Lisa Stanley

Making sure that the best practices are being delivered is very important.  Why waste your time if your students are not understanding the course or how to work the system.  I feel that this is an important part of teaching in general to create and then test it, revise it, and retest.  Reflection is also a big part of this equation as well.

Giving boundries is so important and I will use this at day one in the online classroom.  There are so many different parts to an online class and there are many boundries and procedures that need to be put into place.  This will be a must for me!

Something that resonated with me was the topic prioritizing teaching and life.  In the brick wall classroom there is not thought to balancing life with work and this is what leads to burn out in teachers.  I am glad that they are presenting this topic in the online classroom.  It is important to have boundries and keep work hours, work hours, and home life, home life.  I think that it could be a challenge in the online classroom to comsume all of your time like a real classroom does, however, it might even be more.  Your work is always beside… >>>

The position that I am currently at teaches the 7 Habits of happy kids.  The first goal is to be proactive and take care of your needs by planning and goal setting.  I made a deep connection to this section because of my experience with Steven Covey.  Planning is so important and one of the first steps to accomplish your road map that I learned about in earlier lessons.

I gained the understanding that it is very important to be opened minded and make sure that the students are comfortable with different kinds of technology tools.  When I have that understanding I can assist my students with the use of such technology that will enhance their learning experience.

Communication in the online classroom is important for everyone involved.  If there is a breakdown in communication the students are at risk of not succeeding and the instructor may not get the right understanding of what the student needs.  It is amazing how many ways that we communicate and how some of these ways are not represented in the online classroom.  This is definately a challenge for some instructors and students.

This module had some great ideas and I really made a connection to the motivation part.  How a person is motivated is definately a big picture of an online class.  It is so important to know your students and what motivates them to learn and incorporate those into the class to reach every learner.  I look forward to paying attention to how my students get motivated!

I gained from this module that it is very important to design and use a rubric for good communication in the online class.  When I have an online class I will make sure to get lots of examples of rubrics on effective communication in an online course.

In this module I understood that as an online instructor you must be aware of the different generations that you will be serving.  Also, how to engage the generations in communication.  Another point that stood out to me was that we must identify possible challenges in communication.  This is something that I will use in my online class.  When you identify possible issues and then setting how you will handle it or consequences, the problems are easier to deal with.

Just like everything in life, humans need boundries set for them.  Online classes are no different and when setting up the class we have to have rules, procedures and consequences for the learner to follow to succed.  The Instructor must have consequences for both positive and negative behaviors in the online classroom as well.  I will set up procedures in my online classroom for the success of myself and my students.