If you're just learning to teach online, or even if you've been doing it for a while, it's wise to take advice from someone. Whether you're reading this blog for advice, or you're reading a book about teaching online, or you're working with an instructional designer, or you're simply listening to you're own personal muse--the listening you're doing is important.
As teachers, we get very caught up in the way we like to do things, or the way we've been doing them all along. And for good reason--we are getting caught up in what we know works. We're following our instincts.
But moving to online teaching might mean that our instincts about what works in the classroom don't work as well. Of course, many fundamental teaching instincts do in fact apply to online learning environments. There are new instincts to develop, though.
That's where the listening comes in. You may have been asked to work with an instructional designer to get your course or your teaching techniques ready for online delivery. It may frustrate you to have to work with an instructional designer, given that you've been teaching for a while. Just remember that they're not here to tell you what you don't know--they're here to give you ideas. Listen to those ideas, and seek out others--in books, in professional development opportunities, in blogs like this--wherever!
And just listen for a little while.
1 comment:
After making the "Listen to Your Coach" post earlier today, i came across this from an interview with Carole Twigg in EDUCAUSE Review:
EDUCAUSE REVIEW | July/August 2004, Volume 39, Number 4 : "Q: Leaders in the field of technology have suggested that experts or professors at the top of their field should be designing the content of online classes. Are these experts the best instructors?
TWIGG: The way that issue generally gets expressed is that professors are experts vis-à-vis the content but that instructional designers and others should work on other aspects of the course. I think the biggest problem of faculty is that they may be experts in their subject matter, but they’re not necessarily experts in learning theory. So we need to pay closer attention to the ways in which students learn and to how technology can be useful in assisting in that process. Again, faculty shouldn’t try to do this by themselves or think that they’re the be-all and end-all in terms of their own expertise. They should collaborate with others, because a tremendous amount of learning can result when those collaborations occur."
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