Ed Tech Hour Episode 24: Sherri Restauri

Below is a full transcript of the podcast.

Kelly Torres  00:01

This episode of EdTech Hour is brought to you by the Educational Psychology and Technology Program at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. The Chicago School’s mission is integrating the values of education, innovation, service and community. The Chicago School provides students innovative and practitioner-based learning experiences in which they’re able to positively impact others around the world and address issues faced by underserved populations. Through collaboration university administration, faculty, and students. The EdTech Hour was created in order to pursue our vision of innovation and global outreach. This monthly podcast series will include thought leaders from around the world who will discuss relevant issues center not only on technology, but also the impact of technology on humanity. Speakers will provide listeners with stories of how they have impacted learners, employees and communities through their pursuit of understanding how individuals learn and use technology to improve performance. This show provides a global medium to share and promote various issues and developments in learning and how professionals are utilizing technology. By listening to this show, I hope that you’re able to develop a unique insight into how you can incorporate similar topics and trends into your own professional settings. I look forward to learning more about our topic with you throughout this episode.

Kelly Torres  01:18

Hello, everyone in the EPC community. For today’s EdTech Hour, we have Dr. Sherri Restauri, joining us from Coastal Carolina University. Dr. Restauri has over 20 years of experience in online learning and educational technology. Currently, she is the senior executive director with digital learning and a teaching associate in the Department of Psychology. Additionally, she serves on the steering committee for the OLC Innovate and Accelerate for annual conferences. And she is a member of the MERLOT Psychology Editorial Board, as well as the editor of the Professional Coaching MERLOT Board. So with that being said, welcome Dr. Restauri, and thank you for joining us today.

Sherri Restauri 02:07

Thank you for having me.

Kelly Torres  02:08

Yes. So I will go ahead and start this episode with your journey into the field of education. So why did you decide to pursue a career in education?

Sherri Restauri 02:18

So, I think my career choice actually started as an undergraduate student. I had an interest in doing kind of a nontraditional approach to an undergraduate degree in psychology. I really loved the statistics work that we did in my second year as a sophomore as an undergraduate student. And in fact, I love the work and statistics so much that I was actually hired as a part-time statistics mentor. And it’s honestly that opportunity—to be a paid statistics mentor—that set me on the path to become a faculty member at a later time. So, I was able to begin tutoring in a one-on-one environment. I really fell in love with what became a one-on-one and then a larger group tutoring and teaching environment, and I was able to have a wonderful conversation with the faculty members. And my advisor at the time told them that you know, I really do want to pursue a degree in psychology, but I love teaching. What can we do? And honestly, I have to give credit to my advisor. He sat down and built for the very first time and instructional practicum. They didn’t have that for undergraduates. Of course, most of the time, we’re not allowed to teach until we are at least at the master’s level, but he built an instructional teaching practicum, and in my junior year as an undergraduate at 20 years old, I started teaching. So it’s a little bit untraditional. It’s very, very uncommon that I was able to begin teaching Introductory Psychology. That class met three times a week—on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and they put me in as a teaching assistant on Fridays. We were going through the lessons—I would do large group setting. So I was teaching around 100 or so students on Fridays in a very large auditorium for Introductory Psychology. And my job as a teaching assistant was to do the hands-on. So the faculty would do the lecture, and I had to do hands-on activities. So I would say, statistics mentorship led me into a little bit of a nontraditional instructional practicum. It was something that, again I don’t know how frequently they’ve done since that time, but I felt quite blessed to be able to be given that particular opportunity because it wasn’t something my campus had offered to other undergraduate students prior to me.

Kelly Torres  04:43

Okay. And I think one thing that you highlighted that was very important was that mentorship piece.

Sherri Restauri  04:49

Yes, yes, absolutely. And truly, again, I can’t give enough credit to, you know, my faculty members and also, specifically, to my assigned advisor at that time. His name was Dr. Patterson, and he was amazing. He did an incredible job of setting up something very personalized for me. That really did shape the rest of my career going forward.

Kelly Torres  05:12

Okay, great. Thank you for sharing that. And I think that’s a really interesting way to get into teaching. And like you mentioned, just starting off in the TA role, and then learning from that perspective, having the mentorship along those lines as well. That’s an important factor. So just another follow-up question: What are some challenges that you’ve experienced when it comes to teaching?

Sherri Restauri 05:34

You know, one of the interesting things that I think perhaps was a hurdle for me—though, I answered the first question as what a blessing, what an incredible opportunity it was—I was only 20 years old. I was younger than most of the people that I was actually teaching. So one of my initial hurdles that I had to work on was being able to address the fact that both I looked younger and my place in life was a little bit younger than many of the students that I was teaching. So early on in my career, that was quite a problem, and I had to learn to address it and to set the stage for professionalism, even when the students that I was teaching were quite a bit younger or older than me in the beginning of my career. I would say over time, of course, as I got older and was more experienced in my career, that did change. And there’s been different hurdles over time. But I think that probably the largest challenge was just learning the ropes of becoming a professional, and even at a very, very young age, stepping into the teaching field and how to address that. And again, I would give credit to having some great mentors and faculty that helped guide me in that.

Kelly Torres  06:47

Okay, great. So, as I previously mentioned, your career in education has spanned over 20 years in the field of Educational Technology. What did you like best about this field?

Sherri Restauri 06:59

You know, I’ve really had two careers that have paralleled for the last 22 years. I’ve been a faculty member for 22 years, and I’ve also worked in the field of instructional technology and distance learning for 22 years. And they’ve really paralleled, because I’ve been a faculty member at the same time that I’ve worked in distance learning. So, it’s been amazing to see the evolution of what we used to call distance learning in my field, now we call digital learning. It’s really transformed the teaching arena in such a dramatic way. When I first stepped into it, during my work as a master’s level student is when I really began working in distance learning. And in that area, you know, even dating back to the early 2000s, my campus was still duplicating VHS tapes and mailing those out. It’s transformed in such a dramatic way. You know, even today, with our podcasts, being able to do live web conferencing and all the amazing technologies, it’s so much more accessible, it’s so much more mainstream—the familiarity with these technologies and the ability to utilize what didn’t exist at that time, which is mobile technology, to do our learning has really transformed the educational learning space. So I would say just watching the dramatic shift in the adoption of technology, and then the evolution of the technology has been probably the item that I’m most amazed with—watching the changes.

Kelly Torres    08:37

Absolutely. And that’s something in our program in the EPC community that, in our first course, we learned about the evolution of technology and education. So we read about different things as far as the VHS tapes, just even the beginning of the internet and how that wasn’t started, and how it is today. So to be on that end, it’s really amazing to see, but also I think something that was very important that you stated was the accessibility to education. That’s a big factor. And I think that even during the time of this pandemic, you’re able to see how accessibility is such an important factor. When it comes to education and how, you know, as long as you have a strong internet connection—or somewhat strong—you can get access to education, and your learning is continuous. So I appreciate you mentioning that part.

Sherri Restauri 09:24

Absolutely. And I would say Shakira, one of the interesting things that maybe people kind of lose sight of—particularly if they are not as familiar with the history of distance learning—is distance learning actually originated at the very crux of how do we provide education to students who are nontraditional and can’t access it. And that’s students with disabilities, students who are in the military, nontraditional learners—people like me, who worked 40-50 hours all the way through my undergraduate career—we were nontraditional learners, and distance learning was made to increase access to education. And that’s actually what it continues to do. So I love that that’s something that’s being taught within your program. And I do appreciate that, because even some of my colleagues today don’t know that that’s the origin of distance learning.

Kelly Torres  10:15

Yeah, absolutely. Wow. And I’m glad that you expanded on that point, because that’s something that is a part of pretty much every course that we take in the program, discussing accessibility to education, thinking about on the end—and also with global citizenship, too, that’s another factor—but also, when it comes to students with disability, how education tailors to their needs, you know, and how it just brings them into a place where they’re able to, you know, assess different aspects of when it comes to textbooks—like text to speech, different things along those lines. So I think it’s important to see how technology, while it expands the knowledge base a lot, it also provides just that accessible means for others as well.

Sherri Restauri 11:00

Absolutely.

Kelly Torres  11:01

Yes. So one way that students are often motivated in their academic studies is through the use of technology for classroom activity—whether it’s in the K through 12, setting, but also in college, too. So how do you perceive technology impacts learners’ level levels when it comes to motivation?

Sherri Restauri 11:20

This is actually one of my favorite topics, so I’m so glad you asked that question. I’d have to look at the documentation, but it’s been about 14 years since I published my dissertation—it’s been a long time—but this was actually similar to the topic of my dissertation. So I think one of the interesting things is, you know, it’s actually less about technology than it is about our pedagogical or instructional choices. When I teach faculty at my own campus now about engagement—I teach one particular workshop that has to do with student engagement—and it’s less about the technology than it is about our pedagogical choices of how we interact with and engage our students. And so the technology is important, but whether I choose to use Zoom, or Teams, or EdPuzzle, or any other technology, really, at the heart of it, it’s about engaging my students. And so I think it’s interesting to kind of look at what are our motivations for selecting certain technology tools, as opposed to which tool that we use. And so that’s kind of what I like to drill down to when we’re teaching faculty how to adopt certain tools is really, what’s your ultimate goal? Is your goal for the students to dive really deep into the content? Is your goal for them to use technology to do a deeper exploration? Is your goal for them to do a really creative presentation using technology? Is it to build an infographic? You know, what is that learning outcome that you have in mind, and then based on that, we do backwards design—which I’m sure you guys are taught as well in your program—and so we use backwards design, and we say we’re not picking the technology first. So we’re looking at the plan, learning engagement. So if your goal is individual versus group, if your goal is surface-level versus deep-level engagement, then all of those things help us guide which particular technology is at hand. Because there’s thousands, there’s tens of thousands, of potential instructional and educational technology tools. And being able to select which one is important is really less important than your goal with engagement. And I’ll use one example: We have, you know, hundreds of tools, of course, that are utilized on my campus now, but helping faculty to really ask that question of, you know, are you looking for group or are you looking for individual? Are you looking for interactivity, so, two-way or multi-way communication? Are you looking to push content at them like a lecture? So, actually being able to answer those questions up front: are you push versus interactive? And then are you doing individual versus group? Those are the initial choices that a lot of times our faculty will make, and then that will guide them to narrow down from, say, 100 technologies to five.

Kelly Torres  14:08

Okay, that makes a lot of sense, actually. So just kind of starting out, what is the bigger picture and then picking the different types of technology that fit within that picture?

Sherri Restauri 14:19

Absolutely.

Kelly Torres  14:20

Yeah. And the thing about there’s so many different types of educational technology, right, so picking the right ones, and I think also as you mentioned, engagement, and not just picking them because they look great, or you know, have a great appearance, but making sure they fit within the learning outcomes that students really have a takeaway when they complete the class. I think that’s very important as well. So just another follow-up question. So what are some technology platforms that have been useful in your own courses?

Sherri Restauri 14:53

So across the different types of classes, formats, modalities, etc., I’ve taught face to face, and flip, did online and hybrid, and all the different varieties, and at the cornerstone of what I think is most critical for me both as a faculty member and then also in my role where I’ve served as an instructional designer and an administrator over distance learning, I love being able to use the learning management system, whichever one is currently available and use that as an integral core component of everything that we do. And in particular, I like being able to point my students to things that maybe off the shelf look fairly simplistic—like a discussion forum—but maybe using those in really interesting ways. So I’ll use an example: At my current campus, we are self-hosted Moodle, for our learning management system, and much like Blackboard or Canvas or DTL or any of the other tools, we have a discussion forum or discussion board component as well. However, we have fully integrated audio and video components into the learning management system both for faculty as well as students. And so I love to be able to utilize in my fully online asynchronous class the technology for a really engaging experience. So, keeping in mind the importance of concepts such as Universal Design for Learning, UDL, accessibility, etc., I use discussion boards, provide specific discussion board prompts, but then I give my students the option of either responding through text or audio or video. But if they respond through text, they have to include graphics. And so I use some of those core components that sometimes we forget can be extremely useful, informative, engaging tools, simply because I’m having them kind of stretch their wings, and instead of just type text, they’re having to build an infographic and attach that to a discussion board. They’re doing really hands-on engaging projects, and they’re submitting those through the discussion board, and then providing peer feedback through audio and video to one another about that end product of infographics or informational brochures about child development, or whatever the specific assignment is. So I’m less likely to be the one who gives everybody the same question and everybody has responses. Rather, we really use each of those core tools to the fullest extent that we can, and we are heavily engaged with audio and video in order to allow the students to really get to know each other even in the asynchronous learning environment.

Kelly Torres  17:33

Wow, okay, that’s great. That’s really great to connect those components together but also to give students options as well. So in your experiences, when you gave the options to students, which mode do students typically lean to from what you’ve experienced?

Sherri Restauri 17:54

In the discussion boards, they tend to shy away from video. I have definitely noticed that they don’t use video quite as much. In a couple of my classes, for the final component Capstone option that they have, I also design all of my classes that have a final project with a UDL component, meaning here’s six potential options, you go any path. And so it’s kind of a choose your own path. And I’ll answer your question, Shakira, about pointing that out with that one, when they have the option of: I want to do a formal written research report, or I want to make a collaborative presentation with a group, or I want to do a video, I want to do a screencast. Consistently, they don’t choose a written report, and that’s interesting to me. When I give them the option of what they prefer, they always choose something that involves multimedia. And a core component of that UDL assignment is that they must do as 10% of their grade a written reflection on their chosen modality and explain why they chose that modality and how it was useful for their learning. So I even can share with you the reason they choose it is they say that it’s more fun. And they got more out of the project by doing something that they feel more comfortable with as a medium.

Kelly Torres  19:06

Okay, yeah. And, you know, I think that that makes a lot of sense for their rationale, because also, too—and this is just coming from a student and in my experiences of having those particular assignments where I can kind of get to know different types of technology—I feel that I can walk away from the course, and I’ve enhanced my skill set in some type of way. And I can take it to a professional setting. So that would make a lot of sense in that respect. Okay, thank you. Thank you for sharing that part. So also, shifting a little bit more into talking about accessibility—during the pandemic, there was a shift to online learning as we know in a lot of different settings, and especially in college. So did you experience any significant changes when trying to accommodate the needs of students?

Sherri Restauri 19:53

In general, I would say that the need to accommodate did not shift, it was just simply the volume. One of the cornerstones of designing any kind of class, in my opinion, is it should always be made from a UDL and a UDI perspective. So that Universal Design for Learning and Universal Design for Instruction should always incorporate access to all learners, and we should design from the bottom up. So if those were designed, you know, appropriately, we would have less accommodations. In my experience, over the last almost two years of the pandemic as it’s been going so far, it’s simply the volume of requests. But interestingly enough, at my own campus, because we had already plugged in so many accommodation tools into our core learning management system into what we call our core tools that are outside of the learning management system, like our lecture capture tool, we already had automated captioning built in that faculty didn’t even have to enable—it was already there. My campus already had a closed captioning request network setup, so that faculty could make sure that everything was being captioned to WCAG and ADA standards. So thankfully, we were prepared is what my answer would actually be. So even when the volume ramped up, it was just a matter of making sure that we were making those accommodations at the volume that was being requested. But again, because we had already implemented a captioning initiative, we even had probably one of my favorite programs is what’s called the VAE program, which is the virtual accessibility expert. And kind of like you guys in your capacities, there were GTAs and graduate assistants, and they’ve been trained in ADA and WCAG standards and digital learning, and they were hopping in and adjusting courses for faculty to get them up to standard. So being able to have that service for faculty—to do a VAE request for graduate assistants who can hop in and adjust courses, add in alt tags for images, and update slideshows for them—that particular component helped our campus to really be able to serve the needs really quickly. And if we had not had those, we would not have been able to do as well as we did, I don’t believe.

Kelly Torres  22:03

Okay, so the infrastructure was already in place.

Sherri Restauri 22:05

It was. And I have to say that something that I’m so proud of my specific department for being able to implement that. We’ve had that closed captioning initiative since fall of 2016, so we were very, very prepared. You know, nobody could have been prepared for the pandemic, but having that infrastructure already there really did facilitate that. There just really were not last-minute needs that had to be accommodated for we had so much of the infrastructure already in place.

Kelly Torres  22:33

Okay, great, great. And to be prepared, you know, and then to go into the pandemic—I mean, that sounds like a very beautiful transition. And it just shows how important it is for the readiness of online learning for the students. So just to kind of go back just a little bit, you mentioned that you had experience as an instructional designer. I just wanted to ask: Can you share a little bit more about your experiences in that area?

Sherri Restauri 22:57

Absolutely. So with my work in instructional design, that was, many, many years ago. We didn’t even call ourselves instructional designers. We’re usually called instructional media or instructional media specialists. So that was actually my very first title in this role as a full-time staff member was an instructional media specialist. And what that looks like in today’s environment, is kind of a combination between a degree in instructional design and instructional technology. So you needed to have both hats. You have to be an expert in both understanding instructional technology, how to build tutorials, as well as the pedagogical aspects. And so my role there with instructional design was to evaluate and implement the very first learning management system. That was in the early 2000s, so we picked Blackboard as our first implementation. I was the sole trainer. I had to train everybody on campus how to use Blackboard. I built the first course template, and we rolled that out into everybody’s courses. And in my role as an instructional designer, I was constantly doing evaluations, how to improve integration of technology. I was teaching all the workshops for the campus and helping to do the one-on-one consultations with faculty. So the field has evolved quite a bit in the last few decades. But in that timeframe, you know, distance learning was in its infancy and instructional design, while it existed, there weren’t many of us. And so it was still quite new, and many of us were coming from diverse disciplines. Many of them were coming from library, many of them are coming from psychology—like my area—or behavior analysis. So we all came from areas that did not necessarily have degrees yet in instructional design. So I would say I kind of started out as a combination of an instructional technologist and an instructional designer, and we just evolved from there. But we always had a focus on learning, on digital implementation of courses, and again—as we discussed at the very beginning—that looked like video-based courses, VHS tapes. It also looked like online courses, which initially—predating learning management systems—were just hosted on websites. So I was simply consulting with faculty helping them design those courses, course websites, and corresponding with the students.

Kelly Torres  25:25

And that’s something that is also very important to highlight when it comes to the instructional designer space, you’re also training. So as you’re learning, and as you’re implementing different aspects of technology, you’re training, like you said, the one-on-one consultations. But also there’s a space where you have to see what’s working and what’s not. Was there a formula or some type of policy—I won’t say a policy—but something that you all had in place to check to see the response from faculty and how they, you know, what are some of their likes or dislikes about the integration of technology?

Sherri Restauri 26:05

I think—because going back to, I think, our very first question that I answered—you know, I’ve always been a numbers person. And I think that’s one of the things that has actually been a strength that has helped me throughout my career in the field of digital and online learning, but also as a faculty member, because I’m very data driven. So from the very beginning, I always built surveys, I always sent out surveys, I always asked the faculty, what do you need? What do you want? What kinds of trainings are helpful for you? And, you know, in the beginning, when distance learning was a foreign entity—and most people were simply unfamiliar with it in the beginning of the 2000s—it was a lot of one on one. And then over time, it became group training. And so just being able to always keep your foot there with the faculty member. If I had to advise somebody listening to this, who is going to become an administrator on a campus, and they were thinking about, should I implement a faculty or staff role in a department that’s responsible for digital and online learning, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of us maintaining our faculty hats the entire time. I think being a faculty member myself is what has helped to drive this as successfully as it has been. If I had stepped out of the classroom, and was not one of them the entire time, I could not have been as successful. They wouldn’t have known me, I wouldn’t have been as familiar to them in the space of having operated as a faculty member. And having that trust of building that relationship is just as integral as it could possibly be. So, you know, doing surveys, asking their feedback, but also being a faculty member and knowing [when] It feels like everybody needs a little bit more training specific to student authentication—what is sometimes called plagiarism detection tools or alternative assessment methodologies. So being able to be that faculty member who sits in the same spaces, who is in the same committee meetings with them, is hearing some of their concerns and building those relationships. So certainly doing surveys, certainly evaluating, but also keeping your foot in the same space with, with the faculty, as a faculty member yourself, at least in a part-time, if not possibly also a full-time basis.

Kelly Torres  28:32

Okay, so having that connection with the faculty, because you’re in this space, but then also collaborating with them and just having that open communication. And I can see how that will be a big factor—that trust in the relationships—because sometimes it can be easy on the trainer side to think okay, this is running smoothly, it’s fine. But being on the opposite end with faculty, they might say, this is not functional, if you’re not in that space, not able to see it from the outside looking in.

Sherri Restauri 28:58

Exactly. That’s exactly it, Shakira. I definitely agree.

Kelly Torres  29:02

Okay, great. And this actually sets me up for a gateway question. So on the opposite end when it comes to more of the administrative roles. So as I mentioned earlier, in your current role as senior executive director with digital learning, you oversee the policies and procedures when it comes to the online learning community. Can you share more about your journey into this position?

Sherri Restauri 29:25

Sure. So I’m in my third campus at this point. In my first campus, I was there for a period of eight years, and about halfway through that journey, in my first campus, I was promoted from being an instructional designer to being a director for distance education at that unit. And at that time, the reason that we decided that particular department needed to have an administrator was—and I’ll give you the context, this is around the early 2000s still—the regional accrediting body for that particular university, which was the SACS now called SACSCOC regional accrediting body, had just begun evaluating distance learning. So it was still new, and the campus needed to have somebody who was familiar, not just with necessarily regional accrediting bodies like SACS, but making sure that we were implementing and hitting those targets for quality teaching standards. This also kind of predates things like Quality Matters. That was not quite on the forefront yet. In fact, OLC also did not have their scorecards yet. So we were just beginning to build quality standards in the distance learning world 20 years ago. And so, I first stepped into my administrative role three campuses ago, in order to make sure that everything that we were building wasn’t just to build enrollment, but it was really focused on high quality. And so my step into administration was, again, it was numbers-based. I loved numbers, I loved statistics, and I loved verifying that we were meeting quality standards. So we began building some best practices. That was my job there to go ahead and set standards for policies and procedures. And all of those were directly tracked backwards to our regional accrediting body—SACS—at that time. And in fact, that model is the same model I use. The campus that I serve at right now is also under SACSCOC. We have a reaccreditation coming up in less than a month, and all of our policies are also tracked backwards, as is our quality assessment inventory, to SACSCOC standards.

Kelly Torres  31:35

Wow. Okay. So that’s a big achievement.

Sherri Restauri 31:38

It is. And it’s so helpful for our faculty to be able to showcase that these 40 standards that we have for our internal rubric, all track backwards to the same standards that have been presented by our accrediting body.

Kelly Torres  31:52

Wow. And the accreditation, I know that’s a process.

Sherri Restauri 31:57

It sure is.

Kelly Torres  31:57

To be able to continuously engage in that process and know that you have all the tools and everything that is needed on the administrative end, that’s a really good thing. That’s a lot of hard work, but, like you said, you’ve been in this role, and that has been part of your duties in this role. So, that’s huge. Congratulations on that end.

Sherri Restauri 32:19

Thank you.

Kelly Torres  32:20

You’re welcome. So, just another question. As far as an administrative role, can you elaborate on the importance of having teaching experience before an administrative role?

Sherri Restauri 32:32

Absolutely. So I would say, part of understanding, whether you’re working at a two-year, four-year institution—I have also served as a part-time instructor, as an adjunct at two-year community colleges as well—and I think being able to have those areas of experience, it helps you to understand not just the teaching aspect, but it’s the administrative reporting structure, and really understanding the culture of each individual environment. You don’t really get a good feel for that unless you’re also in that faculty role. As I had alluded to earlier, being part of the faculty body really helps you to understand. In contrast, where I am right now, a liberal arts institution, who is a four-year school serving a population of approximately 11,000, versus some of the two-year institutions that I’ve served at previously, or in contrast to a four-year institution that I also served at that was an R1. Their missions, their focus, is very different. Their metrics are different. At my campus right now, we have a great mission focused on service and student excellence and student support, versus perhaps at other campuses it may be more numbers driven, and it may be more enrollment driven. So being in that faculty role, you do get to hear from your direct chairs, your deans, your provost, your administration, as to what are the academic goals. And I think being in that faculty space, administration uses different language at times with our faculty than they do with other administrators, than they do with staff. I think it has taught me to be mindful of code switching so that we understand that there is different terminology being used depending on who they might be speaking to.

Kelly Torres  34:38

Okay, great. So now, what advice would you give to new professionals in the field of education who are looking to pursue teaching careers in the online teaching design?

Sherri Restauri 34:51

You know, 20-plus years ago, there were only a handful of opportunities for how to learn best practices in teaching, and in this field has just exploded and has grown so much. And alongside the growth of Digital Learning and Instructional Technology, thankfully, has also been the growth in open education and freely shared Creative Commons-types of licenses for training materials. So if you’re new in the field, particularly if you’re just beginning to explore it, I would say take an opportunity to look at all the freely available resources that are available, that are shared from very well-known organizations. Online Learning Consortium just shares a tremendous amount of free webinars that are available. They do have paid resources that are excellent as well. But many of these organizations have done 20-plus years of work. MERLOT, which you mentioned earlier—that I also serve on—is built upon open education, and all of their resources are freely available. They have an entire board focused on faculty development and online learning. All of those materials are already freely available, and it’s an excellent way to hop in. Go ahead and take a look at free courses, use free courses as a starting point and a template for building materials … maybe exploring those networks—OLC WCET, MERLOT, and the other organizations—and tapping into the freely available resources, figuring out where you fit, and then joining those networks. I believe one of the things that has really shaped me as an administrator is being a part of those professional organizations. Again, 20 years ago, there were only a handful, but there’s hundreds now. And so knowing who the leaders are, some of the ones that I’ve mentioned, are the ones that I would point to who are also the leaders. There’s also a really neat new network that just started this year, too. It’s called Golden, and Golden is a new network as well. And it’s actually not stateside, it’s actually global. It’s a freely available network for people to join, where they can begin to dabble in and start learning about online learning throughout the globe as well. So there’s a number of different organizations. I’m also an executive member for Golden, so that’s definitely one I want to give a shout out to. But start with the free ones. Once you figure out what you like and what you fit, then perhaps start considering joining. And then take a look at some of the regional conferences, whether they be online or face to face, because that’s how you’re really going to build your network. It’s difficult as an instructional designer to build a network in your own institution. If you’re working at a university, you may be one of one. So it’s very challenging to build a network, and you’ll feel very isolated. And I felt that way myself as a team of one—and a team of two in the beginning—until I plugged into those networks. And we’re just at a space now where you can build up these amazing networks across the entire globe. And you’ll start getting a collection of resources—basically build your own library of instructional design materials from making these networks.

Kelly Torres  38:02

Okay, great. And thank you for sharing those resources. I think that is very imperative in terms of just building your network, especially coming from the student space and as a new professional learning about the different trends. And I think that’s how you stay well informed in the field, and know what’s the best practices, because technology is always evolving, right? So, I think it’s important. That’s how you stay abreast of different things that are happening in the field. So once again, you said that was Golden, correct? I want to make sure that we have that out there—go and make sure that our students can check that out. And then also too, as you mentioned, you serve on the board with MERLOT, the MERLOT Psychology Editorial Board and Professional Coaching board as well. And then you also serve with the steering committee for OLC Innovate and Accelerate annual conferences. So you’re serving in this in these different positions. Can you elaborate on the most meaningful aspects in these roles?

Sherri Restauri 39:01

Sure. So I would say—and it’s interesting to use this as an analogy—but I think it was two or three years ago—I was serving with OLC, and we were asked—as, I believe, the program chairs or perhaps the conference chairs—to do a brief breakfast presentation. It was only supposed to be, you know, five to 10 minutes for each of us in our role as program chair. And they said—because we were hosted at the time in Orlando and we were adjacent to Disney World—they asked us to create a couple of slides and pick a Disney character that we thought provided an example of the role that serving with OLC had played in our professional careers. It’s a great question, and it relates to actually what you’re asking me, Shakira. So, I want to point back at that, particularly for people who may be new in the field here in distance education and instructional design. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to plug in. I will say that the character that I picked was Merida. So if you know Merida, she’s the redhead from Brave. And, you know, she’s rambunctious, and she’s brave, and she is fearless. And she’s just an amazing character. So I picked her as my character, and I shared with everybody who was there—a couple hundred people were there for that breakfast presentation—and I explained the reason that I picked Merida was that as an early 20s, very shy, introverted instructional designer in the early 2000s, I didn’t have very many connections. I was the only instructional designer in my field. I didn’t really know how to navigate. Again, I was extremely shy and introverted and did not really feel like I had a community. When I joined OLC—what used to be called Sloan C and then what became Online Learning Consortia—I joined MERLOT at the same time. So it was very, very close to that same time, almost 20 years ago, that I joined both of them. And I found my partners. I found people who had the same interest, who have the same passion, who had the same heart for education and student success, who were teachers at heart and loved what they did and wanted to research it and just improve our teaching and improve our instructional technologies. So I used Merida as an example to showcase that without having that network of people, I would never have been able to step out of my natural, introverted cocoon, and become confident enough to not only, you know, do a presentation at a national conference, but step all the way up to a program at a conference chair role. Over time, you know, I grew so much in my confidence and in my social network with that group, that it really transformed my ability to be comfortable in front of really, really large crowds. And again, I couldn’t say enough about the social network that it really built as far as the team behind me from MERLOT well as from OLC.

Kelly Torres  42:07

And I think that’s the recurring theme, right? Having that sense of community, to be able to grow and network with others, and to have different professional opportunities as well. But even within the online world, it’s still important to have that sense of community. That’s the recurring theme. So yeah, I mean, I had to think about the character choice—oh yes, I remember the Disney movie. But I liked that assignment, actually. Disney characters show a plethora of different personalities. So great! And to switch gears back into the student space. Many students balance academic studies with their professional life. As you mentioned, you said that you worked 40 to 50 hours a week. So can you discuss what were some of the challenges you had trying to balance the different areas between work and academic studies?

Sherri Restauri 43:08

I think, you know, being able to not just block off, this is work time, this is professional time, this is academic time, but being able to be flexible in that. You know, I’m a mom of a freshman college student myself now, and being able to teach those skill sets of, in general, yes, it’s great to have, you know, this is your personal life, and then here’s your boundary, and here’s your work time. But I think, if anything, it’s more important to understand that it’s important to be flexible. There’s going to be times that, for example, I have a meeting that runs all the way until 6:30 this evening, on a Friday. Sometimes those times will happen. But in the same vein, on occasion, we’ll have more personal time. Being able to be flexible with it, but also to always keep time to have downtime. And I think as a faculty member, I also want to answer this question because it’s the same guidance I would give my students when I’m advising them. It is so critical to not just block off three hours to read and do the assignment, but add an extra hour on there to think about it and to reflect it and to digest it and to integrate that material. Because if you do not build in time that is downtime for reflection—and that can be anything it can be personal time where you’re out, you know, we live in Myrtle Beach, so out on a walk on the beach, or time sitting in a library or time sitting in a coffee shop—so wherever that downtime is, I think my guidance would be, both in the academic and professional and personal space, in fact, is to build in time for reflection, whether you’re a student or an academic or an instructional designer. That is crucial. You’ve got to block that off, and even if there’s nothing in there, if it’s just reflection time, two hours a week, it is so fruitful and so productive specifically to be able to actually have that time available. And it’s a time that, me personally, I do best with it when I’m walking and I’m outside. So ask yourself, what is best for you? Do you need quiet? Do you need to be around other people? Do you need to have a conversation? Do you need to be physically active like I do with walking on a beach? What works best for you? So being able to figure out where you’re best, making sure to block off one to two hours if you can in your schedule every single week for that digestion and reflection, it is truly crucial. In retrospect, looking back 20 years, if I could have done that earlier in my career, it would have helped me tremendously.

Kelly Torres  45:46

Wow, yes. And self-care. That’s so important. And I think that that’s a beautiful way to wrap it up. Because if you don’t have that downtime, it can lead to burnout very, very quickly.

Sherri Restauri 46:01

Absolutely.

Kelly Torres  46:02

It will happen, and then you’re trying to figure your way out of the burnout on top of having all the academic duties as well. So yes, like you said, taking a walk, figuring out what does that downtime look like for you, scheduling it in, and being very intentional. I fully agree. And just to connect to the academic studies, what advice would you give to students who are preparing for their dissertations?

Sherri Restauri 46:26

In general, being able to … maybe make sure, and it depends on what you’ve got, and I’m not familiar with the guidelines that you guys have there. But I will tell you one thing that was more instrumental than I had expected would be if you have the ability to pick somebody to serve as an external advisor—and I don’t know Shakira if that’s allowed or if that’s even on your structured recommendations—but when I was working on my dissertation, that was a requirement. I had to pick an advisor from outside of my university. And I questioned it at the time. But they’re not familiar with my guidelines, why would I do that? Honestly, that was one of the best, most innovative, interesting inclusions that I was able to do. And looking back on it now, even though my current university, for example, with our Ph.D. programs for the dissertation, they don’t even allow that. You would have to add that person in as an extra person, and perhaps spend extra time. I would say, that’s an interesting opportunity. Ask somebody outside of your own discipline, ask somebody outside of your own college, to take the opportunity and build up a mentorship with them and see if they’ll give you some feedback. That was so useful to me, because this person had an external perspective. It actually was a faculty member who I had taken some master’s level classes with at a previous institution, and he was kind enough to volunteer unpaid mentorship time and serve in that role. I have done something similar. In my own professional capacity, I now do that for individuals as well. And again, it’s not a paid position, it’s just a kind thing that we can do and return the academic service. But I think it’s so instrumental to be able to have that extra external perspective, because for example, my own department here in psychology, we don’t have a very strong counseling or clinical background. That’s not our strengths. It’s not our area here. So you know, if a student were to pursue something in that particular area, it would be instrumental to have an individual from another campus to provide that perspective. And so being able to have somebody who’s a little bit outside of your field sometimes does provide additional insight. They’ll bring new literature that you never thought to include. And I think that’s where the strength really came in. Because the gentleman that I had on mine was in a completely different field. My field was educational and developmental psychology, and he was an industrial organizational psychologist. And so I found new areas of literature review that I could pull in, that really did help flesh out my work that I would never have considered. So having a little bit outside of your discipline, really, truly was instrumental. So if you do have the opportunity to ask somebody, either officially or unofficially, to provide some mentorship and some feedback or some advice about additional literature that may inform your research, I definitely encourage the students to consider that.

Kelly Torres  49:26

Wow. I could see how that can be very, very instrumental in conducting and beginning the dissertation process—having someone who is not within the field to tell you where those gaps are when it comes to literature. And I know that we have the option where we can pick someone that is not within our department. So they can be in a different discipline, but just within the university. So I think that that’s important as well. But also to connect to what you said—when you’re writing your dissertation too, and you have someone who was not actually, you know, within or tight within your department, it gives you the opportunity to see how it’s interpreted to someone else. Does it make sense?

Sherri Restauri 50:11

Yes, exactly. I mean, it was so helpful to have somebody. And it was even, in fact, a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with a mentor that I hadn’t talked to in years as well. So I think it was a wonderful opportunity to, you know, to bring him in as a previous master’s level instructor all the way forward and get to see me as, you know, a potential Ph.D. candidate at that time. So it was a great opportunity. So I definitely would encourage the students to consider that.

Kelly Torres  50:37

Absolutely. And I think also it can strengthen those professional connections, too.

Sherri Restauri 50:43

It sure does. I’m still in touch with him now. And again, I graduated 14 years ago.

Kelly Torres  50:47

So you see. That’s a perfect example.

Sherri Restauri 50:51

It sure is.

Kelly Torres  50:53

So we’re getting towards the end of the podcast. But before we conclude today, I just wanted to ask you, were there any upcoming professional projects that you wanted to share with the audience for today?

Sherri Restauri 51:03

Thank you for asking that. I do want to point again, at a couple of the resources that I had mentioned, and Shakira, I’ll make sure that you have those links available as well to share with everyone. But some of the things that I would consider recommending to individuals: if you’re not already plugged into the MERLOT network, because that is free, you can go ahead and join. Create a free account. And I know one of the things that I still struggle with is professional development funding. It’s always difficult to get travel funding available or conference registration covered. Something that a lot of times people don’t know is, if you sign up as a MERLOT reviewer with one of the MERLOT boards, then there’s a program called the PRE program, which is the Peer Reviewer Extraordinaire. And once you become a reviewer, if you review I believe it’s 10—it could be 15—but 10 or 15 items within the year period, you will get your registration to OLC Innovate—which is their spring online conference—you get your registration comped. So I would strongly encourage some of the future instructional designers and instructional technologists and faculty to consider doing that because the OLC Innovate is actually my number one professional development training and conference that I would recommend for people in our field. The Innovate one to me, think of it as your early adopters, your people who are always at the cutting edge of technology, your group is going to probably be best suited for the Innovate conference, which is their spring one. And so definitely, if they were to sign up as a MERLOT reviewer at no cost and complete these reviews, then they will get their online registration comped too. So that’s something that I definitely encourage, again, that OLC Innovate conference is always in the spring. So whether you do or do not do that by way of MERLOT, that’s another one to take a look at. They do have an online conference, so you don’t have to travel. And then they also have a face-to-face conference, I believe, a week or two after that, as well. And I will be attending that.

Kelly Torres 

Great, thank you for sharing those resources. And we would love to share them with our community. And I think that that’s great way to, you know, connect with others. And with the peer reviewers, are students able to sign up? Or do you have to, is there certain requirements as far as the professional level or different things along those lines?

Sherri Restauri

Sure. So it depends on which board you join. So, for example, again, I’m an associate editor for the psychology board, and a criteria that we have is that you must be actively teaching a class. So if you are actively teaching a class—let’s say, in developmental psychology—then that’s probably what you would be assigned to do. Some of the boards, like my professional coaching board—because we’re more expected to be experts in our field, not necessarily practitioners or faculty—professional coaching, you do not have to be actively teaching. And professional coaching is a nice, interdisciplinary group that crosses over between business and psychology. So, if anybody is interested in joining my board as a reviewer, you do not actually have to be actively teaching at the time. And to join my board, they can also just email me Shakira, and I’d be happy to provide the next steps on how to do that and how to become a peer reviewer for either MERLOT, in general, or also specifically for my board on professional coaching.

Kelly Torres  54:21

Great, great, thank you. And actually, that brings me to my last question. And the last question is, can you tell our audience, what’s the best way to get in contact with you?

Sherri Restauri 54:31

I usually think the best way to reach out to me is either through my email, so that’s [email protected], or I love for people to connect with me on my LinkedIn account. I’m extremely active on LinkedIn. I’m constantly sharing information. Most of the information that I share is all about instructional technology, digital learning, digital accessibility—probably 80% of it is about digital accessibility and UDL. So please feel free to follow me, interact with me on LinkedIn and LinkedIn messages, etc. Because I am very active on my LinkedIn profile as well.

Kelly Torres  55:06

Okay, great. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Sherri Restauri, for joining us today and for giving us so much valuable information about your experiences and just current project projects that you have going on right now. And just thank you for joining us. We appreciate your time. And that concludes our podcast for today. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Sherri Restauri 55:27

Thank you so much.

Kelly Torres  55:29

Thank you for listening to this edition of EdTech Hour. I’m Dr. Kelly Torres, the department chair of the Educational Psychology and Technology Program at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. This podcast was completed through the support of our dedicated faculty, staff and students. To learn more about the Educational Psychology Technology Program, or if you’re interested in being on the EdTech Hour podcast, please reach out to me at [email protected]