Climbing the ladder for online teaching certification one step at a time.
Part two of ONTL 651 has been a delightful experience. It started off with a lesson on pedagogy which is the art or science of teaching. Then we went into synchronous and asynchronous teaching. I appreciate both types of teaching styles. I believe my creative will blossom in online teaching with repeated exposure. Asynchronous includes such things as lecturette, readings materials and discussion board. The discussion board assignment is designed to evaluate students understanding of the materials. The instructor’s presence on the discussion board is paramount to the survival of the students. That doesn’t mean that a comment has to be made to every student. I see myself have good dialogue with the students adding to their learning experience and them adding to mine. Synchronous sessions are available depending on what learning system your school utilizes. We use both Wimba and Blackboard Collaborate. The live session is a time to have conversation between students and instructor. Live sessions can be challenging for the distant learner. Therefore, timing is important and they should not all be mandatory. People have busy lifestyles and that is usually why they take online classes.
Managerial role was presented from two angles setting the stage and the other was managerial role throughout the semester. What I took away from both of these is to stay focused, be organized, make it about the student and have fun. Yes have fun there is no reason why learning should not be fun even for the instructor. The technical role has always been my greatest concern. I’m happy to report that with each and each session I am getting more and more comfortable with technical things. Some technical things are out of the instructor’s control, like problems with the software. Part two definitely added to more limited knowledge of online teaching. The more I learn the more I like the idea of teaching online classes.
