Part 1 Reflections

Part 1 Reflections

Hard to believe it is at the end of part one for the Role of the Online Instructor. I feel I have learned so much. First, we discussed the differences between being a teacher online versus face to face, or traditional. With online teaching there are many differences, such as that the student takes on an active part in learning versus passive. They become problem solvers versus just learning facts, they see topics in several ways, they seek out their own individual answers, and they become more independent, to name a few. Teachers meanwhile become experts in certain topics, they understand that all students are different (and need to be treated as such), and they become resources for learning versus just spouting facts. This begs the question “how does a teacher become an expert?” There are several ways but one of the main ways is being facilitating a course. For example, in this class we will have to do a presentation about the topic in a way that will use both asynchronous and synchronous, which is a way of saying happening at the same time, such as using Blackboard collaboration or as students can, such as responding on discussion boards.

I like that we will have to respond to our classmates as if we were experts already and will have to create a session using technology we would use if we were teaching. I will do my first session this Wednesday and am looking forward to doing this but a bit scared as well because it is new. I hadn’t thought of asynchronous and synchronous, but it makes sense that there is one dynamic for talking at that moment versus later and at a time when not everyone is online. One is written work and one is speaking so the dynamics will change as well.

With learning how to facilitate there was an emphasis on four factors of online teaching: The pedagogical role, the social role, the managerial role and the technical role. The pedagogical role can be explained as the art of teaching. It was explained that as people become more experienced, the art changes Teachers work with various teaching strategies to see what works and what doesn’t. For example, planning is a great strategy for online teaching and really thinking about what should be said and what should not. The next idea we discussed was the social role. In this lesson we discussed using social media such as Facebook to create a class. I was impressed by how many subjects can use social media and how many purposes Facebook has for online teaching. The third part is the managerial role. On this lesson we really learned the ideas of what makes a good instructor, such as making sure you get to “know” the students (even if you never meet them) and responding to them in a timely matter. Email is especially important for communication in online classes, especially in the case is being detailed. Fourth, we are learning the technical ways, which is described as the way’s courses are created. Since I have done this, it makes sense, but good to know as technologies change often, such as website design.

Thinking about all of this makes me realize that there is more work to becoming an online teacher than in person. For example, if a student doesn’t understand something online it will require emailing them and possibly creating different ways of learning. Out of the four factors, the one that I had to learn more about what was pedagogical role, because I hadn’t considered that. I knew instructors use social media and I know they need to be professionals, but I hadn’t really considered the art of it before. I also hadn’t considered the idea that the teacher must play several roles, including being an expert in several ways, such as technology and having managerial skills. They must take everything in consideration to create a great class and be available often for the students.