Flower Darby, Instructional Designer, adjunct faculty and co-author of Small Teaching Online, Northern Arizona University |
Online classes are the only option for many, if not most, of our online students. The flexibility of taking classes online allows students to pursue a college degree or credential to improve their lot in life. Yet online classes offer unique teaching and learning challenges that make it easy for students and faculty both to lose faith, grow fatigued, give up. To reinvigorate our online teaching, we’ll consider the call to improve the undergraduate educational experience, identified as National Priority One in a 2017 report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Report authors remind us that education is at the heart of the American dream: “every person, from every background, can succeed in America when given the proper training and preparation” (The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America, 2017). Let’s explore ways of answering this call by re-invigorating our online teaching, motivated by the highest ideal of educating our citizenry toward a brighter future for all.