Some
semesters, I forget. When I get panicked emails at the beginning of the
semester, wondering “what do you want?” in a blog or “how long is a peer post
supposed to be?” Or “what is a Wiki?” and “how the H am I supposed to reduce my
photo or embed a video clip?” Not to mention, “where is the Add Mashup button,
I can’t find it?”
There
are moments when I am overwhelmed by all of the details and “to-dos” at the beginning
of the semester, when I want to respond to one-line emails with a terse, “Read
your Syllabus.” Or “Watch my video tutorial.”
But
I muster up some patience and a generous dollop of diplomacy. Because I do
remember what it was like to be a student. I am reminded of it whenever I take
a class or a workshop, especially online. There are new formats, requirements
and expectations -- elements that can be difficult to understand on the basis
of written instructions alone.
I
have to admit, it can trigger the same sort of annoyance and frustration that I
see in my students. “Where am I supposed to find that?” Or “I can’t do that!”
So
it was when I signed up for the Technology in Teaching class taught by our
spectacular TELS group (Todd Conaway, Thatcher Bohrman, and Stacey Hilton)
several summers ago. Somehow, Todd had persuaded me to take EDU 255 convincing
me it would be “fun,” and that I would learn a great many things (um, sort of like this 9x9x25 blog challenge ;-) But I was
also teaching two classes at the time and wasn’t sure that I was entirely
committed.
I
remember my objections to learning Jing and how to make a YouTube video, let
alone writing a blog and creating a wiki. I didn’t understand why I needed to
do all of this work! I had enough on
my plate and this was summer!! But
with the gracious patience of Todd, Thatcher and Stacey, I learned -- and my
repertoire of technology in teaching skills was forever transformed.
I
still try to take a class every now and then, to stay fresh…and remind myself
what it’s like to be a student. And to those of you who wait until the last
minute and turn things in just under the wire….well, I get you. At least you
beat the deadline.
###
"Patience" in all things. That includes work and studies. I think anyway.
ReplyDeleteBack when I was involved in Aikido I recall paying close attention to trying to things as others might see them. You know, walking a mile in another person's shoes and all. I don't think that it is something you can do once. We have to repeatedly place ourselves in the space of another to understand. For teachers, I imagine that means being a student.
We are anyway in the big picture, but intentionally taking a class and experiencing it as a learner is a great way to walk that mile.
We shall just have to do another edu 255 type class!
I really enjoyed reading this post! And as an instructor, I have also experienced similar scenarios with students who tried my patience. "Read the syllabus" - LOL - as I've often said myself.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to put yourself back into the Student's POV, to experience your class as a student would, and heighten your awareness of the learning environment you are creating... it's another thing to change or re-design our courses to better accommodate some of these oversights and barriers that our students experience. This can be a lot of work... right?!
I love that you take classes to keep the Student POV fresh! I think that keeps us current as instructors and connected to the student experience.
I'd love to know ways you've taken these lessons and applied them to your courses - to help make the student experience run smoother. Tips? Tricks? Best practices?
Thanks for the post!
:)
Biray
(Exercise Science Adjunct Faculty @ MCC)
I think you also have to remind yourself as a community college instructor you are working with many students who are taking this class on top of everything else in their life. Although various scholars/researchers have increasingly told us there is no such thing as multitasking, our culture still promotes it as a way of being for successful citizens/workers in the 21st century. In short, like Biray said (hey Biray!), work to understand that as the framework students are working from and develop courses to support that.
ReplyDeleteSome things I've found myself doing over the years to help with that is:
1.having a welcome/course orientation screencast video for the digital learning environment (even for f2f classes).
2. constructing course "help" discussion board areas so that folks can ask the questions to everyone and learn the answers. And when someone emails me, I post the question and answer there and respond via email to look at the DB.
3. be up front about my understanding of how learning works (of course based on research/scholarship) and how my teaching is designed to support that understanding.
4.and most recently I'm sharing with students (esp. my graduate students, many of whom teach/work and teaching focused institutions) the ways I am continually trying to learn, what I do when I'm needing help/working through problems, and most importantly how I am setting up my communities of support and practice (shout out to groups like CyberSalon) in ADVANCE and/or as part of the life long learning process.
For example, I tell them whenever I tinker with technology I try to do a little something new as a way to continuing learning/growing my skills. As with this post, where I incorporated Ordered Link HTML tags and was taught by Google that is not allowed in Blogger replies! ;-)
I'll stop rambling now...