Valle del Zamorano, Honduras - Photo by Fernando Carranza
What I Feel I
Have Learned about Working Online
By Prof. Jonathan
Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Thursday, May 10,
2018
Post 318
I’ve
been working online for about four years already, and each time I start a new
course with a group of learners, I start with an open mind towards what I am
about to face and experience with a new cohort of learners. All groups of
students are different in terms of attitudes, skills, disposition to work
collaboratively, and so on; I cannot say that I have had the same kind of
experiences with all of groups I have had all these years as an online
instructor. However, despite all challenges one can bump into while teaching
online, the fact is that working online
has helped me develop skills and competences I never thought I could have when
I started “my” life first as an online student and then as an online instructor.
What
kind of skills have I developed in these four fruitful years as an instructor?
Among them I must highlight the importance the instructor has to put on the
written word detached from any other visual or auditory cues such as gestures
and tone of voice. Writing cannot be felt coercive by learners but needs to be
perceived as if prompting them to be proactive for their own learning. It is
also transcendental to comprehend the significance of student praise and
formative feedback to help learners develop their own skills with the “manipulation”
of new content and knowledge, which is gained through good
instructionally-designed learning tasks. Student encouragement is also
essential in online courses, and it is vital for the support and motivation
that pupils in class need from us. The weight that course expectations has in
course results is another learned lesson working online. Not defining for
learners what they can wait from me as an instructor, and not letting them know
what it is expected from them as students can drive us into a dead-on street
full of frustration. Dealing with frustration in one’s job as an educator is
not new for any of us; why don’t we try to minimize the impact that frustration
can have in our teaching lives?
And
what about “learning agendas” for a week’s work? Isn’t this another lesson
learned while working online? At least for me, this was one of those other
pieces of learning I have acquired while working in virtual learning
environments (VLEs). An agenda needs to be very well-defined for students so
they know what they have to do anytime, anywhere within a given time period and
specific deadlines. Believe me, learners are learners no matter what kind of
medium is being used; in a F2F or in a virtual course our students behave in
the same way, if you understand what I mean. And like any other pupil of yours
or of mine, they can undergo difficult or tough moments, so one needs to be
compassionate and flexible depending of the circumstances. All of us have those
moments in life when a helping hand in needed especially since the purpose of
instruction is learning and not just providing pupils with a numerical grade.
Providing learners with some human bond and some time-management tips to cope
with online work can come handy for many of them especially when they have
never been part of an online course.
For
sure, one can conclude that online teaching expertise is only gained when you
have been on both sides of the VLE equation. One cannot start being an online
instructor overnight; one needs some good coaching to transition from the
regular F2F teaching one is accustomed to having to a virtual “reality” where
other skills, beyond the technological ones, are needed to deal with class
interaction, socialization, tutor presence, praise, and so on. Being a student
in an online course is another part of the transition one needs to undergo to
help us abandon the old education paradigm that learning takes place only when
we have students sitting down in front of us within four walls.
Journal
Entry 01 - BlendIt Course
Thursday, May 10, 2018
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