Humanology 2021: From Tools to Teacher

Humanology 2021: From Tools to Teacher

Rezwana Islam

University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh

Congratulations! We have successfully transitioned to the ‘New Normal’ of Emergency Remote Teaching during the pandemic. For me, it comes with a price. My desktop screen shows icons of thousand teaching materials and a long list of unread email keeps auto snoozing. The line between personal time and office time keeps getting blurred. Frantically, I structure my lesson, develop suitable content, apply gamified learning tools, and provide constant feedback for improvement. Still, learners portray extrinsic motivation for grades rather than intrinsic motivation for real-life application in the EFL classroom. As a result, I start to rethink my transformation as an e-teacher and decide to shift the focus from ‘teachnology’ to ‘humanology’. In an attempt to strengthen both instructor and student presence, I apply different methods like, giving forum discussion task in Google classroom, increasing personalized instructions, encouraging group discussions during consultation hours and providing projects or assignments with real-life value like making posters in local language for creating awareness about Covid-19 on social media. As a result, my students start reciprocating more due to a risk-free environment of free expression and a sense of responsibility for fulfilling both linguistic as well as social purpose. This teaching journey of newly formed knowledge can be described by using “Community of Enquiry Framework” (Garrison et al., 2000, 2001) which has its core in Constructivism (Kilgore,2016). In this powepoint presentation, I will reflect on a journey of humanizing online teaching by creating a meaningful connection between learners and the online learning process.

References:

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2), 87-105.

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. American Journal of distance education, 15(1), 7-23.

Kilgore, W. (2016). Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/humanizingonline