PIDP 3260 - Achieving Balance

Aug 25

I sympathize with teachers who’s students are teachers themselves. Those of us in the audience have the luxury to observe, judge and learn from watching the good and poor examples from the person (the teacher) heading the class. Today’s rambling thoughts stem from a lesson learned watching just such a PIDP instructor.

Like most teachers (all in the PIDP program) who I have encountered, this teacher really wanted to provide the best quality instruction for their students. As it was an on-line course, the teacher ensured a “live” meeting with each student, offered additional student/teacher times, included synchronous and asynchronous teaching in their class, and had a fully flushed Moodle program that included multiple videos they had made. It was a great quality class for the students.

The problem was, the teacher was getting overwhelmed. And we students could see it.

What was really interesting, was watching what the teacher did about it. They created boundaries. They changed their availability hours, some of the structure for assignments and feedback, and some of the activities that needed their direct interaction,

It was interesting because this was an on-line course on the subject of on-line teaching. So much of the content was about all of the extra things we could do as teachers to add value for our students. However, while the instructor maintained absolute professionalism, as students we clearly had a takeaway lesson about how much extra was placed on the teacher as a result of the extras, and about the importance of balance for the teacher as well as the students.

Students learn a lot in class that is not explicitly on the curriculum. In that class, it was balancing what was best for the teacher, as well as what was best for the students. What an interesting, and valuable class that was.