3. DYNAMIC TEACHING
Effective teaching is inherently dynamic. Each time we teach a course, present a lecture, or engage our students in a learning activity, we teach when we respond to student questions and feedback “in the moment.” Effective teachers use experience to modify a lesson from semester to semester. Great online courses are not simply copied from semester to semester without significant changes, or allowed to run on autopilot, but rather are taught dynamically and improved with each iteration.
What Makes Our Online Teaching Dynamic?
Learning: I have always brought energy to my face-to-face classes, and through the @ONE courses I learned new ways to take the energy from my face-to-face classes into my online classes.
Reflection: All of the training I have received from @ONE through courses, at OTC, and through virtual conferences and webinars have inspired me to make my teaching ever-more dynamic, online and face-to-face. It has also inspired me to choose learning materials that will inspire my students to do their most dynamic work as well.
I use regular short videos to communicate with students and use tools such as Padlet, Flipgrid, Adobe Spark pages, and Canvas group collaborations to bring the course to life and help build a sense of a dynamic learning community.
Into the Future: I have been sharing the tools and techniques I am using with my colleagues. I have also co-presented at OTC on dynamic ways to incorporate Flipgrid into an online class. Now that more of our face-to-face classes are going remote, a dynamic approach to the virtual format is vital.
Examples: Below are some examples of my dynamic teaching in practice.
This is a Found Poem I made with sentences from students' writing, their letters to their younger selves.
Examples
I use a variety of platforms to build a sense of a strong learning community and make our lessons engaging. Here are assignments my remote and online students did using Padlet and Flipgird.
Here is some feedback I have received from students about our online class.
Here are examples of videos I have made for the online teacher training class I co-taught for @ONE, setting a dynamic tone from the beginning.
I have expanded my use of short videos to send virtual postcards to my students when I am away at conferences and to give them updates on assignments and deadlines.
I use Google Slides and Screen cast-o-matic to introduce and to review new material on my own videos.
I choose a variety of materials from different platforms, showcasing youth from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, telling their stories of both struggle and triumph. We learn about environmental issues through the lens of young people who are creating innovative community-based solutions as Brower Youth Award winners. This exposes students to environmental challenges as well as to hope. And "The Players Tribune" showcases the stories written by well-known athletes . In this case crowd favorite, Yao Ming describes his first few months in The U.S., learning English and becoming accustomed to U.S. culture.
