In general, one struggle I have is combining my slap-dash incomplete knowledge of pedagogy with my knowledge of how to use online tools to build relationships. As I learned all too well in my first years in grad school, understanding material and being good at explaining it isn’t all there is to being a good teacher. The same is true with my online experience: I can make a blog or combine text, images and video to get a point across. I have made friends and had intellectual discussions online successfully. But doing those things in voluntary spaces and doing them as a college instructor are not the same. What does it mean to “show up and teach” online?
One big difference I noticed came up in several of the resources in this module is that the work of designing course activities must occur before the semester begins, so the hour or so (depending on the course and my experience teaching it) preparing before a class meeting looking for good examples and thinking about how to make that 50 or 80 min worthwhile is work that will already be done in an online course. Instead, online instructors spend a lot of their time interacting with students in discussion boards and responding to questions and providing feedback. I suppose those are the things I do in that classroom time, but maybe in a more concentrated way.
Thinking about how to do online instruction well makes me also think about other contexts where I’ve learned and built relationships online. I don't know that I have much to add to what the resources provided suggest. Frequent interaction in a place where you feel safe to share your ideas and build on others is important. I know as a professor, just like as a blogger, I can do something to provide safe spaces for conversations and topics that students want to weigh in on so they can build up to more complex or difficult material later in the semester. I also wonder, when we think about community, how as an instructor I can encourage the kind of responses I want and discourage inappropriate responses subtly. As a blog owner, if I don't like somebody's tone, I'm fine with just deleting the comment and not worrying about the poster or his/her motivation. As an instructor, I need to work harder to maintain the relationship with the student and help him or her see what I am looking for. I'll also need to find ways to encourage a variety of folks to contribute instead of catering to an audience that is more self-selected.
Bethany, you are so right about one big difference in teaching online as opposed to F2F - the way you spend your time. I found that preparing an online course is a lot of work. I also wanted to follow the good advice I got and make sure the entire course was good to go before it even opened up to students. When I taught my first online course, I know the course itself was ready, but then I don't think I was fully prepared for how much time I still had to spend responding to students, evaluating their work and giving them valuable feedback, allowing for redoing work, and just making sure that everyone understood and was participating. I was very glad that all the prep work was done upfront.
ReplyDeleteI found a few times when students posted something I didn't really like or that seemed to have some deeper negative undertones, I ended up emailing and then even calling them on the phone to talk personally to one person.
I love your phrase "slap-dash incomplete knowledge of pedagogy"--that is very much my state of knowledge as well. And I sympathize with your sentiments about being able to do the technological stuff on a voluntary basis but it's different to do it while teaching. I feel fortunate that I had a good model for online teaching while in grad school (and if I'd known I'd be in a position where that mattered, I'd have taken notes on what he did that gave me the impression it was a well-done course!).
ReplyDeleteAs far as inappropriate responses go, I like Rick's comment about contacting the person directly. It also makes me think of the debates about pseudonyms and anonymity that have come up with various social networks and the argument that having to use one's real name makes one less likely to say outrageous things online (personally I'm not convinced, but some have made the claim). I don't think the issue of inappropriate comments ever came up in an online course I took, but I do wonder... if the feeling of community in a course is strong enough, will the participants then feel comfortable holding each other accountable for inappropriate comments? (Basically, will the person's classmates call them out on it? I've been called out on things by people in my own online circles before, but I'd known some of them for years, so I don't know if that level of familiarity would occur in an online course setting.)
Bethany, you raise an important question – how ought we to police what students say within an online environment given that people still sometimes treat the internet like it's a Wild West without rules or simply because students are inexperienced, young, etc.? It seems to me that it will be important to stress that a course objective is always to help people learn how to interact conscientiously and constructively with each other. If this is in the syllabus and highlighted somehow, then, at least, the instructor can invoke the principle when pushing a student to do better in this area and turn this into a learning opportunity for everyone who is participating in the discussion. But I think that when a student goes off the rails and says something truly out of place (I can think of some great examples!), I think Rick’s approach of contacting a student privately is a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI am also contemplating how to encourage good/thoughtful responses and discourage negative responses.
ReplyDeleteI am teaching a hybrid course this upcoming semester and the students are responsible for blogging about their social work field experiences and then commenting on each others blogs. I have the benefit of this online course meeting in person part of the time so community will be built there (they also have had many classes together leading up to this class). But I want my students to ask good questions and not only encourage one another (encouragement is great, but I also want thoughtful questions).
So I am also thinking about how to encourage thoughtful responses. I echo comments above mine that discuss contacting negative comments privately. I hope to have less of that in my social work classes, they are a good group, but it is possible and I need to be prepared to deal with it.