ISLT 9484

Course Description:

Learn to be an effective online instructor. Examine issues in teaching and learning online; instructor and student roles; instructional strategies for supporting diverse learners; methods of student assessment; online communication; classroom management; characteristics of online learning management systems.

Reflection:

Before this course, I truly knew nothing about teaching online courses. I have only been on the student side of online learning, and even my experience with that is limited. So I went into this course with no knowledge and a little apprehensive, but eager to learn.

Throughout this course, my view of online teaching and learning changed dramatically. I honestly never thought that online teaching would be something I would be interested in getting into, mainly because I am an elementary teacher. I learned so much about K-12 virtual schools. I never knew how they were really set up, or what kind of families would utilize them and why. Now I see the advantages of online learning and can see how teaching virtually might still be of interest to me. For some reason, I just pictured students turning in assignments and basically the online teacher’s role was just to grade. In this course, I got to see that it can be so much more interactive than that and that you still have the chance to develop relationships with your students. In fact, some teachers even do home visits. My view of online K-12 learning really shifted during this course.

I also got to learn about and try out new tools that make online teaching and learning so much easier and more interactive. Through the SIS assignment, I got to lead a Zoom meeting and play around with all of its features. Previously, I had only attended a meeting but not led one so it was nice to see the other side of it. I also learned about online tools such as PearDeck that makes online lessons very interactive while also holding students accountable and allowing the teacher to assess student learning in real time. Tools like this are useful to me even in the regular classroom, and I really gained confidence in my ability to use these technological tools.

Even if I never go into online teaching, I still have some great knowledge and technology tools to take with me into my classroom!