Compensating for what can’t be done, and being surprised by what can.
Posted on January 28, 2008
Over the past six months since arriving here, I’ve mainly devoted my time to learning as much as I possibly could about what makes The University of Montana tick. Through this process of immersion, I’ve started to develop a clearer sense of how UMOnline can, perhaps should, function as an instrumental part of this institution’s mission. I see strengths that can be enhanced; I see areas that need strengthening. Fundamentally, I see some extraordinary opportunities, some of which I have the temerity to believe we should go after. We’ve been starting to assemble a set of strategic objectives that I believe can help frame our efforts at and through UMOnline.
Fundamentally, however, here’s what I believe about this enterprise: UMOnline is no more and no less than another vehicle by which we can further reach our learners, whomever they may be, wherever they may be. It provides new choices for many, new educational opportunity for some, and even, I dare say, hope for others. Is this too high-minded? Perhaps. But why not have a high-minded mission?
Oh, and by the way, I believe that in the process of trying to do this well, we may very well find ourselves enriched, find our teaching techniques and our own learning techniques refined.
I often hear, perhaps have even spoken, about the need to compensate for some deficiency in the technology when teaching online. And, to some extent, that may be a true statement. However, the possibility that in that “compensation” we are forced to think in new ways about teaching and learning is itself a felicitous result. Why simply try to replicate the classroom experience online? I would submit that some profoundly satisfying learning can and does take place through models of learning that bear very little resemblance to what we may have experienced ourselves.
So, instead of compensating for perceived deficiencies in the tools at our disposal, we may find ourselves using these same tools in ways that enhance the teaching and learning experience. And, in our line of work, that’s always a welcome surprise.
-keith-
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Well said!
As a proponent of discursive teaching and learning, I have been sceptical of online learning in the past. Now that I’m instructing an online course, I find myself rethinking many of my previous assumptions about what can or cannot be done in this format. It’s really very exciting to have this opportunity to explore new methods of teaching and learning.