Final Reflection

 Last year, my first hour American Authors class had 40 students in the class.  Sometimes at the end of the week I would look at the kids filing out the door at the end of the hour and think about who I hadn't talked to at all over the course of the week because there were literally too many people in the class to be able to interact with everybody.

Looking back at Christ Church College from the Meadow

 Then this summer I took a class at Oxford University in England and learned more about their tutorial system.  At Oxford each student is assigned a tutor and students never sit in a classroom (lectures are recommended, but not required).  The most number of students who ever meet with a tutor (an Oxford professor, AKA a genius) at a time to discuss a topic is three.  Each week, the tutor and student meet.  The tutor assigns the student with books to read and a paper to write and the next week the student comes back needing to interpret what they've read, present their papers to their tutor, and respond to the tutor's questions.  It's kind of like giving a dissertation every week.  I was fascinated by this kind of one-on-one education where many of the world's smartest people study.  A class size of 40 students together for the purpose of studying literature and writing would never be considered.

What struck me the most while taking this class was when Kris said that online learning is like having "a class of thirty, but instead thirty classes of one."  The opportunities that we can potentially present to students through online learning seem to me more in line with the Oxford model of education.  Also, the idea of really being able to understand and push the students in the middle is very motivating to me.  I certainly spend more time giving my attention to the students who are very high and very low-skilled, and the ability to provide more individualized attention for the students in the middle is something that appeals to me as a teacher.

I'm not sure when or if I'll have the opportunity to teach online, but I have certainly learned more about technology that can support me as a teacher and that I can include in my current brick-and-mortar classroom.

Synchronous and Asynchonous Tools

The online synchronous tools that I have experience with are Audio Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Video Conferencing, Chat, Instant Messaging, and Application Sharing, and most of my experience comes from this class!  It has been very useful for me to be exposed to these new tools to get an idea of the types of things that will be available to me as an online teacher.  The experience that I found particularly useful was when our group of four was having a video conference in a Google Chatroom where we met together to have a discussion first and then we kept our video and audio communication links open while we worked together writing an essay in a Google Drive document.  In terms of the question "which synchronous tools are least effective" I would say that I don't consider any of the tools ineffective if they are used for their intended purposes.  For example, if you tried to have an entire group discussion on a complex topic (example: the significance of the ending of a novel) over instant messaging, you would not be using the best tool available to you.  It is then up to the instructor to include something like a required Skype chat in the assignment guidelines because the students will be able to make much better connections through a video conference where they can see each other, read body language, and hear tone, rather than typing out responses in an instant messaging format.

The Loosens at Denali

The benefits of asynchronous tools come mainly from students and teachers not needing to all be online at the same time to engage in learning.  What I most like about asynchonous tools is the time available to digest and reflect before responding to a question or new idea.  Discussion boards are great places where people all over the world can come together to collaborate and post ideas.  It was neat to see that people from countries all over the world were also reading what I wrote.  I took an online Art History course this summer, and it was completely asynchronous.  We had deadlines for discussion posts, essays, and exams, but we decided how we divided up the work in order to get the tasks done on time.  There was never a time when we all were required to be online at once. For a subject like Art History where our primary source was our textbook, the format worked perfectly.  Several weeks into the course, I left to spend two weeks in Alaska and it was fantastic to have been able to do most of the reading and essays before I left for my vacation.  I love the flexibility of asynchronous tools.