Walk a mile in your student's shoes...

Submitted by:  Janet Wortman

Can you teach effectively online if you have never had to complete an online course?  We all have experience learning in the traditional classroom so as we moved beyond the classroom to become teachers ourselves we knew the student experience and their expectations.  Many of you may be quick to say “I have taken online classes” but then again, many of us who are a little older or who have not taken classes recently, have never been exposed to the world of online learning.

Entering an online course as a student for the first time can be a very scary, isolating experience.  It’s like finding yourself in a dark, strange room where the doors and windows are hard to find and you only have 16 short weeks to discover everything you need to know about that room.  What makes the discovery process successful is having someone in the room with you shedding light on the subject and helping to guide and mentor you along the way.

There are three workshops required of all faculty members who want to teach Internet and/or hybrid courses online at COM.  Right now, the third and final workshop in that series is being updated and redesigned to provide new online faculty with the knowledge they will need to manage groups, assignments and assessments in their online courses.  They will also gain valuable insight into what it is like to be an online student.  The same material will be covered in the online version that was previously covered in the face-to-face version and the time commitment to complete the online version will be approximately the same.  The big advantage is the online workshop can be completed in the comfort of your home or office.  This updated online workshop is also available to faculty members who have previously completed the face-to-face version and would like to reinforce their skills or gain experience from the student perspective.

New online faculty members will get the face-to-face time they need to feel confident during the first two workshops, but the third workshop will have to be completed exclusively online.  The new online Managing Groups, Assignments and Assessments workshop is targeted for completion in early November.