RSA #4
Teachers Make the Move to the Virtual World
Katie Ash
Education Digest January 2011
One of the most essential elements to successful learning in an online or “distance” class is that the student feels a sense of belonging to a community. The topic of module 7 is this crucial component of community engagement. How are these relationships amongst students and teachers formed in a way that self-reflective, or transformative learning occurs? Palloff and Pratt (2007) suggest that expansive questioning can help engage learners. “Questions posed in the online environment need to be the jumping off point of a discussion promoting deep exploration of a topic and the development of critical thinking skills.” (p. 171). Another method of making the students partake in an integral way is the use of feedback. “The ability to give meaningful feedback, which helps others think about the work they have produced, is not a naturally acquired skill. It must be taught, modeled, and encouraged by the instructor.” (Palloff & Pratt, 2007, p.177) Other forms of collaboration my include resource sharing and collaborative writing. “Consequently, it is important that the instructor on an online course pay close attention to ways collaboration can be incorporated and facilitated throughout the course.” (Palloff & Pratt, 2007, p.183)
In her article from Education Digest, Katie Ash reports on how a few online teaching pioneers dealt with the issue of community engagement. Jim Kinsella, who first began teaching at what is now the Illinois Virtual School in 2001, feels that making the transition from a regular to an online class is about more than technology. he”requires students to initiate contact with him by phone or through Skype at least once a week.” (Ash, 2011) Matt Lozano, who works with the Virtual High School (VHS) Global Consortium, says the way his online courses are structured, the students are “being required to express themselves more than a lot of my kids in the fact-to-face classroom would.” (Ash, 2011) Liz Pape, who is the president of VHS, claims that her new online teachers “reported a greater emphasis on higher-order thinking skills in online discussions” as the “teacher is helping and fostering community, communication, and collaboration.” (Ash, 2011) Pape recommends the use of open-ended questions for more active engagement in online assessment.
As a science teacher, I was at first taken aback by Lozano’s comments on self-expression in the online class. How could those students possibly need to express themselves more than they would in my class by performing an experiment, documenting results and synthesizing a conclusion? As I read through the article, however, and linked it to this weeks readings, I see how that idea is logical. The types of questions posed by an online instructor can indeed push the students’ responses into higher level thinking, as Pape and Palloff & Pratt, believe. Additionally, the feedback given and received in a distance class is crucial to success. Having gone back and read comments and postings made by me and by other members of this class truly makes me think we were not taught how to respond to each other in ways that could actually launch a discussion. Again, as Palloff & Pratt say, “it is not a naturally acquired skill.” Perhaps we need to be saying less, “I really like...” and more “Have you considered...”
References:
Ash, K. “Teachers Make the Move to the Virtual World.” Education Digest, January, 2011. Vol 76
Issue 5, p32-34.
Palloff, R., and Pratt, K. Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom. (2nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossy-Bass.
