So, the title above is a bit of a preminision. I have yet to
teach an online course and so have yet to encounter the challenges and joys of
teaching students in a virtual world. Judging from the stories some shared
during our F2F session and my own anticipated fears of online learning, I
predict that it can be a challenge to engage or even connect with some
students. And to be honest, this makes me sad because it is the opportunity to
engage and connect with students in writing classes that made me enjoy and love
teaching. I fear that teaching online would be similar to teaching in a black
box, not knowing when the light (or student) will flash a light signaling their
presence.
Additionally, I believe it was Megan who said that from her
own experience it can be just as difficult for the teacher to feel attached and
connected to the online class – often times needing to force oneself to “check
in” on the class in a sort of Big Brother type of way. These fears/anxieties
have made me then question how to better connect and engage with those
students. Yet, the tool reviews that were presented and the scaffolding of
activities/assignments that we discussed during our F2F session I think will
better prepare me to make contact in that black box of students.
So above is my little predictive rant about online students,
but then who are my students that sit in a classroom and make F2F contact?
Well, the majority of them are college freshman. Young, sometimes nervous,
sometimes overly confident. Knowing this, I purposefully try to structure my
student-teacher interaction in ways that attempt to fight through the
nervousness and issues of confidence in order to start working on a leveled
field. Thus, I have my students write throughout the semester about a community
that they belong to. This provides students the chance to connect with a
community that may no longer be close to them (because they are now living at
MSU) and it also provides a chance for their peers and myself to get to know these
students. As such, while many of the goals of the class focus on writing and
peer review, one “secret” goal is to form our own community – a place for
engagement, interactive learning and overall support.
Now, this “secret” goal is unique to the fact that I teach
freshman. Thus, the same goal would not work if I taught a more advance level
of students, say juniors or seniors. But because these students are babies to
the university world, I feel it my task and duty to assist in that transition and
build an internal support system to encourage future learning goals. Therefore,
part of my task in designing an online course for this same set of students
will be to encourage the development of the same type of connectedness and
support that naturally appears to occur due to F2F interactions.
A benefit of teaching freshman is that many of them quickly
adapt to the use of technology in the classroom and typically enjoy the use of
technology. These students have grown up with technology their whole lives and
its use and educational application is a natural extension of their daily practices.
They use Facebook (normally they are on Facebook even during class), twitter, Photoshop,
iMovie, Google docs, Google chat, Google email, Google anything… These students
have grown up with their fingers attached to a keyboard. This is why transitioning
to teaching an online class is an interesting task. These students have grown
up their whole lives naturally attached to screens and keyboards, clearly they
will be comfortable learning and using technology. My concern/anxiety is will
they be too comfortable? Is the fact that they are online and don’t necessarily
need to show up everyday make my task 100x hard? Yes, I believe so. Thus, when
I begin to design units for online spaces my goal will be geared to these
students who will be able to easily use technology but may find it a forum to “hang
out” in the class instead of “critically engage” in the class. Spending time
with scaffolding, utilizing effective tools, and figuring out how to ‘decenter’
the online space will all be crucial steps to insure an engaged and lively interactive
learning atmosphere. Doing so, I hope to avoid asking the question “Where You
At?”.
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