Current Knowledge Assessment

My name is Jason Settle, and I teach English at Wytheville Community College. I've taught online classes since about 2009, which means that by now I should have a pretty good grasp on things. But when I got into online teaching, I did what I think many others have done too: I took what I did for my face-to-face classes and simply put it online. I didn't have much background in online design, so I sought help from my colleagues. Unfortunately many of us have adhered to the same "learn as we go" strategy to figuring out the best way to present our content in an online format. I learned that I needed some formal training in online instruction.

This blog will chronicle my journey as I attempt to make my online classes more accessible and educationally sound. I'm a content expert. I know my stuff. But gone are the days of standing in front of a classroom and talking at length about what we know and love while hoping and trusting that our students absorb the information. In the online format (and even in face-to-face classes) there are strategies of delivery that can be used to better ensure that our content actually reaches our students in a way that proves useful to them.

My first major learning event related to online teaching was a Quality Matters course that I took in the summer of 2013. This alone is telling: I've been teaching online since 2009, and what I consider my first major learning event didn't happen until 2013. Why is that? The answer is two-fold. One reason is that I didn't have much knowledge of online design prior to teaching the initial classes, and as I've already mentioned, I adopted the "learn as I go" mentality. The other reason is that for the majority of the first years, I was teaching part-time as an adjunct instructor. I don't offer this as an excuse, but as a simple fact. I was often teaching at multiple institutions, and I felt, often wrongly, that I had limited access to continuing education opportunities at those various institutions: I was a teacher without a permanent home. Around 2012, I took it upon myself to pursue whatever opportunity arose so that I could become a better online instructor.

As I was saying, I took a Quality Matters course in 2013. This course opened my eyes to the fact that there is a big difference between content and design. And I learned that a big factor in whether or not students get the information is how that information is presented in the online format. I learned that having clearly stated learning objectives that are directly linked to individual assignments is extremely important to students. And I learned that students need clearly articulated assessment methods.

I think that an online course should be as clean as possible without added clutter. Students want to know where the syllabus is, where the assignments are and how to submit them, and they want to know how they'll be graded. Those things should be obvious upon browsing the class website for a few brief moments.

Another major learning event was attending the New Horizons conference in Roanoke this year. I intentionally selected presentations about online instruction; I observed presentations on Blackboard grading rubrics, and I went to a presentation on Topics in Online Teaching and Learning (TOTAL) courses. The latter presentation piqued my interest in taking a TOTAL workshop, and I'm currently enrolled in a TOTAL workshop on best practices in online instruction.

I'm committed to continuing to grow as an online instructor. And I hope that this blog will serve as motivation for me as I continue to hone my craft. I also hope that the blog might prove useful for other teachers as they embark on similar journeys.