What did you learn?

I learned how important it is to structure my content around providing the students with teaching presence, not teacher presence.  I’ve realized I can rely on my students to guide each other and trust them more when I design a course that is effective.

How do you know you learned it?

I learned it by listening to feedback from my instructor, my peers, and by continually reviewing the content myself.  I’ve never felt so renewed in my teaching style.  Being able to reanalyze my beliefs and styles throughout this semester has enabled me to truly focus on providing a better product for my students.

Can you provide examples of things that you have learned? – be specific, give details.

Each module that I put together, I was forced to put myself into the eyes of a new student, a new online student, a fellow instructor evaluating my course, and also in the eyes of myself.  After designing what I thought was an effective online course, I received feedback on my discussions that “they really aren’t discussions, they are written assignments.”  I took this feedback positively, and looked at the outcomes I was seeking to get from my students, and realized that if I put together this portion of the course a bit differently, I could attain the same results.

I also learned how to reflect better on the course material, and use the material to provide my peers with insights that I probably couldn’t have prior to this course.  Reading over posts by my peers, and following up those posts with research (both from the in-course required materials, and from outside sources I researched on my own), I received high rankings on my posts that I never felt before that I could accomplish.  I pushed myself outside my comfort zone and was able to contribute to the course effectively through my strategy of enhancing the course material with outside research.

Robert (3)