What I feel I have learned about working online

Valle del Zamorano, Honduras - Photo by Fernando Carranza

What I Feel I Have Learned about Working Online

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed. School of English Faculty of Social Sciences Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Thursday, May 10, 2018 Post 319

I’ve been working online for about four years already, and each time I start a new course with a group of learners, I start with an open mind towards what I am about to face and experience with a new cohort of learners. All groups of students are different in terms of attitudes, skills, disposition to work collaboratively, and so on; I cannot say that I have had the same kind of experiences with all of groups I have had all these years as an online instructor. However, despite all challenges one can bump into while teaching online, the fact is that working online has helped me develop skills and competences I never thought I could have when I started “my” life first as an online student and then as an online instructor.

What kind of skills have I developed in these four fruitful years as an instructor?

Among them I must highlight the importance the instructor has to put on the written

word detached from any other visual or auditory cues such as gestures and tone of voice. Writing cannot be felt coercive by learners but needs to be perceived as if prompting them to be proactive for their own learning. It is also transcendental to comprehend the significance of student praise and formative feedback to help learners develop their own skills with the “manipulation” of new content and knowledge, which is gained through good instructionally-designed learning tasks. Student encouragement is also essential in online courses, and it is vital for the support and motivation that pupils in class need from us. The weight that course expectations has in course results is another learned lesson working online. Not defining for learners what they can wait from me as an instructor, and not letting them know what it is expected from them as students can drive us into a dead-on street full of frustration. Dealing with frustration in one’s job as an educator is not new for any of us; why don’t we try to minimize the impact that frustration can have in our teaching lives?

And what about “learning agendas” for a week’s work? Isn’t this another lesson learned while working online? At least for me, this was one of those other pieces of learning I have acquired while working in virtual learning environments (VLEs). An agenda needs to be very well-defined for students so they know what they have to do anytime, anywhere within a given time period and specific deadlines. Believe me, learners are learners no matter what kind of medium is being used; in a F2F or in a virtual course our students behave in the same way, if you understand what I mean. And like any other pupil of yours or of mine, they can undergo difficult or tough moments, so one needs to be compassionate and flexible depending of the circumstances. All of us have those moments in life when a helping hand in needed especially since the purpose of instruction is learning and not just providing pupils with a numerical grade. Providing learners with some human bond and some time-management tips to cope with online work can come handy for many of them especially when they have never been part of an online course.

For sure, one can conclude that online teaching expertise is only gained when you have been on both sides of the VLE equation. One cannot start being an online instructor overnight; one needs some good coaching to transition from the regular F2F teaching one is accustomed to having to a virtual “reality” where other skills, beyond the technological ones, are needed to deal with class interaction, socialization, tutor presence, praise, and so on. Being a student in an online course is another part of the transition one needs to undergo to help us abandon the old education paradigm that learning takes place only when we have students sitting down in front of us within four walls.

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