Teaching the Working Adult Student
in Virtual Classrooms
A Nonviolent Communicative Approach to WASs
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Friday, October 21, 2016
Post 302
As stated by Laureate
Education (2016c), the most challenging situation one as a faculty member can
face in a virtual learning scenario is WASs’ “expectation of adaptation to the
modality of study or to the suggested methodology, especially in cases where the
new technologies are needed.” However, in spite of the challenge this may
represent, teacher leadership plays a transcendental key role to encourage
learners to be functional in a virtual Classroom and embrace the changes.
“Transformational
oriented teachers provoke changes in their students by making them conscious of
the importance and value of results obtained after carrying out assignments” (Laureate Education, n.d.) . A transformation is
sought by the instructor in every single WAS or traditional student in a
course; this transformation implies that any learner will work on the course
projects either to be submitted in print or to be delivered via the institution’s
LMS. However, there will be WASs may look like failing in adapting to new and
required technologies in a course. As Marshall
Rosenberg (2005) suggests, “allowing others the opportunity to fully express
themselves before turning our attention to solutions or requests for relief” is
a better idea than simply jumping into a solution. If this is moved into a
virtual classroom, let our students speak up their mind for us to show them our
empathic trasnformational leadership.
As posed
by Rosenberg (2005), “when we proceed to quickly to what people might be
requesting, we may not convey our genuine interest in their feelings and needs.”
Empathy for what they may be experiencing with new methodologies and suggested
methodologies for online learning environments cannot be demonstrated properly
if we leaders simply rush to finding a solution for the learner. Students “may
get the impression that we’re in a hurry to either be free of them or to fix
their problem” (Rosenberg,
2005) ;
they need to understand that we instructors are here to help them out when
these feelings of impotence arise, and they do not know exactly what to do and
how to mange the amount of stress they are suffering. Transformational
leadership in education needs to be directed towards, as pointed out by Rosenberg
(2005), offering learners “a chance to fully explore and express their interior
selves” and discover that they are fully equipped to learn in a virtual
environment in a more autonomous way while being guided by their instructor.
The transformational
leadership instructor can perfectly prepare his/her learners for the new
learning scenario once the initial “negative” feelings in their “interior
selves” have been soothed. WASs can be highly adaptive learners when a bit of
nonviolent communication is established with them, and we faculty members are
not supposed to underestimate their capability for adapting to new learning
situations if we have not offered them to speak up their minds (“explore and
express” their feelings). With a bit of transformational leadership aided and
boosted by nonviolent communication, WASs can face online, hybrid, or blended
education willingly, especially when they discover the flexibility this allows
them to organize their working and personal agendas along with their studying
tasks. And we can be certain of this when our students have “received adequate
empathy,” and “we sense a release of tension” or when “the flow of words comes to
a halt” (Rosenberg, 2005) .
What’s the advantage of
this learning scenario for WASs? Since by means of some nonviolent transformational
empathic leadership, the faculty member can motivate learners to be autonomous
and work on their personal, professional development beyond the class and
course content, and then see the practicability of what is being learned in
their working lives. The true transformational leader is not that individual “who
have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain [his] own
position or feeling” (Rosenberg, 2005) ; on the contrary,
this is an educator who is willing to empty his mind of any kind of
preconception towards WASs in an online environment and who is ready to listen
to show his empathy with the students who may find a virtual environment and
suggested methodologies difficult to follow and to adapt to.
Then after having
explored and expressed their emotions and realized of their own potential, what
happens to the WASs when they comprehend their autonomous learning role and the
importance of developing themselves beyond the classroom boundaries? They
understand the geographic dispersion is a way to cope with course learning
tasks and schedules; they can feel freer in this respect due to the flexibility
of calendar that a virtual environment offers them. Due to the nature of
virtual learning, the syllabus the WASs are exposed becomes personalized and
more diverse in its content and scope due to the intrinsic variety brought by
each learner and endorsed by the professor. Higher education for WASs turns
into fully learner-centered; the student becomes the transformational agent of
his/her own education and skill, competency developer due to its also intrinsic
capacity for reflection and re-elaboration of his/her own knowledge for their
working life. And all this can be simply achieved with the aid of nonviolent
communication channels where the students feel the empathy coming from their
instructor. “Bass (1998) believes that transformational teachers help their students
to successfully face conflictive or stressful situations by providing
self-assurance and tolerance before uncertainty” (Laureate Education, n.d.) .
Is virtual learning seen
as a way to lose control over WASs’ attendance to class? Many faculty members
do believe this is so. But is this really true? The fact is that just because
you do not see a learner sitting in a classroom, it does not mean that learning
is not taking place. Learning is not linear or geographical, and it does not
mean that we must have students in class for them to learn linearly and
chronologically. Education and its resulting process(es) have nothing to do
with a linear, geographical, and chronological cognitive process or phenomena;
it does take place beyond the bricks of a classroom and in schedules we may not
really consider for ourselves, but that are needed by people who cannot be with
us inside a classroom. And once these learners have overcome their virtual
scenario stage fright, we can allow them the chance to fully express themselves
and tell us whether the virtual experience has become rewarding and freeing for
them; then we can continue being empathic, nonviolent, transformational leaders
and teachers who can take students to the finish line: success.
References
Laureate Education. (n.d.). Excerpt from “A las aulas
con liderazgo”. Retrieved from Laureate Faculty Development:
http://global3.laureate.net/
Rosenberg,
M. (2005). Nonviolent Communication A Language of Life. Encinitas, CA:
PuddleDancer Press.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
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