Reflection: Comparing Experiences with Other Faculty Members at a Different Laureate University

Reflection: Comparing Experiences with Other Faculty Members at a Different Laureate University

By Prof. Jonathan AcuĂąa Solano Sunday, November 8, 2015 Twitter: @jonacuso Post 206

By comparing my online, hybrid, blended learning/teaching experiences with other colleagues, I feel honored to share a bit of what I have gotten to know with them. Though I cannot consider myself a fully-developed online instructor, my empirical work for more than seven years so far is giving me a different standpoint in terms of training and my LoTi (Levels of Technology Integration) level (LOTI Levels of Technology Integration, n.d.). I have –several times- suggested colleagues of mine and other faculty members to get to know the LoTi Profiles to self-evaluate themselves and to get to know a bit more

of their students. Just because our student seem to be 21st Century learners, it does not really mean they are at that technological level to embark themselves into online learning.

When I compare my experiences with other members of this Laureate Certificate, I get to see how several partners have already worked somehow or have gained extensive experience at an online level with university students. It looks like, from my standpoint, that their learners and mine are not that different though we live in very contrasting parts of the world. Yet our pupils’ willingness to continue building up their knowledge is a characteristic all of them share, whether that is in a traditional classroom setting or in virtual learning environment. And their desire to keep on learning deeply is what fuels us to continue training ourselves a bit more to be better prepared and equipped to face the challenges of online teaching scenarios, asynchronous or synchronously.

All of us Laureate Faculty Members from various universities scattered all across the globe have valued the important teachings we have been provided throughout the Certificate so far with all of our Instructors, who have extended their hand to give us the guidance needed to complete tasks though we face trouble with meeting deadlines.

Somehow we may say that our online instructors have become role models to copy and to improve; as we had to discover our teaching style in a traditional four-walled classroom, we also must explore our online, hybrid, or blended teaching style. And that exploration through our instructors has been, for many of us, one of the most important

aspects of the Certificate; we have realized how our online instructors behave with class members, how they provide us with timely feedback and assistance, and how they have helped us to come all this way in our learning and professional development. Online teaching is not what we think of from afar; once one is in a virtual classroom it is the ripe time to really uncover what virtual teaching is all about.

This time around, all of us have come to witness the importance of synchronous tools to stay in touch with our learners. It would have been nice, as a final remark, that we could have had the chance to meet with Certificate instructors to also see how a valuable tool to secure one’s social presence and teaching presence can be effectively used. Laureate’s Certificates are asynchronously delivered due to the great array of time zones in which fellow faculty members live in and work on. The online experience may have been radically different if we had also been exposed to synchronous communication tools.

References LOTI Levels of Technology Integration. (n.d.). Retrieved from Educational Origami: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/LOTI