Note: this post is part of an assignment I am doing for the Preparation for Teaching Online Workshop, offered by the City University of New York (CUNY). I highly recommend this course to any CUNY faculty who want to learn or brush up on skills for teaching online. I imagine that other universities also offer similar courses for their faculty.
Reflecting on my initial impressions, knowledge, and concerns about teaching online
Since I have not taught online before, my initial impressions were mostly based on experiences with virtual seminars/meetings and stories from other online instructors. For example, I was concerned about the challenges of engaging with students on Zoom. My impression is that Zoom participants can easily tune out. The time delay on Zoom can also make it difficult to have conversations, even more so if video is off. On a positive note, I suspect that the techniques, technology, and culture of online teaching have developed substantially during the pandemic.
What I have gained from the facilitated phase of this workshop
The sense of camaraderie and mutual support among my fellow CUNY instructors has been especially helpful. I was surprised by this sense of community; I thought that taking an asynchronous course would necessarily be an independent endeavor. The writing prompts were also useful; they helped me think through different aspects of course design and get diverse feedback from my classmates.
Helpful and difficult aspects of the workshop
Many of the assignments allowed me to to practice technical/logistical aspects of teaching online (e.g., Blackboard, creating instructional videos, Zoom polls), which was helpful. Conversely, staying engaged with the readings and assignments that did not seem relevant to my upcoming course was difficult at times. I think this is easily forgiven though, since the workshop is designed to introduce participants to a wide range of online teaching ideas with the understanding that not all ideas will be useful for all instructors.
What I still need to develop & areas I want to explore
At this point in my development, I want real-world experience teaching online courses. I’ve gotten quite a bit of theoretical concepts and tools through the workshop, and now it’s time to apply them. I will be doing just that in my Fall 2022 Biostatistics class at Lehman College! I’m especially curious to explore ways of making my courses more interactive, both in and out of class.