So the biggest thing I learned from this past week has to do with the map. First... I think I did it wrong. I thought we were supposed to map out a course, but the example seemed to show a unit. Second... and more importantly... I quickly realized that it's going to take some time and creativity to make the pieces fit together. As I started to plot things out I figured out I was cramming to many things into a module, or I went to long without some form of assessment, or I was going to have way too many modules! I decided to go old school so I drew it out with paper and pencil, snapped a photo, and scanned it into a PDF. We'll see what response this gets...It's a good reminder.
This week's reading got me thinking about the material conditions of teaching and learning. There really is no neutrality or objectivity. I would also argue there is no such thing as "content". To think of teaching and learning relationally means that what we think of as content is always relationally mediated. It's never just "content" as some objective thing to be mediated to students. The teacher / student relationship is an important part of this mediation. For online education, as one of our author reminded us, the systems and platforms play an increased role. What is the impact of these systems upon the way students engage and learn? How do we as teachers help students become aware of this as they participate in online education? Is there a way to help students begin to wrestle with these deeper philosophical issues, or are we supposed to just stick to the course material?
Jason, I really like your last question. Teaching mainly technical "content" I struggle to get students to think about whys of technology. I know that for myself I get caught simply giving them to the work to do to know how to do something rather than battling the silence of the why questions.
ReplyDeleteJason, I love your statement that "The teacher/student relationship is an important part of this mediation." I fully agree. I think this is true in both f2f and online classes; we've probably all had the case where we had a teacher that just wasn't very effective because of the lack of relationship between student and teacher. I think its possible to develop this kind of relationship online, but it takes a lot more deliberate work on the part of the instructor. Of course...it takes deliberate work in a face-to-face course too...but maybe it happens more naturally because of the structure of the classroom? I'm still thinking about this too; thanks for bringing it up!
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