What I’ve Learned
This course has taught me a great deal about myself and about online teaching. The first thing I’ve learned is that I need structure, deadlines, and clear expectations. Alex had provided those and for the most part, it’s been helpful. I am taking another online course in which the expectations are far more nebulous and deadlines are extremely broad. I have not been successful because I’ve allowed far too much to wait until the last minute. That’s certainly a commentary on myself as much as anything else, but I plan on providing structure to my students because I see how much it’s helped me.
Technically, I’ve also learned a number of new skills. For example, I had no idea how to use Voicethread or Jing prior to this course. The fact that I was able to successfully implement them in my course development is a testament to how well I was trained. I also learned so much about best practices – particularly in online teaching but even in f2f teaching. For example, the structure of an online course, the fact that so much needs to be prepared ahead of time, the fact that different techniques for assessment and instruction have to be implemented was quite foreign to me before this course. Understanding the flow of online course, how it is designed and implemented, and even what tools are available has shed light on a realm of education that I had previously been in the dark about.
One of things that came out of online teaching is the need for rubrics and crystal clear expectations. Though I’ve always used rubrics, the level of detail required for an online course where the instructor isn’t in your face everyday is far greater. I came to realize that rubrics in my f2f class should be far more extensive and detailed. I’ve already begun working on one to access in-class discussion and class participation.
Finally, I think if I was to say that anything hindered my learning it would be that there were far too many different activities happening at one time. I’ve voiced this concern before but in the design of my course I eliminated things like Diigo, blogs, and limited the number of required responses to a discussion. In an absolutely perfect world, I’m not sure that was the best thing to do. Nevertheless, I believe ability of a typical high school student to focus requires that less things happen all at once. There were many times that I was frustrated and remember thinking I had just done a ton of work (like tonight) for the course and then realized I had one more things to do – like this damn blog!!!
At any rate, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve had my moment of frustration with this course, but what I will take away from it is so much more than any all-nighter I might have put in. I now feel confident to teach my own online courses and hope to begin implementing a hybrid online program in the 2010-2011 school year. This class has given me that kind of confidence and I’m all the better for it. (3)
