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Compassionate Pedagogy Has Rules, Right?

You're semester or school year is off and running - am I right?  In my last post I encouraged you to take care of yourself over the summer.  To show yourself some compassion as you prepared for this fall.  I hope you did that. If you didn't now you have another chance. In the world of helpers, September is Self Care Month. Consider this my gentle nudge to remind you to take care of yourself as you work online with your students this semester. Self care is another blog post, but it is a form of self compassion and if you don't show this to yourself, you will struggle to offer it to your students. Find someone you can pair up with who would be fortunate enough to have a self care partner in you.  Speaking of fortunes, I was fortunate enou gh to attend several profess ional development sessions this summer.  As we work together to grow our knowledge and skills using a compassionate pedagogy framework, let me share some compassion with you.  This was shared with me when I atten
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So You’re Going Synchronous: Seeing People Live! 

You believe that your class content requires that you hold face-to-face sessions. Your university is requiring that you hold synchronous sessions. You’ve decided that to stay connected as a learning community holding some “live sessions” are beneficial to everyone.

You’re talking about synchronous, real time teaching in an online classroom.  There are many benefits to this, without question. Let’s go through some helpful information that you can utilize to get started. 

Credit Where Credit is Due 

I have to share with you that most of what I will present here in today’s blog comes from the resources offered to all from Columbia University’s School of Social Work. I participated in the Institute for Teaching Online Pedagogy about 2 years ago. This course is open to all regardless of your connection to Columbia.  I’ve learned so much about being effective at building online learning communities and leading them in distance education - I cannot say enough about this training program.  Their online program uses a unique model on Adobe Connect.  For those who are moving quickly to online teaching, universities are encouraging instructors to use Zoom so I will be covering this below but if you want to be the very best distance educator, do look into this award winning institute. 

Zoom 

Most universities are asking their instructors to move to Zoom during this time. If you are going to teach on Zoom, this tool created by Columbia is your key to success. It outlines what you need, elements of a successful online class and a checklist of things to do before your class starts.



As someone who teaches using Zoom, I'd be happy to share in great detail my experiences and wisdom using Zoom.  However, you need a quick tool to do this right now and Stanford created a wonderfully organized sheet that you can use to become familiar with the features of Zoom before using it. This information is very effectively summarized on this Zoom Sheet 

 A Few Pointers

  • Hold a Zoom meeting with a colleague you trust to play with the features Zoom offers 
  • Check your lighting in that meeting so students can see you clearly 
  • Determine if you will record your class. If so be sure to make certain your students know this and your reasons for doing it. 
  • Before your class begins have all files open that you are going use during the class session to share with students including PowerPoints, documents and any links to things such as movies or games you will play
  • Learn from each class - you are developing a new skill and so are your students. Take a moment to note what went well and where you'd like to improve 
Have questions? Ideas? Tools to share? I'd love to hear from you and share with our Doubtfully Digital community. 

Next: Survival Tips for Distance Educators (& Students Too!) 

Resources 

Need to Go Online in a Hurry? Here's How 
Quick Tips for Online Teaching

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