How a Community of Practice for Digital Learning Changed This Instructor’s Teaching

Recently, Fox Williams, a math and electrical theory instructor at the nonprofit organization Nontraditional Employment for Women in New York City, was reviewing final exam results with the director of training. “She was shocked,” Williams says, because students had done dramatically better than in previous terms. “She asked if the scores included extra credit. But they were the raw scores.”

Williams credits the improved student performance in that course to her rapid enactment of what she was learning about through her participation in the Transform Learning Community of Practice (CoP). In the eight-week CoP, instructors shared their experiences implementing technology for more effective teaching and learning. The readings, activities, and discussions of the CoP particularly featured eight digitally enabled, evidence-based teaching practices (DE-EBTs) that evidence shows improve student learning.

As Williams learned more about these practices, she believed they could be especially helpful to the women in her courses pursuing trades historically dominated by men. Williams knew firsthand how using digital learning thoughtfully to make learning relatable and relevant can make a difference for students. She is currently a junior at Baruch College and has often been the only woman in the trade school courses, apprenticeship, and training programs she experienced when she worked in construction.

She was particularly drawn to instructional approaches that used technology to support practices such as:

• Fostering a sense of belonging: creating an inclusive learning environment for all students
• Formative practice and assessment: practicing skills with timely and targeted feedback
• Instructional transparency: sharing expectations and course design with students
• Metacognition and self-regulated learning: helping students understand their learning process

The CoP Williams participated in was particularly designed with remote and asynchronous activities to accommodate instructors like herself who were currently teaching. That enabled her to make several adjustments immediately in her math and electrical theory class.

Inclusive word problems

Williams already had a bank of real-world word problems she used that were based on her own expertise in electricity in construction. But to be more inclusive of students pursuing other roles as millwrights and iron workers, she began using AI to develop problems relevant to those fields also.

Flexible homework assignments

Williams recognized that her students, who are often juggling work and family responsibilities, need flexibility to accommodate the demands they face outside of class. She transitioned to using more no-stakes homework assignments, allowing students to complete them as their schedules permit so that they could focus more on getting feedback and preparing for exams.

Consistent course structure

Early in the term, Williams had revised the announced schedule of topics the course would cover, but she noticed her students’ grades were trending lower than before. She recommitted to following the structure previously shared with students and providing a predictable schedule that allowed them to plan ahead and come to class prepared.

Accessible course content

Williams sought to make herself and the course’s subject matter more relatable to students by redesigning the syllabus to include an instructor bio with a photo of her working in construction. She posted the syllabus and materials like study guides and explanations of homework answers in Google Classroom, establishing a location where students could access content for free outside of class whenever their schedule allowed.

The power of community

Williams admits she was concerned that practices like no-stakes homework would negatively impact course rigor and student learning. But talking with colleagues in the community of practice about the ways equitable instruction can support learning changed her view.

“I realized my students have a lot of extreme intrinsic motivation,” Williams says. “So, even though I incorporated no-stakes homework assignments, they still did it. They still emailed me. They still asked a lot of questions.”

In an earlier profile of Williams when she was an intern with Every Learner Everywhere, she discussed learning that maintaining the very high standards of learning in the trades didn’t necessarily mean she had to be stern with students. “As I learned more about my students, I became aware I had privileges they did not have,” she said.

During the community of practice, Williams has also recognized she had practices of her own to contribute to the field, and she submitted these to the online instructional examples library at Transform Learning. In one, she describes using a free online simulation tool to help students practice making electrical circuits. In another, she describes using a free online graphing calculator to help students visualize the relationship between voltage and current.

Williams encourages others who use technology to enable evidence-based teaching practices to provide their own examples to the Transform Learning library. “You don’t know how your example motivates another instructor,” she says.

“You might do something you think is common but is actually unique or something another instructor has never seen before. They may say, ‘This is great. I want to incorporate this into my class.’ Even if you think it’s not that useful, do it anyway. You might change somebody’s world.”

Williams hopes the lessons she learned through the community of practice will make her a better student and professional in the future. She plans to use the bachelor’s in industrial/organizational psychology she is working on to lead workplace training and continue her support of nonprofit organizations for women in the trades. The outcomes of her CoP experience suggest she’s on a path to succeeding in these roles.

“I’ve had students email me and say, ‘You know, I was very uncomfortable with math at first,’” Williams says. “‘But you created those word problems, and you had explanations attached to answer keys, and you made study guides that were part of a packet. And that contributed to my success in the class.’”