Irene Apanovitch-Leites

This unit made me think about the importance of establishing classrom "norms" (rather than rules) in an online teaching environment. In an in-person classroom, I've often sat down with my students at the start of the year and we came up with a list of "norms" within our learning environment. This would be more difficult to do online, but I think that it's still possible!

During COVID online teaching, it became really apparent that many students think that they have technology skills, but in fact, they have "app" skills. The age of TikTok and Instagram has really impacted students' understanding of the tech skills that are needed. It seems like "tech skills" just get bumped into one big lump and students expect their app skills to transfer, when in fact they do not. It was valuable to read about the inventory of tech skills that we should emphasize with students. I'll definitely check in with them as part of the pre-class work to ensure that… >>>

I studied Communities of Practice during my doctoral dissertation and it was really fascinating. Somehow, I never connected CoPs to online learning. I was impressed that this module included it, and hope to use this framework in building a community with my online classes. I think that while it's a lofty goal and many want to 'build community' the most important part is to acknowledge that the community comprises of persons of varied levels of experience with the content. The constructivist approach demands that the instructor finds a way for people to reveal their expertise without forcing them to do… >>>

I found it interesting to consider time management in the same terms as management of physical spaces. This idea spurred on some brainstroming for possible exercises that can be tacked on to the readiness for online learning/self-assessment portion of the online course. Relating time management to something that students do every day will make the concept less scary and more "manageable".