So Many Thoughts: Planning for Fall

There is an old saying that "crisis doesn't create character, it reveals it."

I am not sure if this is completely true, but I've been thinking a lot about this in light of how our emergency distance teaching adventure has unfolded over the past weeks and months.

This has been an educational crisis, for sure. And it hasn't all gone well, at least in my own teaching practice. There are plenty of things that I would have loved to do over, from the kinds of assignments I gave in some situations, to the way I communicated my expectations to students, to being a little more proactive in reaching out to a few students. It all ended up well enough in each of these situations, and we made it through. I feel like I'm still kind of catching my breath after the hectic pace and uncertainty of the end of the spring semester. I suspect many educators are feeling that way.

But the fall semester is out there on the horizon, and soon enough it will be here. And as much as I wish I could take more time to rest, to regroup...I think planning for fall has to begin now.

I know many schools already have those kinds of planning sessions underway, but I'm thinking here about teachers in particular. What can we do to be best prepared for teaching this fall? Here are six things that I think educators should think about. I don't mean this list to be a prescriptive "here's what you gotta do if you're going to be teaching this fall," but more of a "here's what I'm thinking about and I hope this might help spur your thinking too." I'd love to hear your thoughts in response.

Social Presence and Online Video

I was at the Association for Educational and Communication Technology's annual conference this week I had the joy of meeting up with a group of my cohort and several of my professors face-to-face. It was a great time of hanging out together.

One of my faculty sponsors has done quite a lot of research in the field of social presence in online courses. I'm thankful that I have the chance to learn from and work with him, and I am especially thankful that I got to meet up with Dr. Lowenthal in person this week and hear one of his presentation at the conference. His passion and knowledgeability about his research area were inspiring!

Dr. Lowenthal doing his thing.

I am torn on my dissertation topic. I'm sure it will be either examining social presence in online learning or preparing pre-service teachers for the demands of technology integration, but between these two topics there is quite a bit of room. I was in sessions this week related to both of these topics, and I was hoping to gain clarity, but I'm still struggling a bit. I will say that after hearing Dr. Lowenthal's presentation, I feel myself pulled toward examining social presence at least in the short term, if not for a long term project like my dissertation, or at least for a future research topic after this degree is completed.

Here is a link to the slides from this presentation, which was all about social presence and online video. Maybe this gives a glimpse into why I find this so fascinating? (Or maybe you'll be left saying, "whatever, Dave...") :-)

AECT 2014 social presence and video from Patrick Lowenthal