"What do I care if they feel isolated taking my online course? They are there to learn."
This is a comment from a professor that attended one of the SLN workshops that I attended to watch the training. This one of the comments that stands out to me during my internship with SLN.
The discussion centered around the idea of having a space in your online course for the students to introduce themselves and get to know each other. This activity should be one of the first activities that take place in an online course. The reason is so you can get to know your classmates as you would in a traditional face to face classroom. In the classroom, you will say hello and introduce yourself to your neighbors. You might trade phone numbers or emails early in the semester in case you miss a class you can learn about important informatin that you missed. One of the principles of online learning is that you should mimic some things that happen in the traditional classroom. This is because many students report feeling isolated when they take an online class. So logic says the student will have a better learning experience if you make them feel less isolated.
Yet this professor in our training, new to online teaching, said who cares about feeling isolated. It was not his job to hold his students hands and make them feel warm and safe (now I am paraphrasing). His job, as the teacher is to teach and that is all.
Is this idea wrong? Immature? Or brutally honest? I do not agree with it. I think it is a teachers job ot make a student feel warm and safe if that is what is required to have that student learn more.
As I think back to all my college professors, a major one who stands out is someone who took me aside and asked me if everything was ok with my home life, with my friends. He did all this because I got a C on one of his exams. He made all his students who scored below a B- make an appointement with him during office hours to pick up your exam and talk to him. He wanted to know why you were not performing. And he cared.
Fast forward to today, while I complete all my graduate work through online classes, one thing that stands out to me is that I feel isolated. But not from the students, from the teachers. Sure they are quick to answer and email. But they seem absent from my day to day learning, most notably in online discussions. Yet they have an answer. They tell me " the research says", or that "there are two camps, I am in the camp that thinks teachers should not interupt a discussion". Learning needs to be guided.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
SLN ID Certification Course Part I Pedagogy VS. Skill
The bulk of my internship has been helping out inside the ID Certification course that SLN runs as a professional development course. Rob was really excited about the high level of dialogue going on in the class and I was also pretty excited to be given the opportunity to be a fly on the wall who was able to read and write up a review of some of the discussions.
In this blog post I would like to talk about my learning while reading the discussion titled Pedagogy and Skill Development. The question posed by the instructor of the certification course was, what is the perfect mix of pedagogy and skill development during a training workshop?
My first thought, without reading the participants responses was that training is all about skill development. But in reality I think the question was a trick because most discussion participants agreed that both were equally important. It is like asking what is more important learning how to use a hammer or learning in what situations you would need to use a hammer, you really need to know both.
One discussion comment really made me think. The author wrote that no matter how small the task when developing a course there is always some form of pedagogy that should be explained. The example used was about posting a syllabus. A pretty basic part of building any online class. But the author of the post wrote about the pedagogical component, that of WHERE to put the document and WHAT format you have the document in? It really made me realize that even the most basic aspects of course development and training cannot be overlooked, and ALL do involve pedagogy.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a faculty member the other day in regards to how he teaches his course. He teaches a transportation course and he teaches the concepts and knowledge that the student will need to use in a real job after the student graduates. The question was raised, how do you prepare students to use the knowledge they need for the job along with teaching them the technology side of what the job market requires. The professor argued that he does not teach the technology in class because that would be easy to learn on the job. That part I did not so much agree with but the next part I do. He said if he taught the technology aspect he would have to teach less concepts. The teacher experimented with both, concepts and technology and he has found greater benefit in teaching more concepts. I wonder how this relates to training online learning concepts?
Anothe aspect of the discussion of training was that people learn best by seeing examples. An instructor can teach about discussion forums and the right way to use them and pedgagy of using them, but seeing what a good and bad discussion looks like is vital.
In this regard, the SUNY Learning Network does a great job of providing exemplar courses for those learning about teaching online to view as the standard. I also like that some online learning programs allow students to view sections of an online course before they sign up for the course.
In this blog post I would like to talk about my learning while reading the discussion titled Pedagogy and Skill Development. The question posed by the instructor of the certification course was, what is the perfect mix of pedagogy and skill development during a training workshop?
My first thought, without reading the participants responses was that training is all about skill development. But in reality I think the question was a trick because most discussion participants agreed that both were equally important. It is like asking what is more important learning how to use a hammer or learning in what situations you would need to use a hammer, you really need to know both.
One discussion comment really made me think. The author wrote that no matter how small the task when developing a course there is always some form of pedagogy that should be explained. The example used was about posting a syllabus. A pretty basic part of building any online class. But the author of the post wrote about the pedagogical component, that of WHERE to put the document and WHAT format you have the document in? It really made me realize that even the most basic aspects of course development and training cannot be overlooked, and ALL do involve pedagogy.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a faculty member the other day in regards to how he teaches his course. He teaches a transportation course and he teaches the concepts and knowledge that the student will need to use in a real job after the student graduates. The question was raised, how do you prepare students to use the knowledge they need for the job along with teaching them the technology side of what the job market requires. The professor argued that he does not teach the technology in class because that would be easy to learn on the job. That part I did not so much agree with but the next part I do. He said if he taught the technology aspect he would have to teach less concepts. The teacher experimented with both, concepts and technology and he has found greater benefit in teaching more concepts. I wonder how this relates to training online learning concepts?
Anothe aspect of the discussion of training was that people learn best by seeing examples. An instructor can teach about discussion forums and the right way to use them and pedgagy of using them, but seeing what a good and bad discussion looks like is vital.
In this regard, the SUNY Learning Network does a great job of providing exemplar courses for those learning about teaching online to view as the standard. I also like that some online learning programs allow students to view sections of an online course before they sign up for the course.
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