More Like Riding a Bike

A response to the Like Driving a Car Activity
created by Stephanie Ferguson (@stpark)

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The threshold concept in online learning design that I’d like to explore for this activity is that online learning can be equal to or in some cases richer than face-to-face teaching.

This is definitely a challenging concept to accept or even entertain for anyone who is new to online teaching, who only has experience teaching F2F, and who really enjoys being in a physical classroom. 

However, once you open yourself up to this possibility and experience success and connection in the online classroom, the reasons why you ever thought previously that it wasn’t possible, quickly start to disappear. You no longer even think of all the limitations you used to focus on, and teaching online starts to feel a lot like driving a car.

The “expert blind spot” is often that we take for granted all the small skills involved in being able to teach online in an effective manner.

Some of the component skills that are required to master this:

  • acknowledge there are key differences between online and F2F and that teaching online requires an additional set of skills
  • let go of the expectation you can imitate everything that is done in the F2F classroom in the online classroom
  • embrace the learning of new digital skills rather than allowing them to be an obstacle
  • shift your perspective from what students are going to miss out on not being in a F2F class to what they are going to gain by being in the online environment
  • use technology to create interactive learning that can be a much more effective way to help students learn and retain lessons 
  • ask questions like, “What can we do now that we could not do before?” and “How can we do what we’ve always done better?” 
  • focus on how the tools afforded by the online classroom can point us in new and creative directions
  • actively create your online presence and communicate regularly with students
  • always use your own voice in your writing and when recording. The tendency is to become much more formal online than we are when F2F
  • be yourself, share stories, and do not let the online environment delete your personality
  • remember why you love to teach, allow yourself to relax and have fun!

I honestly think a better analogy for this threshold concept would be “Like Riding a Bike” because a great teacher in the F2F classroom already has most of the skills required to be a great teacher online – and although the transition to online might result in a scraped knee or two, it really just takes practice and determination to get riding again! 😉