I am willing to adapt my teaching where I am needed!

With all due respect to Elayne Clift in her commentary. I’ll Never Do It Again, I feel compelled to share a different view.

Perhaps I am too young to appreciate the old ways, but while face-to-face teaching may be the best way to teach for many, it is no longer the only option for me. Maybe I am a techno-geek. Maybe I want to be sure there is ample opportunity for every student to participate in and shape the discussion. Maybe I want to give more ownership of learning to my students. Maybe I am just too determined to reach new students.

But this much I can say with certainty: I have 10+ years of experience successfully teaching in collegiate classrooms, in addition to the time I spent teaching in a corporate classroom, and online teaching is where I see the greatest need.

Here are five reasons why.

1. Virtual Community is the Ideal 21st Century Collaboration Tool

Most of us know that it is extremely rare to find a job where you don’t use computer-mediated communication. We must work on a global scale now. It is not cost effective, productive, or even best for the environment to bring everyone to the same location for every meeting. It is important to many jobs to carefully craft written messages that are clear, concise, persuasive, and that do not offend the reader. Effective computer mediated communication requires practice. Yes, they also need to know how to speak to each other in the same room, but they have been learning and practicing face-to-face communication since birth, or at least age 5.

Professionals need to form and join professional networks. In this century, professional networks are well maintained online.

It is not cost effective for global employers to bring employees to one location for training. Employers increasingly prefer that the employee learn new skills from a distance and to be self-directed in their lifelong learning. These skills take practice.

In my traditional classes, I found only the students who lived in our little area of Ohio. They contribute to the conversation from their narrow worldview. In my online classes, there are students from other states and if you are lucky, even other countries. They contribute to the conversation from a much larger worldview. That broader experience is, in my humble opinion, much better for the students who do live near the campus.

2. The Lack of Equal Participation in a Face-to-Face Discussion is Frustrating

Once I tried online discussion, I immediately saw the advantages. The bell does not ring, and another class is not coming through the door. The shy student can be expected to contribute. The student who ponders the question before contributing a meaningful response has enough time to contribute. One student cannot as easily dominate the conversation because of their more natural comfort with speaking.

With experience and practice, I have learned how to establish responsiveness and encourage quality contributions and true conversation in an online discussion. Never again do I have to wonder if the quiet student is really thinking about their shopping list. I know what all of my students think. In the rare case where they don’t respond, I feel comfortable assuming that student chose not to contribute.

3. The Quality of Education is Better for those who Need It!

Who is the best online student? A full-time parent who cannot afford childcare? A professional working full-time who needs to be with family from 5 to 9 pm and then attend class after that? A student who lives more than an hour or more from the nearest campus and cannot afford to move or the commute? In a face-to-face classroom, I could never tell an adult to not travel for work, lose their job, and come to class. So they missed the class. To those who say there is no significant difference, I would ask for who did you measure this? Did you ask the student who waited years for an online option because a traditional class will never be an option? Did you measure how much they learned before and after online learning was available to that student? I know without question that an online education is better than no education at all.

In my online teaching, I have learned how to make my presence and the presence of the other students obvious. I have learned how to create trust with the students and how to get to know them and let them get to know me. I have learned how to enable my students to take ownership of the class and to work together to achieve a learning goal. Once these are established, I do not encourage the students to depend on me every day. I will not be there when they leave my class. Nor will anyone else ever likely be always available at the time of their immediate question. They must learn multiple methods of finding assistance. They must learn how to cope when a project is delayed waiting for answers. And they must learn to plan enough time for delays. Those are valuable skills to learn. Once they trust me and learn what to expect, this approach works for the students and for me.

4. Show Me the Money?

Teaching in the classroom requires me to set aside the same 4 hours per week every week for an entire semester for each class! And then they want me to pack up all of my things, drive to campus, pay for parking, fight for parking, and go home afterwards. For no more money? If money were a significant motivation for teaching, then I would have kept my private sector job…. But seriously, the flexible schedule, convenient location, and never missing an important family moment are an invaluable perk to teaching online. Wearing my pajamas or sitting on my deck are just gravy.

5. Online Teaching Can Be Very Rewarding

When I imagined myself teaching, like many of us, I pictured the students who would want to be there and would appreciate my efforts. In no other venue have I found more of those students than online. They have been dreaming of an education for years. They have kids, jobs, and lives that get in the way. They desperately needed an option. I could share many examples but the message I will never delete? The student who said “Now I have hope.” So, yes, sometimes there are more challenges online. There are times when I know I could help the student with less effort in a face-to-face situation. But the tradeoff? The millions of students who might not be able to access an education any other way? For those students, I constantly seek new tools and try new ways and I am determined to meet those students where they are and help guide them in their educational venture. I hope you will join me. If you do not, I will understand. It takes a lot of work to completely rethink your teaching approach. If your heart is not in it, then your work in the classroom is just as valuable and we will always need educators there too.