Challenges Teaching in the Online Classroom

Diversity in the range of technical skills is a huge challenge for an instructor in the online classroom, and it continues to be so for me, semester after semester. When planning an online course, my experience has been that students come with a wide range of ability levels with regard to technology skills. It is quite a bit different than preparing for a f2f class. When you are teaching at a graduate level, as I do – or at an under graduate level, for that matter, you can take for granted as instructor that your students have the basic technical skills for the course. They can read and write, listen and see, (perhaps with adaptive equipment or accommodations of some sort). When you are teaching online, your students come to you believing they have the skills, but in fact, some are quite proficient, while others struggle to navigate the online classroom. Their heads spin. New students have to conceptualize virtual reality and within that reality, the virtual classroom. Once the structure of the virtual classroom is established tools, processes, menus, and links all fall into place. But until then, there is a broad continuum of technical skill levels that have to be accommodated while orchestrating substantive group discussion and keeping everyone moving forward together through the syllabus.  But if the Cat in the Hat can balance books on his head and a fish in a bowl on the end of a rake while holding a fan in his tail – simultaneously – I’ll keep doing my best!