Our first time: two higher education tutors reflect on becoming a ‘virtual teacher’ (original) (raw)
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Literally Virtual: The Reality of the Online Teacher
Springer eBooks, 2015
Teachers new-and not so new-to online teaching inevitably relate their experiences to those from the physical classroom, drawing on an existing repertoire of pedagogical practices. In creating comparisons, they are likely to invoke the idea of the real course, or what happens in the real world. We still hear teachers and students talking about taught versions of courses versus online versions, as though the latter were not taught. We have also heard people observe that there are problems with online courses because teachers do not have the visual cues available in the real one and might not even know whether their students are who they claim to be. This kind of defi cit statement immediately positions anything happening online as naturally inferior to the real-world classroom, implying also that such problems of relatedness do not arise in the face-to-face situation. There seems to be a default assumption in some literature that online learning is an isolated (and possibly isolating) experience for students. This may stem from frequently-cited studies suggesting that Internet use can lead to loneliness and depression (Kraut, Patterson, Lundmark, Kiesler, & Mukopadhyay, 1998) revisited and reassessed subsequently in Kraut et al. (2002). Such a negative view of the virtual does not accord with our own experiences and attitudes to online courses, either as teachers or students. We are more persuaded by the view that the nature of the Internet is primarily social and driven by the need to communicate rather than provide content (Joinson, 2003). However, we have been involved in online courses for some years. We do understand the concerns: we even
Virtual teachers: Negotiating new spaces for teaching bodies
In 2002 the authors reviewed the educational performance of a state education department virtual schooling service during its first two years of operation . Established by Education Queensland, the Virtual Schooling Service (VSS) utilises synchronous and asynchronous online delivery strategies and a range of learning technologies to support students at a distance (see http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/vss/). The service commenced with a focus on senior secondary subjects. At present, there are over 700 students in 89 schools across the state enrolled in 9 subjects. In response to the recommendations of the study, a series of professional development activities were conducted with the VSS teachers by the authors. Opportunity for critical reflection was provided, including consideration of the ways in which the teachers were developing as a learning community. Some data, including visual representations, were collected from participants with the purpose of understanding how VSS teachers are constructed as professionals. This study compares and contrasts that data with self-constructions of teacher professionals in other fields.
From ‘Good Teaching’ to ‘Better Teaching’: One Academic’s Journey to Online Teaching
Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 2016
For many educators, the adoption of learning technologies as part of a ‘technology-enhanced’ approach to learning and teaching implies change. Technology takes on a disruptive role. Therefore, it is important to understand the pedagogical commitments associated with current practices in order to better understand any change implied by the use of particular technology ‘enhancements’. This article reports on a case study of the change experienced by one tertiary educator in the shift from successful on campus to flexible online teaching in an undergraduate Numeracy course. The study addresses the question: How do teaching academics translate a robust, proven on-campus course into a successful, flexibly delivered technology-enhanced course? The case employs an autoethnographic approach to recording and analysing the educator’s experiences to highlight comparisons between on-campus (face-to-face) and online teaching practices. The findings support the conclusion that ‘good teaching is g...
The Decentered Teacher and the Construction of Social Space in the Virtual Classroom
Teachers College Record, 2005
The relative newness of online education to most teachers and students means that the virtual classroom is largely uncharted social space; teachers and students must deliberately consider how and when they will enter into the virtual classroom and where and how they will locate themselves and each other within it. This study uses the concepts of ''time-space separation'' and ''disembedding,'' drawn from Giddens's work on globalization, to identify how teachers and students in one virtual classroom constructed social relations in synchronous and asynchronous Web-based forums. Using discourse-analytic methods, the study illuminates the discursive processes through which the teacher and students rearticulated conventional classroom discourse to create hybrid, student-controlled/teacher-centered spaces. The authors identify the challenges and potentials of such classrooms for teachers and raise several questions for further investigation into, and theorizing about, teaching and teachers' work in the virtual classroom.
Development for the Online Teacher: An Authentic Approach
2005
Abstract While telecommunications and telematics have been available in schools and universities for decades, the speed of adoption of the Internet into general use has been unprecedented. This has placed a great deal of pressure on university teachers to re-evaluate their roles in the light of new teaching and learning opportunities. The Internet has opened up possibilities beyond the simple acquisition of information, and has created teaching and learning challenges that many teachers feel ill-equipped to meet.
Education and Information Technologies, 2008
This paper argues that student teachers’ developing pedagogical approaches achieve expression within the virtual classroom in much the same way as they would in the ‘real’ classroom; that is to say through language as the primary tool of mediation. Whilst the advent of new communications technologies affords new arenas in which learning can take place—Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), online communities, Managed Learning Environments—the importance of human agency and the significance of language remains pivotal to the effective use of such technologies. As such it is argued that student teachers need opportunities to engage in authentic online dialogue with children as they endeavour to find their online pedagogical voice. The key findings emerge from a case study carried out with a group of Year 3 ICT specialists on an undergraduate initial teacher education (ITE) degree course in the UK, leading to qualified teacher status (QTS) in the primary and lower secondary phases of education. Funding from the University of Brighton, Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP), was used to design and resource a module, which facilitated opportunities for student teachers to engage in online learning dialogues with children from a local primary school, having initially met with the children face-to-face. Fourteen student teachers participated in the study. Interviews were carried out and their online dialogues with the children were analysed to establish both the issues and potential advantages of such a situated approach to learning about the educational use of new communications technologies with children.
Five Roles I Play in Online Teaching: Revisited
2018
In 2005, I published an article entitled Five Roles I Play in Online Courses (Headley, 2005). Those roles were space planner, pace setter, host, connector, and mirror. After more than a dozen years, I have revisited those roles and reflected on what it means to be an effective teacher after a twenty-year span of online teaching. What continues to be crucial, in my view, is the role of relationships between the faculty member and students, and among students in the online environment. This paper explores the changes in our technological and educational context in the last 12 years, and whether there is a continuing need for these five roles for online teachers
Exploring Online Teaching and Learning. A Case Study
Romanian Journal of English Studies
The present paper focuses on the practices of tertiary level students with digital learning and teaching and their views on the strategies employed in both situations, as many of them also work as or have some experience as teachers. Since the development of digital competencies is no longer optional, our study proposed to take a closer look at the specific learning/teaching strategies and to map any changes of attitude, or practice towards teaching/learning in a digital format, for a particular group of students in the field of humanities. Since many of the students train to become teachers and by the end of this academic year will have conducted more than half of the their BA programme through online classes, and the MA students will most likely only meet their colleagues face to face for the first time at their graduation ceremony, their expertise with the use of digital resources, particular learning strategies and the identified “glitches” in what concerns teaching, prove a ver...