Module 1 - E-Learning for Educators

Let the online learning adventure begin!! 

This is only week one of my E-Learning for Educator's course and I have already learned many, many valuable lessons! 


How did my thinking about teaching change this week?

I am surprised by the instant level of frustration that I experienced as a new student to online learning.  I can imagine this is how many of online students feel during the first week of classes since they are unsure what to expect from the course or the instructor.  Students may feel very disorientated and will have to re-arrange the way they learn and THINK!  I wish I had had this experience when I was an academic advisor and recruiter so that I could have advised new students about this possible reorientation to the learning process.  This changed my thinking about teaching online in that I will need to account for and expect a certain level of frustration the first week of an online course.

Although I was not partial to filling out the module one self-evaluation survey, I do believe it is a great educational exercise for instructors. This activity forced students to deeply reflect and evaluate their own work.  Furthermore, this exercise provides educators with additional practice at accurately assessing online discussions.  Unfortunately, by the time I had reached this activity for the week, I was totally exhausted. 

I learned from the self-evaluation survey that I was missing key elements in my primary and response postings.  I will adjust my responses for next week.  I appreciated this learning experience because I realized I did not read all of the instructions correctly.  I hoping this exercise will have given me the ability to improve my grade next week. 

What did I learn about my own learning process during this module?

I know that graduate classes are very time consuming, but I am not used to having to type everything I am thinking in a discussion.  Typing my thoughts takes much longer because I have to spend additional time editing my written work.  When taking face-to-face graduate courses, I was able to instantly vocalize my insight and ideas from the course readings, which seems to be less time consuming.  Although this is only week one, I miss the instant idea generation and feedback from other graduate students that I enjoyed in my master’s program. 

I feel like the discussions I am having with students online are only occurring in my inner self and it is a bit weird that I am not actually hearing peoples’ real voices.  I am missing the non-verbal communication and vocal inflections I usually rely on. 

Today, I feel like I want to quit, give up and wait until summer to take a graduate course.  Perhaps, next week will get better!