In this witty and insightful webinar, the kick-off to the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges 2015 IGNIS webinar series, Alyson Indrunas, eLearning Director at Everett Community College, shares her hard-won insights into designing and implementing successful online classrooms that create both student and faculty success.
My Decade of Mistakes-- Four Things I Did Wrong as an Online Teacher
1. MY DECADE OF MISTAKES
Four Things I Did Wrong as an OL
Teacher
Alyson Indrunas
Director of eLearning & Instructional Desi
Everett Community College
IGNIS Webinar
February 5, 2015
3. Google Doc. Invitation
1. Are you so comfortable with Collaborate that you
could teach somebody else how to use it?
2. Do you live to multi-task?
3. Do you bomb chat windows with ideas when you
attend webinars?
If you answered NO to any one of these questions, stay
here. The Google Doc. will be there later. Sip your
coffee. Listen.
If you answered #YessyYesYes!! then click on the link
Alissa will provide in the chat.
4. #TrueConfession
I have several degrees
from WA state. AA, BA,
MA, M.Ed.
My adjunct era is
beautifully summarized in
more optimistic terms than
I can tell it by Josh Boldt.
(Linked on the Google
Doc.)
Vitae’s “How I Got Out:
One Adjunct’s Journey
From Freeway Flyer to
eLearning Director”
5. 10 Years Ago…
“We need people to teach online, and nobody
else wants to do it. I’m getting desperate.
Interested?”
“Just put all of your handouts online and write
lectures to connect them. Shouldn’t take that
long. You’re a writing teacher, right?”
6. Five Years Later…
I never got bumped as an adjunct. “Bumped” is
a euphemistic scheduling term that we use to
describe being outranked. None of the full-
timers wanted to teach online when I started,
and many to this day still do not.
I was very lucky during an unlucky era. It’s
tough to get a foot in the door at some
institutions. See Hint For Adjuncts on Google
Doc.
11. Mistake n.
1. an action or judgment that is misguided or
wrong.
Used in a sentence:
“Thinking I have all the answers for improving
OL education is a mistake.”
Synonyms:
error, fault, inaccuracy, omission, slip, blunder,
miscalculation, misunderstanding, oversight,
flub, goof
15. Solution #1: Be Creative
Try course redesigns in three week
or unit chunks. In one year, you’ll
have an entire course.
Split the labor with a like-minded
colleague and accept that you
compete in the same job market.
Find a cool full-timer who is bored
of the departmental drama.
Work together in a Canvas master
course. Ask your eLearning
Director.
Collaborate with a librarian.
Always remember, you’re not alone. Ask Je
Alissa, or anyone at the SBCTC. They can h
you connect with other teachers.
16. Mistake #2: Error in Practice
“I signed up for your hybrid
class, Ms. Indrunas, because
it seems like your OL students
hate you.”
~Former
rateyourprofessor.com
Researcher
I decided to start anew, to strip
away what I had been taught.
~Georgia O’Keefe
19. Solution #2
Establish a personal learning
network.
Show your students how you
use the Internet to research.
Guide them in your discipline
through eFlood of information
on the Internet.
Think of your students as
citizens and not just people
you’ve been hired to teach.
Be honest with them.
22. Solution #3
It’s okay to say:
Someday, just not today.
Do one thing to improve.
Always take the time to look around to
connect with like-minded people.
If you do one thing experimental, do it in
one section.
Take note of what’s difficult and make
friends with somebody who has figured it
out.
23. Mistake #4: Blunder
Always remember you’re the content expert.
You are providing the materials for students
to create their own meaning.
You can give them patterns to practice.
25. Solution #4
Put your students to work!
Have them make checklists of the activities
that you would like them to do each week.
Ask that they share their study guides.
Use what they write in your teaching. Creating
one short recording summarizing their
contribution to the course goes along way.
Share with them why you love your discipline
when they discover a “new thought” that
excites you.
Don’t miss the joy and fun of learning.
26. Thank you, IGNIS!
Alyson Indrunas
aindrunas@everettcc.edu
Twitter: @AlysonIndrunas
Blog: https://spokeandhub.wordpress.com/
EvCC Humanities Lecture
ATL Winter Retreat
ATL Pre-Conference Workshop
WHETC Conference
NISOD Conference
Institute for New Faculty Development
My advice to adjuncts: use the LMS in your F2F & HY courses. Show interest!
http://www.mohai.org/exhibits/center-for-innovation
As a teacher, I rarely had time to reflect.
My go-to slide to explain how it feels to be a teacher right now. Teachers are Bono.
Learned to moderated DB in grad school for Women in Literature course, hired to teach at CCs with overheads and zero technology.
It felt like things were already happening. I had a lot of catching up to do.
Thinking oh-so-linearly killed my creativity and led to burnout.
Expanding my own OL learning helped me out of that pit of despair. Solution #1: I should have networked with like-minded teachers to solve my problems. I closed the virtual door of my classroom and suffered alone. I missed opportunities to collaborate with people in my department, other departments, and in the system. Talk to your eLearning Director. Set up Master courses where you can collaborate. My best collaborations were with people outside my discipline.
Think of teaching as an art. Something you practice. Something you improve over time.
Your seedling is somebody else’s future idea. Share it. Note the section that didn’t grow. Remember the other ideas that worked.
I thought I was alone.
I was one of many, and I needed a change in mindset. Share what you do as a teacher. Jing/screencast are easy-peasy ways to “show and tell.”
In the cascade of information, I felt isolated, lonely, and bored. Teacher burnout is a symptom of a larger problem of professional development.
I focused on the thorns without smelling the roses. Cliché alert! Embrace platitudes!
Whoopsie-Whoodle trail on Galbraith Mountain, Bellingham, WA. Mt. Baker in the distance. 360 degrees of amazingness.
Locally spun yarn from the happy sheep of Mendocino County, CA
Yarn Bombs Make Me Happy: A Memoir
Mendocino, CA
Missed the all the signs of joy.
Hope to meet you in person at any of these events. Thank you for spending an hour with my thoughts!