End of Part Two Blog: Facilitator Roles

Time in A Bottle

As the song goes I wish I could capture "Time in a Bottle" so I could see where it has gone so swiftly. I can't do that, but I can reflect on the experiences that I have had learning about pedagogy and facilitator roles in Part Two of our course in online teaching.

Reflections

This part of the course as stated in the unit objectives gave a window into the world of various pedagogical models/roles. We read about and discussed the pedagogical role, the social role, the managerial role, and the technical role of the online instructor. I began to re-affirm what kind of online instructor I want to be. The discussion, Wimba sessions and readings helped me solidify what I had already begun to form in by mind as to what qualities I wanted to demonstrate when teaching online.

My Pedagogical Model

I aspire to be the kind of online instructor that provides an enjoyable experience for the learners that I facilitate. Facilitate is the key word. I continue to value student interaction and I find that I am better at stimulating discussion in my own classes. I attribute this to the role modeling done by my instructor and classmates in the current course and in the previous course in online teaching. I learned strategies for interaction both asynchronous and synchronous. While the asynchronous strategy was most flexible, the syncrhronous Wimba sessions were a goldmine in learning how others provided student instructor interaction. One of my personal learning experiences from my Wimba session was that even though one prepares, technology does not always cooperate. One must be prepared for glitches and handle them with grace.

My Motto

The managerial role of the online facilitator rests on the motto I learned as a Girl Scout: "Be Prepared". One can't get away with class preparations at the last minute. Everything has to be done before the class starts. This is true, even if the class was done previously. The instructor has to check new books, links (make sure they are alive) and new resources. This, in itself is time consuming. Managing the course calendar, updating quizes,etc. are also important activities to be done in a timely fashion.

Tech Girl

I only have a small amount of experience on course management systems. I can create some items in WebCt, but not all. I am looking forward to the design course to gain more technical knowledge. I would say I am a bit more comfortable with technology. Blogging and giving the url address seems a bit easier after having done if a few times. Html quizes are still a conundrum. I find that I am unsure of answers. Surprisingly, I tend to get the hardest answer right.

Together We Can

The part of the last few weeks that I most enjoyed was interacting with my fellow students. I felt we really formed a community of learners. The experience of Part Two, solidified us as a group.

Thoughts on Facilitation

The Beginning

Gigi and I really worked hard to provide creative learning strategies. We wanted to provide something for every type of learner. I hit upon the idea of using a Youtube video that seemed just perfect for our assignment: 21st century pedagogy. It really presented issues that most teachers face with students who may be more technologically savvy then they are. It suggests a new 21st century DNA for the teacher, with adapting pedagogy to technology. I practiced and practiced and the video was accessed easily 9 times out of 10. We also planned a few slides and an activity on the white board for those kinesthetic learners. Ok! We were ready to go with our facilitation that would impress everyone with our knowledge of pedagogy and dazzle them with our use of technology. Gigi and I also divided the two discussion threads for asynchronous activity during the week.

The Big Night

I had my script prepared so I wouldn't talk fast (a continual problem). The headset worked and we started. Well, of course the video posed problems of access. And it seemed that most of the class didn't hear us. So we had to scrap the video and my script, and went to the slides. I immediately began to talk way too fast, because I was nervous. The first slide was just supposed to be a brief overview of theories of pedagogy. I instead, tried to make it interactive by asking questions few people knew the answers to-not a great strategy. It was also difficult to keep track of whose hand was raised when, because no-one was speaking except 0ne or two students out of

nine. The tic-tac-toe game (Gigi's idea) when better, but again few students answered.

Asyncrhonous Activity

I did better on the discussion boards. I have had some experience in my own classes doing this. I made sure that I was on the board every day and varied the times. The hardest part was the week-end. Other activities tried to claim my attention.

Reflection

Now that I have time to think about the experience, I feel that it was a great learning device. I learned how to deal with technical glitches in real-time, and I know how I would handle videos in the future (web-resources and discuss in Wimba later). The experience on the discussion board confirmed the fact that the instructor has to be online every day. When I was reviewing the expected student outcomes in the course syllabus, I found that I did achieve #2, #3. and #4 doing this assignment. I still need to stop talking so fast though. I did enjoy working with my fellow team member. It took organization, but I felt that it was a good experience. All in all, this was an excellent lesson in online troubleshooting as well as communication.