Teaching Online Will Make You a Better Teacher in Any Setting
From The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Kevin Gannon
When I first began teaching online courses, I did so with a fair amount of uncertainty and trepidation. Could I replicate in a digital environment what I believed was essential for an in-person course? What I learned, however, was that I didn’t need to replicate my face-to-face pedagogy exactly. I could find different, albeit related, techniques and practices to achieve a similar outcome online.
That lesson — that an intentional and reflective flexibility was crucial for designing and teaching online courses — was an essential one for me, and the first of many I would learn as I gained experience in the digital realm.
When it comes to online teaching and technology, however, many academics remain leery. They continue to suspect it’s where good teaching goes to die. My own experience — as well as that of thousands of other faculty members who’ve taught dynamic and meaningful online courses — offers a counternarrative. We’ve found that elements of online pedagogy not only help us become better instructors in a fully digital learning space, but better at the craft of teaching in general.
It may seem obvious that what makes one a better teacher in one particular setting makes them a better teacher, period. But without thinking about why that’s the case, you miss an opportunity to critique and modify, or affirm and expand, the way you operate in a classroom.
Three aspects of online teaching, in particular, have made me a better instructor, no matter the setting.
