This is not going to be the highest graded blog post I have written, in fact I am going to ignore any rubric and write about what I want to, have to, whatever last notes and reflections that I have to get off my chest. Because if there is one thing that I have learned in the last few weeks of ETAP640 it’s that the grade is secondary to the learning, the grade is meaningless if it is not backed up by actual knowledge and education. And boy have I learned.
I started off this course ETAP640 – Introduction to Online Teaching with a question “Can a drama class be taught online, can an acting studio be recreated in a virtual environment?” and I’ll get to the answer to that question in a moment. I also have to ‘fess up to that fact that I chose drama as a course to create as a means to provide myself with obstacles, with plausible deniability. When things went wrong or when learning activities and materials could not be recreated online I’d have reasons, I’d even have anticipated that they would not work. “Brilliant” I thought, “Post-grad professors love that, self-evaluation, what doesn’t work? They’ll ask. Why didn’t it work?” And I could tell them, in detail. I could have chosen dramatic literature, theatre history, technical theatre; I could have chosen any number of avenues to go down that are topics based in facts and details. Topics that have text-books and for which you can create vocabulary quizzes and tests, topics that I KNEW would work online. But I chose Drama, acting, my subject, a class that relies on human interaction, immediate visual recognition, actual physical and instantaneous feedback and contact. I chose, for my course, a subject that would – in my mind – be almost impossible to teach online! The problem with this theory and my plans: Every obstacle that I thought I’d engineered for myself was never an obstacle, every problem became an opportunity, every difficulty and area that I thought would give me a challenge or I expected to fail turned out to a chance to create something new, to do something different, to think outside of what I believed to be conventional and an opening to reconceptualize the norm into something fresh.
I failed to fail. Everything that I thought couldn’t work did.
Yes there were stumbling blocks, my desire to avoid my students self-disclosing fully was unfounded, I had to produce a number of videos that dented my own ego and, if I ever teach this course, I would like to re-make but there were not as many stumbling blocks as I had anticipated, it all came together fairly smoothly. I also discovered that teaching online is not that much different from teaching F2F; effective online teachers have the same practices as effective classroom instructors. There’s a joke in there somewhere: Q: What’s the difference between a classroom teacher and an online teacher? (answers on a postcard please.)*
Ultimately what I have learned is that online instruction is a large and significant part of every educators future and to ignore that is a mistake and a disservice to the students we currently and will be teaching. It may not ever replace F2F classrooms completely but it will become a substantial part of them. Be it for credit recovery, as college prep or AP, for professional development or as part of blended classrooms, online teaching is here to stay and will only continue to grow and become more and more relevant.
This blog post is called “End of Act I” because it is certainly not the end; this play is far from its conclusion. At this point, although I am proud of the course that I have created, it still exists only in theory. All classes do. The only way that I can ever move to Act II is to have students, real tangible human take the course. Only then will I know if what I have created truly works, sadly I don’t see an opportunity for that to happen any time soon (perhaps I should create one!) but one will arise some day in the next few years and because of ETAP640 I think I’ll be ready when it does.
So onto to the next step, applying everything that I have learned about student-centered classrooms, using social networking tools, Flow, peer assessments, teaching presence etc. etc. to my F2F classroom and thinking about the creation of future online classes – Dramatic Literature, Shakespeare, Scenes, (how would you teach scene work online???), Set Design, Greek Theatre, Absurdist Theatre the list is endless and none of them unachievable, I know that now.
“Can a drama class be taught online?” Yes, absolutely, yes.
So Alex (this one’s for you), If the University at Albany ever wants to attempt the creation of an online drama course, Facebook me.
At this point I’ll leave the stage, grab a bottle of water and wait for the intermission to be over before Act II begins. I hope it’s as good as Act I.
Luke (2)
*Q. What’s the difference between a classroom teacher and an online teacher?
A. Online teachers can type faster.
A. Online teachers use less Purell.
A. Online teachers can also come to class in their pajamas (just like the students).
Pickett, A. (n.d.). ETAP640 Introduction to Online Teaching. SUNY Learning Network. The University at Albany.