Shaping an Empowering Path with SEL in Adult Online Education

Streamed Session

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Adult online education is a unique journey. This session explores how faculty can partner with adult learners throughout their quest for online education. Disrupting the traditional student-instructor relationship by walking alongside students in genuine collaboration can inspire scholarship and open space for students to creatively shape their own paths.

 

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Emily Spranger, National University

Emily Spranger is a Graduate Learning Specialist in the Academic Training Academy at National University. She is a doctoral student pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Organizational Leadership. Previously Ms. Spranger served in PK-12 and dance education in Arizona and Illinois. Ms. Spranger also served as the President of a non-profit organization called Humanitarian Efforts for African Learning, a 501c3 organization focused on providing resources to an all-girls school in Kajiado, Kenya. She has taught as Adjunct Faculty at Glendale Community College and instructed as a Teaching Assistant at Arizona State University. Emily has recently contributed as an author for Student Well-Being and Empowerment: SEL in Online Graduate Education.

Co-presenter: Amy Lyn, Grand Rapids Community College

Extended Abstract

Adult learners are goal-oriented and tend to proceed with a destination in mind, yet they can sometimes feel lost in the forest of online education. Faculty can support students’ trek by creating conditions for collaboration. This session explores how faculty can partner with students throughout their journey in online education. Disrupting the traditional student-instructor relationship by  walking alongside students in genuine collaboration can inspire engagement and ownership of learning.

Online adult learners are diverse, but one commonality is their often-demanding lives with many priorities competing for their attention (Lyn et al., 2023). As they navigate online spaces, students bring with them dispositions, mindsets, and past educational experiences that can help or hinder their approach to learning online (Knowles et al., 2020). Instructors who design a collaborative environment where different perspectives are seen as assets to the learning community can pave the way for deep learning to occur.

Collaborating and taking ownership of one’s learning requires emotionally intelligent skills and dispositions. Social-emotional learning (SEL) is a lifelong process of developing skills, knowledge, and dispositions that support personal, professional, and educational success. While varying models of SEL exist, this session draws on Goleman and colleagues’ mixed model of emotional intelligence, which includes twelve elements under four core domains, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management (Goleman et al., 2017). By attending to Goleman’s framework, educators can shape their approach to online learning in ways that boost students’ ownership of learning (Lyn et al., 2023).

Relationship building, a key SEL component, is essential to developing a collaborative online learning environment. One-way educators can build relationships with students is by cultivating trust and a sense of  belonging (Artze-Vega et al., 2023). Establishing trust is a dynamic process that starts before the course begins and continues to develop as educators affirm students’ experiences, questions, and knowledge. Providing options to students (Laist et al., 2022) and inviting the student to assume control over their learning and goal achievement can help learners feel empowered (Mawani & Mukadam, 2020). This provides a sense of freedom and can contribute to student empowerment and trust between the teacher and the student (Mawani & Mukadam, 2020). Learning autonomy, a sense of control over one’s educational journey helps contribute to the development of a healthy partnership (Mawani & Mukadam, 2020).

Remaining mindful of student-student  relationships can also be essential to fostering an empowering environment. Educators can take steps in the design of their course to utilize instructional strategies that support student autonomy, relatedness, and competence, core concepts of self-determination theory (Lyn et al., 2023; Ryan & Deci, 2017). Incorporating opportunities for students to get to know the educator and each other, engage in inquiry, and actively listen to each other fosters relatedness. Providing students with opportunities for choice and voice affirms learner autonomy. Ensuring students have tools at their fingertips and support built into the course design fosters a sense of competence.  These elements can work together to create an empowering educational environment with successful experiences for adult online learners.

This is not to say the responsibility for relationship-building falls solely on the faculty member. Adult learners must understand that they, too, are tasked with forging authentic and productive relationships in the online course room. Educators can guide this understanding by encouraging student dialogue and using protocols that support active participation. Intentionally designing space for
students to initiate ownership is fundamental to a sense of empowerment for an adult learner (Wanner et al., 2021). Sensitivity to the multifaceted and dynamic relationship between teaching and learning is foundational to successful online education.

Session Objectives: 

  • Participants will explore the intersection of student empowerment, SEL, and the dispositions of educators and students in adult online education.
  • Participants will discuss how to foster empowering learning environments for online students. 
  • Participants will co-construct a set of action steps to consider when designing and delivering courses.

Session Outline: 

  • Brief introduction 
  • PowerPoint presentation with interactive elements 
  • Small and whole group discussion

Participant Takeaways: 

  • PowerPoint and related discussion about empowering learning environments for online students 
  • Resource/reference list
  • Action steps to consider when designing and delivering courses. 

References 
Artze-Vega, I., Darby, F., Dewsbury, B., & Imad, M. (2023). The Norton guide to equity-minded teaching. W.W. Norton & Co.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01 
Goleman, D. et al. (2017). Building blocks of emotional intelligence: 12 competency primer set. More than sound.
Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F., Swanson, R. A., & Robinson, P.A. (2020). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human development (9 th edition). Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group.
Laist, R., Sheehan, D. & Brewer, N. (2022). UDL university: Designing for variability across the postsecondary curriculum. CAST.
Lyn, A. E., Broderick, M., & Spranger, E. (2023). Student well-being and empowerment: SEL in online graduate education. In Regina Rahimi and Delores Liston (Eds.), Exploring social emotional learning in diverse academic settings, IGI Global. 
Mawani, S., & Mukadam, A. A. (2020). Student empowerment in higher education: Reflecting on teaching practice and learner engagement. Logos Verlag Berlin.   
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Press.
Wanner, T., Palmer, E., & Palmer, D. (2021). Flexible assessment and student empowerment: Advantages and disadvantages – research from an Australian university. Null, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2021.1989578