Who's Teaching Online?

The K-12 online learners need more support due to their ages, so they need different strategies than higher education students.  The goal is for students to learn.  Knowing what pitfalls they are likely to experience enables a teacher to plan for them in advance and already be working to minimize any issues.  Student needs continue to be very different in online courses, just as they are in classrooms, but addressing those needs takes more creativity.  Students get much more individualized instruction in online classes, and more active student-teacher involvement (Davis & Niederhauser 2007).  Teachers can provide activities to match each student's needs, whether it is remediation or extension activities.  Getting students to do their work is more of a challenge because they can just turn off their computer and ignore their classwork, instead of having a person walk over to them several times per class to provide encouragement or assistance (Borup, Graham, & Drysdale, 2014, based on Rice, 2006).  Communication with parents is needed more to help keep students on track with their learning.  Since students don't walk into the classroom every day, communication needs to be fast, specific, and helpful.  Keeping parents in the loop keeps kids on track with course work and deadlines. 

Building community was not something I had thought of before, but I do see students enjoying class more when they are able to work with others.  Their ability to engage with each other enables me to focus more on students who are having trouble and need some 1:1 time.  As stated in the video from Edison Learning, engagement is still helping students learn in online settings, using each other to bounce ideas and confirm content.  Middle school students are often more likely to ask a peer then a teacher when they need help.  All of these aspects of learning, and many others, are the keys to student learning and success.  That is the reason we teach. 
 
There are few studies that look at the "teacher" aspect of online courses.  Most studies look at the student side of the equation.  I was surprised at the age ranges of online teachers.  I am not sure why, but guessed that the younger new teachers would dominate the online field, instead of being the lowest percentage of teachers (Archambault & Crippen, 2009).  I think this is because I expected current educator training to incorporate online teaching into the curriculum.  With the huge rise in online courses being offered, teachers should be trained better for teaching those courses.  Many teachers will be reluctant to teach online classes for fear of the unknown and lack of professional development available.  At the rate online classes are increasing, we could likely have a teacher shortage for this medium.  Unfortunately, teacher shortages tend to increase the number of students per class, which ultimately provides less individualized content, less communication, and less learning.  Knowing that there are so many older teachers (35 years and up) who successfully made the jump to online classes from traditional buildings gives me hope that students will continue to get high quality instruction from dedicated professionals, regardless of the medium that is being used.  It is not too late to teach the older teacher new tricks, including myself. 

Florida Virtual School:

I was also surprised by the educational experience of most online teachers, and that degrees were more often held in content areas instead of education (Archambault & Crippen, 2009).  I have seen a big difference in teaching between teachers who learned to teach and teachers who learned a specific content very well.  On the surface, people who learn to teach can teach any content, and they may be better at finding ways to help students remember content.  When you dig deeper, those same teachers often lack the detailed knowledge to extend learning by depth, getting into the details that students find fascinating.  More work does not mean extended learning.  I have seen this too often in the schools I have taught in, but it certainly does not include all teachers with an education degree.  Many students take online classes to learn more than what their current school has to offer.  These students deserve the depth of content that will engage and fascinate them.  This is an aspect of my teaching that I use often.  I unofficially mentor other teachers on my content team.  We share some of the more in depth aspects of our lessons to help our advanced population of students continue to grow in their learning. 



Here is my Popplet