In this episode of Social Learning Amplified, host Eric Mazur sits down with Flower Darby (University of Missouri) — educator, advocate for faculty well-being, and author of The Joyful Online Teacher, to explore what it really means to thrive in asynchronous online teaching. When teachers find their "Fizz," that energy is contagious: boosting student engagement, reducing isolation, and even curbing the temptation to over-rely on AI. From building informal social connections to embracing tools like social annotation, this conversation is full of practical, human-centered strategies for making online learning feel a lot more like something worth showing up for.

Eric Mazur (00:16)

Thank you for joining us today for this episode on revitalizing the online teaching experience in the Social Learning Amplified podcast series. I'm your host, Eric Mazur, and our guest on the episode today is Flower Darby. Flower is a celebrated advocate for faculty well-being and effective teaching across all modalities. She currently serves as the Associate Director of the Teaching for Learning Center at the University of Missouri.

Her career is defined by a deep versatility, having held leadership roles as assistant dean of online and innovative pedagogies and director of teaching for student success. With over 30 years of classroom experience, ranging from psychology and technology to dance and pilates, Flower has a unique perspective on how to help both instructors and students thrive. She is the co-author of the widely acclaimed Norton Guide to Equity-Minded Teaching and the landmark book Small Teaching Online. Today, we are thrilled to get a preview of her brand new book, arriving this April, titled The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes. Flower, thank you for being here.

Flower Darby (01:33)

Eric, it is my true honor, delight and pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on the show.

Eric Mazur (01:38)

Well, the honor is mine really, Flower. To get started here, I love the metaphor "finding our fizz." In an era where so many educators feel flat or depleted, not because of what happens necessarily in their classroom, but because of the whole situation that we're finding ourselves in now. Why has it become so central to your mission to help online instructors actually enjoy the process of teaching again?

Flower Darby (02:07)

Well, I think it's because it is a key solution to persistent challenges that have plagued online teaching and learning for decades. And as the title indicates very clearly, I am focused specifically on asynchronous online classes, although the research, theory, and recommendations apply to synchronous online teaching as well as in person. But what we know about asynchronous classes in particular is that for many, many years, attrition rates have been higher in those classes. Some students fare worse than others and we know that students tell us that they feel that they struggle, that they are isolated. Also, the evidence is clear — faculty don't feel like they're flourishing in online classes. But what I have learned from the positive psychology theory that I present in the book, from an abundant amount of empirical evidence, is that when we as instructors enjoy our teaching experiences, that is contagious. It helps our students enjoy their learning, and research on positive emotions and thinking and learning productivity in general clearly indicates that all that enjoyment is going to lead to increased student learning and success. So we're going to address those attrition rates, but also again, promote faculty wellbeing and success as well. So that's why I think it's really important to think about the Fizz — how can we find that in what can otherwise feel like a lonely and isolating space?

Eric Mazur (03:37)

Yeah. So we often talk about student engagement, but you focus — as you just said — heavily on instructor well-being. Do you find that a flat or uninspired instructor is the primary, even if perhaps unintentional, bottleneck to a highly functioning social learning environment?

Flower Darby (04:01)

Well, I'm not sure I would go that far. What I did in this book is I just wrote and reflected about my own experience. So for many years of my 30-year career teaching, I taught only online. And that was wonderful. It gave me the flexibility that I needed to stay home with my young children. But my teacher self was really shriveling up and dying inside. And so I kind of share a little bit about how I found my Fizz as an online teacher to support my teacher self and my teacherly joy. And to your point, I'm a little bit uncomfortable with saying the flat instructor is the cause, but certainly we know that that emotional level of engagement is reciprocal, is contagious. And when I was struggling as an online teacher to really engage with my students, it didn't serve them very well at all.

Eric Mazur (04:53)

So you talk about missing ingredients in online classes that lead to a dreaded sense of collective isolation, both for the instructor and the students. What are those missing pieces? And why do so many asynchronous classes default to being dull, despite our best intentions?

Flower Darby (05:15)

Well, for me, the biggest missing ingredient from when I teach in person — and especially when I'm teaching in the dance studio — is fun. Online teaching and learning rarely felt fun to me. And I know that many students would agree that online learning doesn't feel fun. So again, that enjoyment, that excitement, that enthusiasm, that eager anticipation of "can't wait to get into class," which is what I experience when I'm teaching dance — I needed to find ways to cultivate that in online spaces. But the other missing ingredient is really meaningful connections between and among the people in our classes. And those two are closely interrelated. When we feel connected to and supported by other people in our online classes, we're going to enjoy, and quite frankly, have more fun in those classes.

Eric Mazur (06:03)

Yeah, I was also thinking — at the beginning of the pandemic, when we completely pivoted to online teaching, my class pivoted, you know, I had adopted a team- and project-based learning where students were learning by doing rather than by listening, so there were no lectures, there were no exams, it was a totally different class. And my class pivoted online remarkably easily, and the team-based — you just mentioned connections — the team-based aspect maintained really close connections between the students and the different teams. And as we were rotating the teams every month, they got exposed to different people in the class too. So in a sense, I was thinking as I was reflecting on the misery expressed by my colleagues, even those who generally were known to be good teachers, that the online teaching modality exposed all the failures of the traditional approach to teaching. They made something that was already bad, pedagogically speaking, much, much worse. And I was really hoping that it would be a turning point in education. Unfortunately, as soon as the pandemic went away, the incentive to innovate went away too. But I want to come back for a moment to this connection between students that I think is so important and that is not that hard to establish. But I'm sure that our listeners here will be really happy to hear an example from you on how to build a bridge over the isolation that happens online without drowning the instructor in extra work.

Flower Darby (07:50)

Yeah, really important consideration because we as instructors will not thrive if we create experiences for our students that, as you said, overwhelm or overload us. We have to prioritize our own well-being as step one in being joyful online or offline teachers. But, you know, really what I've found — and this is why I wrote this book — to your point, during the pandemic, I also hoped that, okay, we're going to shake things up and we can really retain some of what we learned, and higher education didn't necessarily do that. So in asynchronous classes specifically, I really focus on structuring social connections and ongoing social interactions. Many asynchronous classes have an introduction discussion forum. Mine do, I recommend that, but in many classes, that's the only time that there's a structured opportunity to just interact at a social level.

So I'm beginning to hear from more and more asynchronous instructors who have an ongoing weekly — or perhaps periodic — discussion board or post that has nothing really to do with the content. I'm inspired by folks who are bringing coaching principles into this sort of social café and asking students, "When you're at your best, what is it that you are doing?" or just really fun, light, trivial questions — like every week, maybe it's "What series are you binging right now?" or "What is one food that you're really enjoying?" Just even structuring that, adding, making it worth points because students are busy, is one recommendation to consider — just making a way and a place for informal social connections to happen in ways that can happen in a classroom and are much harder to do, but not impossible, in online classes.

Eric Mazur (09:35)

So, you know, when I first introduced peer instruction and the flipped classroom back in — boy, it's already 35 years ago, 1991, it's amazing — the goal was to move the focus away from the lecture and onto students' interactions with each other.

Flower Darby (09:47)

Goodness, yes.

Eric Mazur (09:54)

In an asynchronous online environment, do you think we are finally seeing the flip, so to speak, reach its full potential? Or is the lack of real-time presence a hurdle we haven't quite cleared yet?

Flower Darby (10:09)

I would say the second one. There is so much potential for learners to collaboratively instruct each other. And there are well-known frameworks — for example, the Community of Inquiry framework — that acknowledge the role that students have in shaping the learning experience for other students, much like your truly exemplary and groundbreaking model of peer instruction. In an online class, you can set that up. And that's one of the things that discussion boards do.

But I don't think we've really cracked the nut on at least consistently and reliably facilitating a meaningful dialogue, meaningful discourse in our online courses that often feel stilted and inauthentic. I love this analogy that I came across in a book several years ago: like square dancing without the music. So I think we have a ways to go. And that's how online discussions feel to a lot of people.

Eric Mazur (10:55)

That would not be fun. We can't talk about teaching today without addressing the significant threat AI poses to authentic learning and valid assessment in particular. And assessment is a theme that runs through most, if not all, of my podcasts. So how can we maintain authentic learning in an AI world without turning our courses into a series of digital surveillance hurdles — I'll call it?

Flower Darby (11:33)

Yeah, it really is a wicked problem as you and all of our listeners would agree, I'm sure, especially in asynchronous classes. Instructors are finding that students are — one instructor emailed me and she said, "My students are AI-ing the heck out of everything." So it's just too easy for students to use AI to outsource the work of learning, especially when we're using tired structures like asynchronous discussions. Now I'm a fan of those, but they have to be done well. And when we don't do those things, it makes it too easy to give in to the temptation to use AI. So I would argue that the best tool that we have in our teaching toolbox to mitigate the threat — not erase, not remove, but to meet the challenge of student overuse of AI — is in fact that personal connection that enhances motivation, caring about each other in our classes, caring about the instructor. We know from the psychology literature that that reduces the temptation to cheat. So really enjoying ourselves and feeling like we're in a community of learners and not wanting to let other people down — I believe that is the best tool that we have right now to address this challenge. And I also would argue that many, many people taking online classes know they need that modality to get the degree. They need that flexibility. They want to learn.

And so there are many people who choose to do that work of learning for themselves, and we can strengthen that motivation to make that choice when we really focus on meaningful social connections and, quite frankly, enjoying our experiences as well.

Eric Mazur (13:13)

Yeah, I want to get back to the social connections in just a second, but you mentioned several times your background in psychology, so I can't resist. You mentioned motivation — you can't imagine somebody buying a gym membership and then sending a robot to do the workouts. And yet, as you just mentioned, students are AI-ing the heck out of their assignments. Of course, health is important, fitness, but so is education. And in a certain sense, we could say it's even more important. And the fact of relying on AI is a clear indication that we're not correctly motivating our students. And I think part of the reason can be understood in the context of self-determination theory. We strip away students' autonomy, students' sense of community, and with the structure we impose on assessment through grades, we're not really giving them a feeling of growth either. So I think we really need to reanalyze education and the activities in the classroom — virtual or real — and in different assignments through the lens of self-determination theory. And I think we'd learn a lot with regards to the failure of our current educational approach in motivating students.

Flower Darby (14:39)

Yeah, SDT has so much potential, but as I'm sure you would agree, many faculty members have not been invited to consider that model, right? We don't do a great job of preparing professors to teach, but I would agree 100% — self-determination theory just has a lot to offer to meet the bigger challenges that we've been wrestling with in higher education for a long time.

Eric Mazur (15:08)

Yeah. So the community part, of course, is addressed by social connection, right? And I think that even before online teaching exploded, when I moved from peer instruction in an auditorium-based class to project- and team-based learning in a flat classroom around tables, and I wanted to transfer the information transfer that I'd done in the lecture before completely and effectively out of the classroom, I found that the best way to do that was through socially constructed knowledge, right? And that has survived, in a sense, the AI challenge by being AI-proof. In other words, let me be more specific here. What I'm referring to is what is done in Perusall, which is a social learning platform where students in real time or asynchronously collaboratively annotate either a recorded lecture or text or a textbook, and socially construct knowledge together in a sense by helping each other, by giving additional information and so on. And from an instructor point of view, the big value is that it makes thinking visible because you can see the thinking going on as the students exchange information with each other. So does your — let's call it Fizz philosophy — that's actually a new name: Fizzology. I don't know how to pronounce it. Encourage leaning into these more human-centric social assessments?

Flower Darby (16:51)

I love it. 100%, 1000%, and one of the most frequent recommendations that I make to folks who are teaching online is to engage in social annotation using Perusall, for example, because it's embedded right there in the text. I've already talked a little bit about how discussion forums can feel really inauthentic, but when students are annotating in the text itself or the recording, and to your point, they're helping each other learn, they're providing different examples — "This is what it looks like from my experience." That is a much more authentic way to help everybody learn and see different perspectives, to open up, to be more open, to be more tolerant. So yes, I love social annotation. I think it's one of the best solutions that we have for online teaching and learning right now.

Eric Mazur (17:50)

Wonderful. Well, I can tell you, I did it for in-person teaching, so it works there very well too, I can assure you of that. But during the pandemic, I really started to appreciate the benefit. And that's when Perusall user numbers started to go from 10,000 to 100,000 to millions. Now, as instructors look forward toward the release of your book next month, what is the primary message you want them to hold on to as they prepare for their next asynchronous term?

Flower Darby (18:17, 18:24)

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I think the best way to sum it up is that we need to center the people in our classes — starting with ourselves.

Eric Mazur (18:30)

Starting with ourselves, I like that. And that brings me to the topic of joy, right? Because in a sense, that's the underlying message in your book. And I think a lot of people, especially in research universities, enjoy teaching, but they primarily see their role at university as a researcher and advancing knowledge. And teaching doesn't come with the extrinsic rewards — it comes with the intrinsic reward of supporting other people, of course, but doesn't come with the extrinsic rewards that you have in your research. You get invited to conferences, you talk about it, you have publications, you get awards, and so on.

Is joy in teaching a luxury for the privileged instructor? I think I know the answer to this question, but I still want to hear it from you. Is it a luxury for the privileged instructor, or is it a fundamental requirement for effective pedagogy?

Flower Darby (19:32)

Absolutely, once again, answer B — it is a fundamental requirement. You know, again, we've alluded a couple of times to just the challenges that we find ourselves facing right now, unprecedented in my career in higher education. And it's also fair to acknowledge that many of our systems and structures put unfair restraints or constraints on faculty's ability to do these things. But as you were talking about research and scholarship — very, very important — in another part of my mind, I was thinking about the 25 years that I've taught at community colleges, where those kinds of limitations really aren't in play. When I speak to faculty who care deeply about their students, they love teaching. We're not here to do it for the money. It's because we love our students. We want them to be successful. And yes, I would argue that whether you have a major research component to your role or not, finding that joy is going to help us navigate these very difficult times that we find ourselves in.

Eric Mazur (20:37)

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And in a sense, what brings me also joy in my own teaching is the opportunity to innovate, the opportunity to take risks, the opportunity to try something rather than doing the same thing over and over again and doing it simply because it was done to me when I was a student. So I'm so happy that we could have this conversation about making teaching joyful. So Flower, thank you for bringing so much energy to this conversation. It's really a great reminder that our own excitement as teachers is just a powerful pedagogical tool.

So I would like to conclude by thanking our audience for listening and inviting everybody to return for our next episodes. On behalf of all our listeners, Flower, thank you again for joining us today.

Flower Darby (21:29)

Absolutely, Eric. You yourself are a groundbreaking thought leader in enjoying our teaching, in innovating to help our students. And I know for a fact, by the smile on your face, that this has brought you your Fizz when it comes to teaching. That's what we're encouraging folks to do as well.

Eric Mazur (21:46)

Absolutely. Well, thank you for those remarks. You can pre-order Flower's new book, The Joyful Online Teacher, through the University of Oklahoma Press website and other major bookstores. To find our Social Learning Amplified podcast and more, go to perusall.com/sociallearningamplified. Subscribe to find out about upcoming episodes and I hope to welcome you back on a future episode.

Flower Darby (22:13)

Thank you so much.

Eric Mazur (22:14)

Thank you, Flower.