Tuesday, August 31, 2021

So, with the never-ending lockdown here in Vietnam, we're back to teaching online.  

I find myself more and more thinking of something Phil wrote last year about his experience delivering his course online.  The full post is here, I'll quote the key bits below:

As regards teaching, this is a Them That's Got Shall Have semester. Those students who have arrived in my life--I almost typed "in my classroom" and then noticed the absurdity--with a great existing capacity for self-monitoring, for locating in themselves the wellsprings of enthusiasm and then directing those waters to any given assignment, for interpreting and following directions, are doing great! The students who haven't, aren't....

There are always some people who can administer education to themselves, like a medication. If they are pointed in the direction of more or less adequate books and if they find decent conversation partners, they will learn the thing, assuming they want to know it....

...some students who come to me this semester having not learned how to administer education to themselves in the proper doses will leave me having learned little....

This has been my experience with online teaching as well.

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