In a weekend full of resonating messages, some of you will have found this Barb Ganley post on your own and I wonder how many of you found THIS paragraph particularly poignant, given your experiences with this class.
bgblogging: And the teacher learns that we may be missing a huge point…
It is very very difficult to walk into a classroom like mine when everything else in students’ academic experience follows a different, and teacher-centric, model. It takes a lot of work (and determination) to help them understand that it’s okay that I will not lecture at length on the writers we read or the elements we analyze or the techniques they explore, nor will I provide them with the kind of feedback (i.e.my pen all over their papers) to which they have grown not only accustomed but on which they have become dependent. I will not tell them what they have to write about, or how. I will not respond to their posts on blog. I will not be solely responsible for their course grades. But I will question, push, explain, encourage and give them feedback one-on-one. As I often remark, students are in a bit of a freefall for the first weeks, thinking I have no idea how to be a teacher, and I have to stand by, reassuring them that this is fine, this is good, in fact.
You’re not alone, and just because the course is online, it’s not any reason to expect that you’d get anything terribly different from me if it were a classroom based course because — everybody chant:
All education is at a distance.
November 19th, 2007 at 11:36 am
I can see the similarities between this blog and our class. I can relate to those first weeks of trying to figure out how to just get my blog and aggregator working properly. Now, I have no issues with those two tools. I understand what she means by students getting used to one form of instruction and being completely blindsided by something new. I often questioned whether this was a good idea teaching instruction this way, but now I understand that it all has meaning and in the end I am better off. I have learned many things this semester through this method of instruction. Whether in the classroom or online: ALL EDUCATION IS AT A DISTANCE. {That was my chant voice, lol:)}
November 20th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Really interesting. It does describe the different approach to the classroom, whether F2F or online. However, I would have to say, the one thing that we have gotten in this class is constant feedback. That’s good because I think many of us would have quit if we didn’t have the constant encouragement to keep trying. Like Lee said, those first few weeks with all the new tools was frustrating, but I feel we had support. As Barbara says, there is no red ink on papers, but the communication is there to question and encourage.
November 25th, 2007 at 12:24 am
I personally have enjoyed the procedure, or lack there of some might say, of this class. I can see this approach being used in Language Arts classes. I have trouble thinking of how you can teach Math in this way. I believe students need to explore as much as possible, but I don’t know how you leave them alone and truly expect them to learn upper level Math… and maybe my lack of experience leaves me confused. I mean I can see kind of standing back and letting students explore a lot in a Science class, I just have trouble putting that model into a Math class.