A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
College of Education Professor John Broome created the Higher Ed Learning Collective to help faculty members around the world adjust to teaching online. The Facebook group now boasts over 30,000 members in more than 100 countries. Photo by Kristi Meacham.
University of Mary Washington Associate Professor of Education John Broome will be featured on the With Good Reason public radio show. The episode, “Education Innovation,” will air daily beginning tomorrow, Aug. 15, continuing through Aug. 21. When COVID-19 shuttered college campuses worldwide, Broome quickly made a Facebook group for professors to support and teach each other. Now an international resource, more than 30,000 professors are working together to prepare each other to teach this fall. With Good Reason airs Sundays at 2 p.m. on Fredericksburg’s Radio IQ 88.3 Digital and at various times throughout the week on stations across Virginia and the United States. Check the website for show times.
College of Education Professor John Broome recently created the Higher Ed Learning Collective to help faculty members around the world adjust to teaching online. The Facebook group now boasts over 25,000 members in more than 100 countries. Photo by Kristi Meacham.
College of Education Associate Professor John Broome was interviewed in The Free Lance-Star about his recently launched Higher Ed Learning Collective.
John Broome didn’t realize that the Facebook group he created had gone global until a professor in Australia noted that there, the current semester isn’t “Spring 2020” but “Fall 2020.”
“Literally, that is the first moment I realized, ‘Um, this has gone global. I had no idea,’” said Broome, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Mary Washington.
Intuiting what was to come, on March 11, the day before the university announced that it was moving all courses online in response to the coronavirus outbreak, Broome created a Facebook group to share tips and tricks for remote teaching.
“I expected it to be a group mostly of friends and extensions of friends to help each other, knowing that some of us are trained in online instruction but some of us aren’t prepared for it,” Broome said. “I added maybe 75 or 100 of my friends.”
But by the end of the first day of its existence, 3,000 people had joined the group and now, the Higher Ed Learning Collective has 25,000 members in more than 100 countries and has accumulated 400,000 posts, comments and reactions. Read more.
The University of Mary Washington is among countless educational institutions worldwide that have switched to virtual classes due to the coronavirus threat, or COVID-19. Suddenly, students are at home, and so are their teachers. The transition has been daunting for many professors, especially those who have never taught online.
But one UMW faculty member saw it as an opportunity.
College of Education Professor John Broome launched the Higher Ed Learning Collective (HELC), a grassroots, we’re-all-in-it-together kind of Facebook group for sharing high- and low-tech remote-teaching tools, sprinkled with a dose of self-care. He never imagined the Collective would gain traction across the globe in just a few weeks, morphing into a worldwide movement with over 24,000 members in more than 100 countries … and counting.
HELC already has introduced a website and YouTube channel, and dozens of universities, libraries and online learning sites are recommending the group, as is UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The Collective is creating a sense of community in a world that desperately needs one, and Broome hopes HELC will outlive the coronavirus pandemic, driving faculty to better address the diverse needs of students.
“Not everyone has access to good online or hybrid pedagogy,” said Broome, who – like so many fellow academics – was anxiously posting on social media. “We’re struggling as educators and as humans … so why not teach each other for free?” Read more.
College of Education Associate Professor John Broome
College of Education Associate Professor John Broome surprised his students in EDUC 204: Introduction to Teaching and Learning with a visit over Zoom with University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Gloria Ladson-Billings, the author of The Dreamkeepers, a renowned foundational text that introduces her widely-used theory, culturally relevant pedagogy. Broome met Ladson-Billings in 2017 after she served as UMW College of Education’s Educator-in-Residence and the two have kept in touch ever since.
“She’s literally one of the most famous, influential, and impactful education theorists and researchers in the world,” Broome said. “I wanted them to have private time with her and she was happy to do it. I only expected a few minutes. She’s very busy writing and editing books and articles. 90 minutes later…” he said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Gloria Ladson-Billings
Broome said he didn’t tell many students, and instead, just asked a few to have questions ready. After finishing work in Zoom breakout rooms, they regrouped to find Ladson-Billings, who spoke to them from her home in Wisconsin.
College of Education Associate Professor John Broome. Photo by Norm Shafer.
College of Education Associate Professor John Broome was mentioned in a Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled, “How to Help Struggling Students Succeed Online.” Broome recently launched the Online Learning Collective, a Facebook group – which has since added a website and YouTube channel – to help faculty worldwide with high- and low-tech tools and resources, support and encouragement as they learn to teach remotely.
John Broome, an associate professor of education at the University of Mary Washington, started a Facebook group, the Online Learning Collective, to support the transition to remote teaching. It already has more than 20,000 members.