Michele Detwiler

Reply to Aricka McCauley's post:  I have a Google Voice number that I use with my students so my personal number is still personal.  I love using text to communicate with students.  It's in real time and I don't have to constantly be logging into my email.  I turned off the notifications so when I'm not available I'm not bombarded with text dings.  My students appreciated my availabilty to help them.

Learning the difference between asynchronous and synchronous discussions was very helpful.  I self-reflected that I included small talk in my phone call conversations with students because it seemed like the appropriate thing to do.  It was nice to learn that this is recommended suggestion. 

I learned that the same things I do in face to face teaching needs to occur in an online environment.  I need to know my students and allow them to get to know me.

During this COVID19 school closures, I've been thrown into being an online instructor.  Many of the aspects of teaching online learners, are not available to during this crisis teaching and learning time.  I am not planning a course from scratch but instead I am trying to finish the curriculum that has been established by the district and state standards.  If I were able to build a course from the beginning using these strategies, I believe it may be more user friendly and concise for our students.