Roles and Competencies of Adult Educators: Online vs. In-Person
This post is related to the topic of The Multiplicity of Roles of Adult Educators and Learners. It was written in response to the following prompt:
"Create a short audiovisual presentation with your views about the issues raised above. U can use your mobile phone or the camera and mic of your laptop to just create a video which u will upload to youtube. U can alternatively choose to do an animation, an infographic, etc"
Here is the article I mention in the following post relating to the roles and competencies of online educators.
For this post, I used the online tool "Easelly" to create an infographic along with adding my own written insights:
I have attached an infographic that I created using the easel program (I am really enjoying learning about and how to use the various free online tools that Andreas has provided for us!). I created an infographic exploring the differences between "classroom teachers" and "online teachers." This stemmed from the reading on Transforming Online Teaching Practice by Baran, Correia and Thompson (see link above for article) as well as an article I found here that was recently aired on the National Public Radio in the United States. Both address issues of what exactly is the role of an online teacher in higher education and who is allowed to call themselves online teachers.
I also thought it was pertinent to include a few thoughts on the type of online teacher I would like to be because both of these articles (and the question prompts for this week) got me to reflect on this exact question. As Baran, Correia and Thompson noted, online teachers are expected to be, "professional, pedagogical, social, evaluator, administrator, technologist, advisor/counselor and researcher (7)." I think all of these encompass who I would like to be as an online teacher, but, as I mention at the end of the infographic, what are ways in which I could incorporate the role of a classroom teacher with that of an online teacher? So I would ultimately aim to do the following as an online teacher:
Facilitate critical dialogue and reflective learning
Incorporate Student-led learning sessions to better motivate students to become advocates of their own learning
Be technologically savvy at least with the tools I am using and expect my students to use
Try to bring the physical classroom into the virtual one- creating safe and inspiring learning environments for the student
Have classes that are only a small number of students
Constantly be researching and evaluating myself as a teacher and learner- always improving
try and facilitate and create opportunities for face-to-face engagement with the students (helping organize student led, in-person study sessions; having "office hours" where students can schedule a time to Skype with me; meeting with students who are in geographical proximity
I think that is an exhaustive enough list for now. I know I am not currently the ideal student I would like to have participate in my online learning classes, but I think I am getting there and learning how to be a student in these environments through courses like this.
Here is the infographic:
