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Student Exchange

Teacher As Student

What happens when the teacher becomes the learner?

Or Teachers in the Paradigm Swing

With increased online learning mandated by the Academic and Professional Marketplace, instructors frequently become learners in other teachers' classrooms. In perhaps uncomfortable role reversal situations, instructors are more and more frequently "going back to school." They have become a new set of learners in Distance Learning online and experience, from an ambiguous perspective, the same fears and frustrations as their fellow students. The teacher qua learner becomes unwilling to "go public" in conferences and chat sessions until he or she feels secure in the new learning environment. Perhaps the culture is different, the requirements are unclear, the content is new, or the technology is challenging. I have seen colleagues with great professional skill who, when placed in the unknown online learning environment, exhibited the neuroses and uncertainty they felt way back as freshman in college.

I have just finished an excellent and intensive online course required by University of Maryland University College UMUC) for experienced F2F instructors assigned to teach their first online class. Local students had a classroom component. Three thousand miles away, I took the course entirely online. I was totally bewildered by immersion in new and rich experiences in a discipline where I (previously) had considered myself an expert. I had not allocated enough time to do justice to these opportunities. I became a lurker, unwilling to show myself until I understood what was happening. I was always behind, and fearful of being dropped from the course. Finally, I dropped everything else I was doing in order to participate (and pass!).

Here are some of my parameters for online learning. Success of online learning requires group participation. Presentations from the faculty should be purposefully short to "set the stage" for dialog and contributions of class members. Many class members bring professional experience; others have questions. There is time enough to do research and dialog to develop the topic in a way not possible in a traditional classroom. When people really "get into it," the collective sharing of experience is rich and exciting.

Conferences are initiated by the instructor. There may be several each week; each requires reading, research skills, and dialog. The resulting interactions and issues that develop day-by-day are addictive – the academic equivalent of Survivor.

In Study Groups, student-teams, guided gently by the teacher, need to set their own goals and schedules and assume responsibility for the entire project and report. Every team is unique. Usually a leader emerges. Some groups subdivide tasks and appoint an editor to integrate the results. Others share research via email, chat rooms, and posting to the study-group web page. As the report or project is assembled, each member adds-to and edits the page. It is a lesson in teamwork and trust. One of the truly unique experiences attached to successful online learning is that of teamwork and trust.

I have always been suspicious that conferences and chat rooms don't produce a lot of substance. I was wrong. As Keller's research indicates, the learner needs clear goals, knowledge of value, and confidence of success. It is the instructor's job to set the stage and get the ball rolling. I found I learned a great deal. My knowledge, skills, and attitudes were changed and bettered by the course, which, although I sometimes thought it would never end, was over all too soon. The following week I returned to my instructor role, but it will never be the same.