Category: Uncategorized

I love visiting other teachers’ online classrooms. It is such a good resource to gather ideas and to also double check that I am doing everything possible to help my students learn. One of the ideas that I absolutely loved was that the instructor created weekly reviews of the information that the students should be learning or doing each week. After completing the content for that week, students could go read the weekly review to double check that they have understood all of the concepts. This instructor’s reviews included pictures and just a bit of text to explain the concepts again. What a great idea! My goal is to create review pages over the summer to start preparing for next year.

When I first heard we were looking at other classes, I froze. As a perfectionist, I am always second guessing myself. Would the other teachers look at my classroom and find all the flaws? Will they think that I’m doing a terrible job?

As we got started with the activity, I realized that a fellow ELA colleague whom I know does a fantastic job with his classroom, was going to be the person perusing through my classroom. Oh, great.

To my surprise, my colleague had nothing but great things to say about my classroom. Even saying that my classroom was a nice reminder for him of things that he needs to be doing that he has forgotten about. While browsing, he was constantly agreeing with things that I posted and pointing out things that I had done that he loved.

I am not a bragger by any means, but I felt the need to share this because it was interesting how this activity affected me in more ways than one. Yes, it gave me some great ideas, but it was amazing to hear a respected colleague who has been teaching online for years praising me for a job well done. As a new online instructor who is plagued with “perfectionism”, it really boosted my confidence to have my colleague compliment my classroom. To me, that is one of the nicest compliments I could have received!

While the content in Michigan Virtual is designed to promote student learning, there are instances within the online classroom where I have found that supplementary content is necessary. Especially when it comes to English!

English can be very tricky for some students because of all of the various rules of grammar and mechanics. I always tell them that I’ve been studying and teaching it for quite some time now, but even I have to look things up every once in a while. I think it is unfair to expect students to be learning all of the grammatical and mechanical rules while also working to improve their reading comprehension and writing techniques. Especially for those students who struggle with English. This is why when I taught f2f, I gave all my students a “cheat book” that they could use. It held all of the basics that they should know or would learn. They could use this whenever they needed.

This is why I have started posting PDFs about comma rules, paragraph structure, in-text citations, etc. Yes, students can always search the internet in all its vastness, however, I’ve found that often times, the internet can be a black hole for students. There are so many resources, not all of them reliable or understandable, that may guide the students in the wrong direction. The internet also has that magical ability to suck you into a downward spiral of procrastination. When searching for information, they might decide to just check their Facebook page a second while the other page loads. Twenty-three videos and a tired thumb from scrolling, the student sees a meme that reminds them of the comma rules that they were searching for originally and gets them back on track.

If these resources are provided to the student in Blackboard, the chances of the student needed to search the internet for help diminishes. They get to stay on track and already know where to find useful information, ultimately saving them time.

To encourage students to use these resources, I will often refer to them in my feedback. For example, “Remember to cite this quote. Refer back to the document I shared in the announcements to help you with this.” I think the reminders help keep the resources fresh in the students’ minds, as well as increases their chances of using the resources I have provided.

With the start of the new term quickly approaching, I would like to create a folder in Blackboard with all of these extra resources. Currently, I simply post them to Blackboard in the announcements. I think this makes it more difficult for the students to find what they need as they have to scroll back through all of the announcements.

I would also like to find videos for various topics that are discussed or stories that are read in my courses. I have found a few here and there, but the big problem becomes finding videos that are, of course, appropriate and keep the students’ interest. Finding videos that are well done can be near impossible at times. Having been a student who loves English, but wanted to gouge my eyes out due to pure boredom during the many videos I watched in high school, I would really like to avoid making my students feel that way. I believe that more and more students dislike reading and writing these days, and having them watch those ridiculously boring videos isn’t going to help gain interest in the subject! Eliminating some of the frustrations they may have about a certain topic by providing additional resources may help some students develop more of an appreciation for reading and writing.

While I have a lot of resources from my f2f years, I am always looking for new ones. As my job as an iEducator continues, I hope to develop a bigger and better stash. After all, I can’t expect my students to learn and appreciate our lovely English language on their own!