Reflection: Comparing
Experiences with Other Faculty Members at a Different Laureate University
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña
Solano
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post 206
By comparing my online, hybrid,
blended learning/teaching experiences with other colleagues, I feel honored to
share a bit of what I have gotten to know with them. Though I cannot consider
myself a fully-developed online instructor, my empirical work for more than
seven years so far is giving me a different standpoint in terms of training and
my LoTi (Levels of Technology Integration) level (LOTI Levels of Technology Integration, n.d.) . I have –several
times- suggested colleagues of mine and other faculty members to get to know
the LoTi Profiles to self-evaluate themselves and to get to know a bit more of
their students. Just because our student seem to be 21st Century
learners, it does not really mean they are at that technological level to
embark themselves into online learning.
When I compare my experiences with
other members of this Laureate Certificate, I get to see how several partners
have already worked somehow or have gained extensive experience at an online
level with university students. It looks like, from my standpoint, that their
learners and mine are not that different though we live in very contrasting
parts of the world. Yet our pupils’ willingness to continue building up their
knowledge is a characteristic all of them share, whether that is in a
traditional classroom setting or in virtual learning environment. And their
desire to keep on learning deeply is what fuels us to continue training
ourselves a bit more to be better prepared and equipped to face the challenges
of online teaching scenarios, asynchronous or synchronously.
All of us Laureate Faculty Members
from various universities scattered all across the globe have valued the
important teachings we have been provided throughout the Certificate so far with
all of our Instructors, who have extended their hand to give us the guidance
needed to complete tasks though we face trouble with meeting deadlines. Somehow
we may say that our online instructors have become role models to copy and to
improve; as we had to discover our teaching style in a traditional four-walled
classroom, we also must explore our online, hybrid, or blended teaching style.
And that exploration through our instructors has been, for many of us, one of
the most important aspects of the Certificate; we have realized how our online
instructors behave with class members, how they provide us with timely feedback
and assistance, and how they have helped us to come all this way in our
learning and professional development. Online teaching is not what we think of
from afar; once one is in a virtual classroom it is the ripe time to really
uncover what virtual teaching is all about.
This time around, all of us have come
to witness the importance of synchronous tools to stay in touch with our
learners. It would have been nice, as a final remark, that we could have had
the chance to meet with Certificate instructors to also see how a valuable tool
to secure one’s social presence and teaching presence can be effectively used.
Laureate’s Certificates are asynchronously delivered due to the great array of
time zones in which fellow faculty members live in and work on. The online
experience may have been radically different if we had also been exposed to
synchronous communication tools.
References
LOTI Levels of Technology Integration. (n.d.). Retrieved from Educational Origami:
http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/LOTI
Saturday, November 07, 2015
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