Month: March 2018

Sharing with Students

As much as it may not seem like it, students are social creatures. Students love to share stories and talk about their lives. Students often do this with each other but not as much with teachers. Why is that? If you’ve ever spent any time in an Elementary classroom, then you know that elementary students LOVE to share and will do so without any prompting. Why does this change as they grow up? I have a few thoughts on this.

One of the reasons that I think students have a tendency to stop sharing, is because we as teachers tend to stop sharing. That’s not to say that elementary teachers share more than High School teachers, but students start to learn things about the world. Students start to learn that sharing things with adults isn’t as rewarding as sharing things with students. I have found from my time in the classroom and from this past semester, that students are just open books waiting to be read. Some of the best connections that I made with other students were based on a story that I had initially told them. While in an in-person classroom this can get distracting, the online setting is a wonderful place to share stories with students. Here are my reasons for saying this.

The most wonderful thing about teaching online is flexibility. Students can spend as much or as little time on certain subjects as they need to. So since students are able to work on the material on their own time, that means that they can also check out additional resources, videos, or post that you make. We don’t have to worry about time in an online setting as much. In a face-to-face classroom, it can be all too easy for an initial story to run the class off the rails and take up valuable teaching time. I also feel that it’s almost crucial to share with our students some of our life stories. It’s entirely possible for an online student to go through an entire class without knowing a single thing about the instructor. This is not the most efficient or constructive way to run a classroom. If students don’t feel that they have a connection with a teacher, they will not seek their help when they need it. Or, when they finally do reach out to the teacher, it’s with anger and frustration rather than just confusion.

The last two semesters, I have been sharing many videos and photos from my life outside the classroom. I have had many students tell me that they really value this. Many of them have said things like “it shows me that you were a real person”.  Showing students that you are real doesn’t seem like something we should have to do as online teachers. Of course, we’re real right? While students may subconsciously understand that yes, we are real people, showing them parts of your life shows them more concretely that you are actually in fact real. This makes them more likely to treat you better when phrasing problems with the class and makes it easier for them to come to you with questions. One of the best things that I took from my time at the MACUL technology conference, was from the BrandED session with Eric Sheninger. He said, “If you’re not sharing with students what you want them to know about you, they will make up their own.”

Making Mentor Connections

Connecting with mentors is essential for Student Success. As somebody who was a mentor myself, I found it so much easier and less intimidating after I had already made initial contact with an instructor. I remember being very nervous my first time messaging Rachel Bergey about a student. I’m not entirely sure what I was super nervous about. I think it had something to do with not knowing this person and kind of messaging them out of the blue. It turned out that my apprehensions were unfounded. Rachel is a wonderful person and she helped me out immensely with many of my other students. Once that initial contact happened, I felt much more comfortable messaging her about other students and other issues in the class. I think the same can be said for many of the mentors that we have.

I think one of the things that mentors really need is an open line of communication. I have sent my mentor’s access to my office link. While I mostly mentioned that this is a great resource for students, I also mentioned that mentors are more than welcome to pop in to message me sometime. I think next semester, I will be sending out a message with my phone number in it as well as my office link.

As someone who was a mentor myself, I can say that one tip would be don’t be afraid of the mentors. Most of them are very caring and understanding teachers who only want what is best for their students. As someone who works for Michigan virtual, I think we can say most of us feel the same way as well. I think, personally, that many of the mentors just kind of feel in the dark. I myself had trouble because I didn’t understand how Blackboard worked. I wasn’t aware of 3-day grading policies, or of messaging policies back to students. It was hard for me to keep students successful when I wasn’t sure whether or not they were telling the truth (or just trying to get away with not doing the work).

Going back to my story about Rachel, the reason I had initially contacted her was that one of my students claimed that she had never messaged him back. While I had severely doubt of that, I went along with it for a day or two because I wasn’t sure about Michigan virtual policy for responding to students. This was not Rachel or Michigan Virtual’s fault. If I’m being honest, it was mostly mine. I was kind of thrown into the position, and many of the instructors had messaged me earlier in the semester to tell me things that I should know. I had neither the time nor the ambition to read these emails as I was teaching 7 different classes without a prep. It only became apparent after there was a problem that I probably should have read the emails.

I honestly don’t have a magical solution to this problem even having experience as a mentor. I believe it’s possible, that if I would have gotten a message directly from one of these mentors I may have felt more inclined to message them back if there was a problem on my end. I think a lot of it is just human nature of being scared of the unknown.

Students Needs

I think that online classes inherently help meet students needs. Students who are at different paces can work in the same class simultaneously. If a student needs to go back and review the material they have access to all of it. Including teachers comments on assignments turned in.

More specifically though, as online teachers, it’s our job to try to hit as many learning styles as possible. It can be difficult to help those who are kinesthetic learners in an online environment. It is up to the mentors and online teachers that students of all learning styles are facilitated in the online class. I like to make videos to help students who are visual or audio learners.

I think students need to have the support of an online teacher who is willing to work with their kids to meet the student’s needs. They also need a mentor who is willing to work with the teacher to help them understand the material better. A support system is crucial for online students.

Cheater Cheater!

Why do students cheat? That’s an important question that we often don’t ask ourselves. I have a tendency to get mad about cheating rather than ponder this question.

I think many students cheat because they are worried about their grade, they don’t want to do the work, and/or they aren’t aware that they are cheating. Whatever the reason is, it’s our job as educators to make sure that we’re meeting our student’s needs. Whether that be education on what is plagiarism and cheating, or making ourselves available to students so that they are comfortable asking for help and don’t need to resort to cheating. I also think we need to motivate students to enjoy learning.

This isn’t all on us, much is on the students to make sure that they are taking responsibility for their own education and learning. I think working with mentors and making sure that they are aware of the issues that we have and how to stop them is a great place to start. I also think that making it clear to students what we consider cheating is crucial. If they aren’t aware of your policies, how can we expect kids to know? We all know what they say about assuming right?

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