from Judith McDaniel

         I read an article this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education call “Combating Myths About Distance Education.” 

myth slayer!

I liked it a lot and sent it to some colleagues who would like to teach online.  One is in the process of preparing her first course.
          I skimmed the article (see last week’s blog!) and sent it on.  “Great,” was her response.  “It will help.”  I didn’t think about the title much until I had time this weekend to read the article carefully. 
          Todd Gillman is an academic librarian at Yale and he also teaches online. In this article, he addresses up front some of the slurs and put downs that he hears from academics who only teach “face to face.”  But the bulk of his article—the part where we combat those slurs—is to offer advice for instructors who want to make the transition from in person teaching to online teaching.  Organization and course design are the basics for an instructor.
          But what about the students?  They “have to be up to the challenge of learning online, meaning that there is a level of maturity required that is less necessary in a physical classroom.”  He makes an argument I have used to justify to my department why I am only meeting my class in person two days a week and requiring an online discussion forum for the third meeting. In face to face classes, students can skip or “sit passively like baby birds awaiting a worm from Mother, thereby forcing the instructor to do the heavy lifting required to make the course engaging.”  In the online discussion, I only have to be engaging once:  when I create the Discussion assignment.  Then they each have to participate to receive a score for that week’s discussion.  No sitting in the back of the room waiting for someone else to do the work. 
          Organizing and designing the course to demand those kinds of responses from students are part of best practices.  So is giving clear instructions so that we don’t have to repeat ourselves over and over. 
          In his next column he promises to write about assignments that work well online versus those that work best face to face.  I’ll be watching for that.