What Online Teaching Is and Is Not

Online educators are pioneers. It doesn't matter that people have been learning online for over a
decade now, this teaching modality is still new. All of the successes and failures we have talked about prior to this were spread across decades, centuries. Education kept shifting focus every few years in an attempt to meet needs and have the better idea.

We have moved from all ages in one room with slates and charcoal to bigger classes or smaller ones; notebooks newly-defined; same gender classes; academic versus business "majors;" special education in separate rooms versus integrated one and all. I think I need to produce an infographic on this because our "this or that" solution approach endures. Sure, researchers backed most of these, but truth? We continued to reinvent the models.

However, while the primary responsibility of teachers to educate has never changed, online teaching has brought the single biggest change to how we do this thing called teaching. Totally online K-12 education means it is very possible that a teacher won't actually "see" a student during their entire program. Other teachers might meet them, but if a Math teacher is 500 miles from the student and only online and the webcam never gets turned towards the student's computer, that teacher might not meet the student before or at graduation.

This reality has many implications for teachers and I am here to first point out what online teaching is NOT.

• It is NOT just wearing sweats and teaching from your sofa.
• It is NOT simply moving content from textbooks to a computer screen.
• It is NOT just grading content and answering emails.
• It is NOT adding up online quizzes and tests passed and declaring a student has passed.
• It is NOT gimmick-teaching, adopting the idea the more clever the tools, the better the learning.

And now, what online teaching IS:

• It IS an opportunity to meet and work with students over a wide geographic area.
• It IS a teaching method which uses the most cutting edge online tools available in education today for the best reasons.
• It IS the finest full emphasis on learners making learning we have ever employed.
• It IS the positive conversion from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side."
• It IS collaboration, not a solitary experience. Students make meaning,

While not a comprehensive list for certain, I wanted to start the conversation. I was at the gate when teachers first came to K-12 online work and we were all naive to a degree. I not only worked alongside many others and we all learned together, I soon emerged as a trainer and a support in the field. I have warned against the pitfalls of "lazy teaching" (letting the online software "do" the teaching) and applauded the creativity when teachers actively interacted with students to make a difference.

Admittedly, as the platforms or learning management systems have grown more sophisticated, adding such things as built-in webinar capability, options for subjective input, and plagiarism checkers to verify content, teachers have been freed to actively teach - online, on camera, one-on-one or in classroom groups. Email is integrated and safe; course responses are protected and allow for immediate feedback, and parents are an integral part of the equation, ever so much easier than on-the-ground.

I will revisit this topic. It offers endless conversation on how online teachers must work in order to "do" it right . Please join the conversation and share the post so others outside your circle can join in too.