaborate&nbsp;on making a list for such things.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Chiba&nbsp;University stipulations&nbsp;in the first semester of this year, however, were&nbsp;exceedingly strict.&nbsp;&nbsp;

They required all classes&nbsp;to&nbsp;be conducted&nbsp;asynchronously,&nbsp;using learning management software, and to avoid server overloads and excessive burdening of students’ timetable, tasks had to allow&nbsp;two&nbsp;to&nbsp;five&nbsp;days for completion.&nbsp;&nbsp;

I feared&nbsp;that&nbsp;this meant my questions for the group discussions would receive only stale answers because their pedagogical value relied&nbsp;on spontaneous interactions&nbsp;between students.&nbsp;

The solution that I found was to turn my questions around and ask students to discuss online the&nbsp;sort of concluding query or problem&nbsp;that I would have encouraged them to reach in a “regular” classroom setting.&nbsp;&nbsp;

And these questions almost always happened to start&nbsp;not&nbsp;with “what” but with “why”.&nbsp;&nbsp;

For example, instead of the above question about what makes something religious, students were asked to think about “why would some people or communities like or dislike&nbsp;being&nbsp;called&nbsp;‘religious’?”.&nbsp;

With the help of new audiovisual material that&nbsp;presented&nbsp;one-sided views on the topics at hand, I&nbsp;organised&nbsp;weekly forums on such “why” questions,&nbsp;with two essential rules:&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Students had to&nbsp;dedicate&nbsp;half the length of their contributions&nbsp;to&nbsp;reacting&nbsp;to&nbsp;the&nbsp;forum&nbsp;discussion.&nbsp;
	They were encouraged to use sources and examples outside the syllabus, but they had to properly reference them in their response.&nbsp;&nbsp;


I contemplated assigning a chair role to one of the students to coordinate and encourage the debate, but&nbsp;in the&nbsp;end&nbsp;it was not necessary. Perhaps, the topic&nbsp;–&nbsp;religion and social issues&nbsp;–&nbsp;was intriguing enough for everyone to have something to say, and my final reaction to each week’s forum was enough to launch the next week’s debate.&nbsp;

Managing multilingual&nbsp;discussion&nbsp;

The above system&nbsp;only solved the issue of content. I still had to deal with the multilingual&nbsp;nature&nbsp;of the class. As many teachers with experience in such settings know, discussion-heavy courses&nbsp;are never&nbsp;in&nbsp;just one or two languages.&nbsp;&nbsp;

In fact, since&nbsp;the majority of&nbsp;international students at Japanese universities come from other countries&nbsp;in&nbsp;Asia,&nbsp;and some from Europe or the United States, neither Japanese nor English is their native language.&nbsp;&nbsp;

In practice, my so-called “bilingual” Japanese-English class has always been&nbsp;in&nbsp;Japanese plus at least&nbsp;six&nbsp;other languages, none of which is English.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Indeed, I knew already that students&nbsp;were using&nbsp;a variety of online dictionaries and smartphone applications to communicate with each other and get the gist of the discussion, so I&nbsp;realised&nbsp;that I now had to&nbsp;purposefully&nbsp;integrate that work into the class.&nbsp;

I asked students to employ&nbsp;translation software, such as&nbsp;Deepl,&nbsp;to read not only other students’ comments in forum discussions but even online material that they would probably not engage with in other circumstances.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The trick&nbsp;here&nbsp;was to&nbsp;point&nbsp;them&nbsp;towards&nbsp;texts that were different from regular academic papers.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Free translation software may not be that effective&nbsp;for&nbsp;complicated scholarly arguments. Still, they&nbsp;show relatively good results with&nbsp;online&nbsp;encyclopedia entries and introductory textbook chapters, where&nbsp;the&nbsp;language is&nbsp;more straightforward, and sentences are shorter.&nbsp;&nbsp;

In this way, I tried&nbsp;to enhance&nbsp;the&nbsp;trans-local&nbsp;and transcultural&nbsp;format of the class&nbsp;by encouraging the consumption of&nbsp;material written in languages that sometimes&nbsp;were unfamiliar to&nbsp;all&nbsp;the students.&nbsp;&nbsp;

As&nbsp;a result, the&nbsp;shared effort to use any online tool available to&nbsp;understand others’&nbsp;–&nbsp;students’ or authors’&nbsp;–&nbsp;arguments worked as a relatively successful alternative to&nbsp;the usual&nbsp;multilingual,&nbsp;in-class debates.&nbsp;

Ioannis&nbsp;Gaitanidis&nbsp;is an assistant&nbsp;professor at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences&nbsp;at&nbsp;Chiba&nbsp;University&nbsp;in Japan.&nbsp;

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Ioannis Gaitanidis explains how designed his asynchronous online teaching to foster the same level of spontaneous student discussion as his in-person classes 

How I fostered multilingual student discussion in asynchronous online classes 

Introduction&nbsp;&nbsp;

Duke Kunshan University&nbsp;(DKU)&nbsp;in Kunshan, China,&nbsp;was one of the first US-affiliated institutions forced&nbsp;into&nbsp;lockdown&nbsp;due&nbsp;to its geographical proximity to&nbsp;the origin of the&nbsp;Covid-19&nbsp;outbreak.&nbsp;&nbsp;

While students and faculty were&nbsp;celebrating&nbsp;Chinese New Year in January 2020,&nbsp;Covid-19 began to take hold in China. Many students and faculty were off&nbsp;campus, spread across China and the world. With travel restrictions&nbsp;in place, it was clear that classes as normal&nbsp;could not&nbsp;resume.&nbsp;

With&nbsp;just three weeks remaining of the third term&nbsp;of its bachelor’s degree program,&nbsp;in February 2020,&nbsp;DKU&nbsp;decided&nbsp;to finish the semester online&nbsp;rather than cancel it.&nbsp;This gave the university two weeks to transfer its&nbsp;entire programme online.&nbsp;

This case study&nbsp;documents&nbsp;the decision-making and implementation of this&nbsp;rapid&nbsp;move to online in a fast-evolving situation&nbsp;and&nbsp;what&nbsp;lessons&nbsp;were&nbsp;learned.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Planning for moving online&nbsp;&nbsp;

DKU is a relatively&nbsp;new institution, having been set up in&nbsp;2013,&nbsp;so its&nbsp;faculty are innovative and willing to try new things, perhaps more so than&nbsp;their counterparts&nbsp;at other&nbsp;more traditional institutions. There was a sense of how important continuing to operate&nbsp;would&nbsp;be to the future of the institution&nbsp;and a&nbsp;real desire to be responsive to students, who were clearly unsettled by the crisis. Finishing the semester&nbsp;was considered an obligation.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Since the only option was going online, faculty and staff worked to get their courses organised to do so as quickly as possible.&nbsp;The&nbsp;university had to make some key decisions to support the effort.&nbsp;

Technology decisions&nbsp;&nbsp;

For such a&nbsp;speedy implementation, DKU decided to rely mostly on technologies that were already in place,&nbsp;which meant&nbsp;faculty and staff were&nbsp;familiar with&nbsp;them.&nbsp;&nbsp;

All faculty were already using&nbsp;DKU’s&nbsp;learning management system&nbsp;(LMS),&nbsp;Sakai.&nbsp;Additional Sakai functionality was&nbsp;rolled out, along with training, to meet&nbsp;particular needs. This included faculty using forums to communicate and share best practices. Sakai&nbsp;became a&nbsp;repository for updates, FAQs, announcements, important resources on online pedagogy&nbsp;and how-to guides.&nbsp;&nbsp;

For video conferencing, DKU&nbsp;chose&nbsp;Zoom. This required a new,&nbsp;previously unavailable&nbsp;license in China as well as training and support for faculty and staff.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Students, staff and faculty use WeChat for informal communications, but&nbsp;it was rejected as&nbsp;the university’s key&nbsp;communication&nbsp;channel,&nbsp;partly&nbsp;for security reasons.&nbsp;&nbsp;

However,&nbsp;WeChat&nbsp;was an&nbsp;effective way of checking in with&nbsp;students who&nbsp;faculty noticed were not engaging&nbsp;with&nbsp;or responding to other means of communication.&nbsp;It&nbsp;was&nbsp;used&nbsp;for getting in touch when other methods failed.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Pedagogy decisions&nbsp;&nbsp;

DKU accepted&nbsp;that&nbsp;it would not be&nbsp;possible to replicate&nbsp;its on-campus experience&nbsp;exactly&nbsp;but&nbsp;looked at ways to use&nbsp;technology&nbsp;to&nbsp;continue offering&nbsp;effective and engaging&nbsp;teaching and learning.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The DKU team was very concerned about treating students equitably. But&nbsp;with every student facing a different situation, this required trade-offs such as the amount of synchronous versus asynchronous teaching.&nbsp;

Zoom allows&nbsp;for&nbsp;synchronous video conferencing&nbsp;but&nbsp;there were concerns about relying excessively on synchronous meetings&nbsp;due to the varied&nbsp;time zones&nbsp;across which&nbsp;faculty and students were located.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Coordinating synchronous meetings&nbsp;would have been&nbsp;extremely difficult and&nbsp;would have&nbsp;made universal&nbsp;participation challenging. There were concerns some students might not have access to the required internet services&nbsp;and that equitable access would be harder with synchronous classes.&nbsp;

So, asynchronous&nbsp;elements&nbsp;were given particular attention.&nbsp;&nbsp;

But faculty&nbsp;worried&nbsp;that&nbsp;asynchronous work might be more isolating and believed more synchronous interactions would improve the student experience.&nbsp;&nbsp;

This&nbsp;was&nbsp;a trade-off&nbsp;and may have resulted in a different decision&nbsp;if the students&nbsp;had been&nbsp;less geographically dispersed and had more consistent internet&nbsp;access.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Lessons&nbsp;on technology and pedagogy&nbsp;decisions&nbsp;

Students and faculty wanted more ways to engage and connect with each other.&nbsp;&nbsp;

It was found improvements in technologies, including the VPN, enabled more students to have access to the tools needed for synchronous instruction.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Students&nbsp;were therefore encouraged,&nbsp;on returning for&nbsp;the fourth semester,&nbsp;to participate in live sessions. But&nbsp;if they could not&nbsp;make it live and watched&nbsp;it&nbsp;later,&nbsp;there would be no&nbsp;grading&nbsp;penalty.&nbsp;&nbsp;

As students reported challenges with motivation, faculty examined their pedagogy and realised the limitations of some practices,&nbsp;including&nbsp;lectures online,&nbsp;that&nbsp;allow for no&nbsp;immediate&nbsp;engagement with students.&nbsp;In response,&nbsp;staff&nbsp;looked to replace long lectures with&nbsp;more digestible teaching structures and seminars.&nbsp;

Helping the faculty get ready&nbsp;&nbsp;

To help faculty&nbsp;prepare, the support team started with their learning objectives for their courses. As a&nbsp;young&nbsp;institution, DKU had&nbsp;an advantage&nbsp;–&nbsp;all syllabi&nbsp;were&nbsp;standardised&nbsp;and courses were developed with an emphasis on course design to accomplish specific learning objectives.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Moving online didn’t mean designing a new course&nbsp;but finding different ways&nbsp;to meet the&nbsp;learning objectives.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Faculty were already comfortable with backwards course design&nbsp;–&nbsp;working from learning objectives to course structure&nbsp;– having&nbsp;received training&nbsp;in it&nbsp;when joining DKU through a learning innovation fellowship programme.&nbsp;&nbsp;

DKU&nbsp;implemented a syllabus approval process&nbsp;–&nbsp;which&nbsp;would&nbsp;perhaps be&nbsp;difficult to put in place at more traditional institutions&nbsp;– that focused&nbsp;on&nbsp;embedding&nbsp;learning objectives and active learning into&nbsp;courses.&nbsp;The support team also worked with faculty&nbsp;on&nbsp;getting things started in&nbsp;the first few weeks, so the task would not seem insurmountable.&nbsp;With everyone kept informed via&nbsp;Sakai, faculty had one place to go for information, avoiding a constant deluge of emails.&nbsp;&nbsp;

A discussion forum was set up to encourage faculty to post questions,&nbsp;get help and share&nbsp;anything they wanted to with colleagues.&nbsp;&nbsp;

In&nbsp;using Sakai to communicate early on, faculty who were less familiar with the&nbsp;learning management system&nbsp;got to know it, preparing&nbsp;them to use it for their classes.&nbsp;&nbsp;

To help faculty prepare, the&nbsp;Center&nbsp;for Teaching and Learning&nbsp;(CTL)&nbsp;at DKU ran webinars&nbsp;on&nbsp;topics including:&nbsp;


	
	Best&nbsp;practices for&nbsp;communication&nbsp;
	
	
	Interaction and&nbsp;building&nbsp;community&nbsp;online&nbsp;
	
	
	Effective&nbsp;online&nbsp;class&nbsp;sessions with Zoom&nbsp;
	
	
	Building&nbsp;online&nbsp;community:&nbsp;student engagement with content, instructors and peers.&nbsp;&nbsp;
	


Faculty assistance for specific needs became an issue as well. A system was set up for submitting a help&nbsp;request, and the tech team triaged the responses, as well as sharing the information more broadly.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Given the time-zone challenges, it was important to have help available 24/7.&nbsp;With&nbsp;staff at Duke University in&nbsp;North Carolina&nbsp;and DKU located on&nbsp;opposite sides&nbsp;of the world, this proved&nbsp;relatively simple.&nbsp;The&nbsp;24/7 assistance&nbsp;was&nbsp;important because small problems for individual faculty or students could prevent them&nbsp;participating.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Helping the students get ready&nbsp;&nbsp;

DKU held webinars for students and their families so that they could understand how the university was moving forward.&nbsp;&nbsp;

This allowed students to ask questions and hear from other students about their concerns.&nbsp;It&nbsp;was an efficient way of communicating and reassuring students about the options going forward.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The&nbsp;Sakai site&nbsp;was again&nbsp;the repository for all information and announcements. It included&nbsp;detailed how-to guides on using various tools, links to IT support, tips for taking online courses and a forum for students to ask questions and troubleshoot.&nbsp;

Non-academic&nbsp;services&nbsp;

As at&nbsp;any residential university, academic courses are just one part of the educational experience.&nbsp;DKU worked to make other services available online as well.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Student well-being&nbsp;

DKU worked to make services&nbsp;associated with student well-being&nbsp;available away from campus.&nbsp;&nbsp;

For mental health&nbsp;support, the counselling team offered online individual&nbsp;sessions&nbsp;as well as group Zoom sessions.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Physical education classes&nbsp;such as synchronous yoga, Pilates,&nbsp;t’ai&nbsp;chi, boxing and other workout sessions continued online.&nbsp;

Faculty office hours&nbsp;&nbsp;

Moving faculty&nbsp;office hours online was&nbsp;a simple&nbsp;adjustment. Each faculty member holds two hours of office hours online each week.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Peer-to-peer support&nbsp;

Zoom rooms were created for peer support. The rooms&nbsp;were open 24/7&nbsp;so&nbsp;students could&nbsp;drop in and help each other. There&nbsp;were&nbsp;set times when the rooms&nbsp;were&nbsp;staffed. The writing centre&nbsp;also had individual appointments for students.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Academic&nbsp;flexibility&nbsp;&nbsp;

Given the unique circumstances, the administration decided to be as accommodating as possible&nbsp;to individual requests. Students have been given more flexibility to drop courses or take&nbsp;on additional coursework.&nbsp;For some students,&nbsp;extra work&nbsp;was&nbsp;not just manageable but helped&nbsp;stave off boredom; others&nbsp;were&nbsp;granted leaves of absence, with little financial or academic penalty, when the change from in-person to online&nbsp;did not&nbsp;work for them.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Student and faculty surveys&nbsp;

While careful not to&nbsp;create&nbsp;additional work for faculty and students, DKU has surveyed both to evaluate how the transition to online has worked and identify areas for attention going forward.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Lessons&nbsp;learned&nbsp;&nbsp;

Communications&nbsp;&nbsp;

During any crisis, communication is always key. There are many channels, and not everyone needs to know everything. The most important thing is to coordinate the communications that are taking place and make it extremely easy for all&nbsp;parties&nbsp;to find the information they need.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Creating a high-level emergency task force&nbsp;is helpful&nbsp;with one person put&nbsp;in charge of coordinating communications. They&nbsp;must not&nbsp;be a bottleneck. Instead,&nbsp;they must&nbsp;make sure someone is paying attention to the&nbsp;overall&nbsp;communications&nbsp;at any one time.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Getting&nbsp;students&nbsp;the resources they need&nbsp;&nbsp;

Because students and faculty&nbsp;had&nbsp;left campus for&nbsp;a&nbsp;holiday, many did not have&nbsp;their computers or course materials with them. Everyone&nbsp;could communicate&nbsp;thanks to&nbsp;smart phones, and DKU worked to make sure everyone had access to computers. This involved&nbsp;mailing laptops to some students. Not all&nbsp;students&nbsp;had&nbsp;access to adequate internet services&nbsp;at home,&nbsp;so&nbsp;DKU made financial arrangements to supplement services for students who needed this.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Access to the online program requires a VPN, which slows down internet access. This made the use of some resources, such as multimedia, more difficult.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Course materials&nbsp;&nbsp;

There have been challenges for instructors who assigned printed course materials and books since some students didn’t take&nbsp;them&nbsp;on holiday.&nbsp;Some electronic content could not be accessed due to licensing limitations, although the publishers have tended to be liberal about allowing access.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Faculty&nbsp;have&nbsp;sought materials that could be accessed online, if not already available through the LMS. Coursera made all its 4,000 courses available to all DKU students and faculty. Faculty could use modules, videos or any other materials for their online courses.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Students who wanted&nbsp;to&nbsp;could&nbsp;also take Coursera courses as a way of continuing to learn while&nbsp;at home. While these&nbsp;were&nbsp;not&nbsp;credit bearing at DKU, they gave students&nbsp;an&nbsp;opportunity to&nbsp;keep learning on their own.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Grading&nbsp;&nbsp;

Evaluation online&nbsp;was challenging with closed-book exams creating&nbsp;academic-integrity issues not faced with in-class exams.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Faculty responded in a variety of ways, from writing closed-book exams that&nbsp;were timed and designed&nbsp;so&nbsp;that using course materials wouldn’t help much to offering open-book exams&nbsp;and&nbsp;using evaluation methods that involved&nbsp;writing&nbsp;more&nbsp;and submitting materials.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Class participation is also difficult to weight in important ways when access to video is differentially available. Going forward, and with more time to prepare, DKU&nbsp;has&nbsp;investigated&nbsp;invigilating&nbsp;options for high-stakes exams.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Lab classes&nbsp;&nbsp;

Faculty teaching subjects reliant&nbsp;on labs&nbsp;found&nbsp;it more difficult to accomplish learning objectives online,&nbsp;particularly in the short&nbsp;term. With time, investment&nbsp;has been&nbsp;planned&nbsp;in online versions of labs to&nbsp;accomplish similar objectives to in-person labs. One solution involved&nbsp;focusing on coursework and&nbsp;later&nbsp;doing the labs when back on campus. This&nbsp;was&nbsp;not ideal, but some science courses&nbsp;were&nbsp;already taught this way and it allowed&nbsp;students to continue their learning and not postpone these courses.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Student isolation and motivation&nbsp;&nbsp;

Students reported that it was difficult to concentrate on the course materials. It was not unexpected the situation would cause stress for the students. They had hoped to be on campus with faculty and peers&nbsp;but&nbsp;instead were at home and isolated.&nbsp;&nbsp;

DKU faculty were not just dealing with moving to an online format but dealing with their students finding themselves in a stressful&nbsp;situation&nbsp;– for some, a crisis. Otherwise strong and motivated students were finding engagement difficult. Faculty and support teams worked to help students engage by increasing their responsibilities for the classes and increasing peer-to-peer interaction.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Kevin Guthrie, Catharine Bond Hill, Martin Kurzweil, Cindy Le&nbsp;co-authored the case study for Ithaka S+R, part of Ithaka, a not-for-profit organisation that works to advance and preserve knowledge and to improve teaching and learning through the use of digital technologies.&nbsp;This case study was adapted from&nbsp;the original feature&nbsp;published by Ithaka S+R.&nbsp;

The accompanying video was produced by Noah Pickus, associate provost and senior advisor, Duke University, dean of undergraduate curricula affairs and faculty development at Duke Kunshan University.

Faced with the rapid spread of Covid-19 on its doorstep, Duke Kunshan University in China decided to move all its teaching online in just two weeks to finish the third term. Here, we look at how this was achieved and the lessons they learned 

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How I fostered multilingual student discussion in asynchronous online classes

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