Last week, we considered challenges in the online environment. This week will focus on developing survival strategies in relation to those challenges. When teachers first assume their roles in the online environment, the challenges can sometimes seem overwhelming.
Let’s begin this week with a scenario that highlights this situation.
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Luz's Story
Luz, a new part-time college teacher, was contacted by the department Chair a few weeks prior to a new semester, and asked to teach an online history course. Luz had never taught this course before, but her academic preparation included world history, so she felt familiar with the thinking of the discipline. Despite Luz's anxiety about this assignment, she agreed to do so. She felt concerned about future work prospects should she refuse the assignment. As well, she recognized the advantage of developing skills related to online teaching. Luz had some limited experience using the Blackboard course management tool, but she was not familiar with the Discussions Tool.
Before long, she found herself working very long hours 7 days a week. Students seemed unclear in relation to course expectations. They expected immediate responses when they e-mailed her. The weekly discussion postings took hours to read and review.
Hmm..., how will you reduce the stress that may be associated with this new experience?
How do you hope to maintain a work-life balance when the demands on your time may seem never ending?
Think about one survival strategy you might use, and post it to the Wiki page on Survival Strategies. The strategy could be a personal description of coping mechanisms, or it could relate to steps you might take as the teacher to create a manageable workload.
Hopefully, as a group, you will be able to generate ideas that will be helpful to everyone.
Learning Tasks this week include the following:
- Post your survival strategy to the Wiki page called Survival Strategies .
- Begin preparing for your 10 minute Elluminate Live conferencing presentation on a topic of your choice.
How this works:
Contact me when you are ready to do your presentation. We will schedule a time to meet. Send me the participant link to the session. I will post this link to the rest of the group (with your permission), and we will attend your session. This experience is meant as a practice run to help you become more comfortable in this environment. You are not expected to be an expert in live conferencing facilitation. My hope is that all of you who will be teaching online, will communicate with your students through this medium.
Have a good week everyone. Remember that next week is Intersession and the Festival of Learning. On March 1 and 2, there will be a variety of guest speakers and workshops related to teaching and learning. I do hope you will be able to participate.
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