Resources

After discussion with many teacher’s about their experience with online learning several frustrations came from these discussions; including training, communication, technology, and curriculum.  The follow blog will hopefully address some of these issues, and also give new and current online teachers several resources to consider while they improve their ability to develop a quality online environment for their students.

Training

This seems to be a big issue both for online teachers, and those that hire teachers for online classes.  Online teachers, at times, seem that they have a general outline of curriculum, but may not have proper technology training, or vise-versa.  The National Education Associate commissioned a study in order to address the problem with the help of the North American Council for Online Learning and the International Society for Technology in Education among others, and concluding that online teachers need to be trained “outside the normal school walls.”

In addition to having teachers trained specifically on the types of learning systems they will be using, the study calls for evaluations and standards to be met before an online teacher is put into position.  This is much like the standards that classroom teachers need to go through.

Another valuable resource for online teacher training can be found from this article from geteducated.com which connects potential online teachers to several courses from colleges and online educational experts such as University of Mississippi, University of Pittsburgh, Learning to Teach Online Project, and many more.

Finally, the Sloan Consortium is a one stop shop for professionally reviewed online teaching resources.  Each year they have a conference where teachers can learn about, and see the latest in online technology, pedagogy, and curriculum.  In addition to the conference the Sloan Consortium also publishes a peer reviewed scholarly journal called the Journal for Asynchronous Learning Networks, which address several upcoming trends including gaming in the classroom or Massive open online courses (MOOCs).

In addition to learning about upcoming trends, teachers can learn be certified through webinars, master classes, and workshops.

Developing Curriculum

        Though it can be canned and already developed for you as an online teacher, having the knowledge and ability to develop your own curriculum for your students can be the key for their success, and ultimately your success.  Being trained as a regular classroom teacher, it is easier for me to develop and differentiate curriculum for various levels of student’s abilities. However, if you are new to teaching, or don’t have formal training as a regular teacher, it can be frustrating to develop this skill. 

        The first, and most readily available resource, are teachers themselves. Though if you have no teacher friends, it can be hard to find someone to help develop your ideas unless you are willing to walk into the local school and ask for some help.  Also if you are a training coordinator having an elementary teacher as a resource may not help. 

However, there are some professional organizations that you can find and contact for specific elements in your curriculum.  The National Council for the Teachers in English (NCTE) is a national organization for English teachers that help develop lesson plans, differentiation for English lessons k-12.  Most of the lesson plans are electronic, and easy to develop into online lessons with some fine tuning.

Here are some other professional organizations:

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

National Science Teachers Association

Association of American Educators

National Council for Social Studies

Association for Middle Level Education

Flipped Learning Network

International Association for K-12 Online Learning

Though this is not a comprehensive list, and if you are in a real pinch you can Google for lesson plan ideas, this are good places to start and most have a professional peer-reviewed journal that give a profound amount of information.

Workload and Communication

        The final issue that concerns most online teachers, and which ultimately causes a lot of professionals to leave the field, is workload and communication.  These are lumped together for simplistic reasons, as developing skills for handling the workload and communication are linked together.  

        In order to dial down your workload as an online instructor make sure you are only assessing what you need and want to assess.  Ask yourself what is the most important thing to assess and make sure that you develop an assessment that goes right to the heart of the standards.  For example if you are a corporate trainer and you have to teach 50 employees about the new regulations they face in hazmat safety.  You may not want to develop a long multiple choice test, rather have the students text or tweet their answers to a central location.

In order to develop your communication, it is recommended that you develop a personal relationship with the students, rather than a list of generic response to questions. In a study done by Selma Vonderwell, a professor at the University of Akron, she determined that one of the biggest complaints that student have is the lack of personal feedback. 

Don’t be afraid to use social media to help develop feedback.  In one course that I am taking for the University of Colorado, Denver, my instructor is using video feedback as part of making that personal connection.  If your LMS does not have this ability, find a way to e-mail little wave files to your students to make that personal connection.

Conclusion

        Though this just scratches the surface of the issues facing online teachers, the key to being successful as an online teacher, lay in the ability to develop quality curriculum, training in the types of software, hardware, and media available to make your workload lighter, and your communication more streamlined.