So I’m seeing a lot of “oh so now online learning is where it’s at?” tweets (some of which I’ve rt’ed). Look, I get it, it’s frustrating. But what if, and hear me out, this is our chance?
The people on the ground who are trying to help faculty deal with this uncertainty and change are really good at their jobs, but also now completely overwhelmed. What was once optional is now required.
We’re working with faculty who barely knew we existed. Who have never ever used an LMS. Who have possibly not thought about their pedagogy, not really, for years. And we are doing that now. It’s not ideal at all but it is happening.
So we get to talk about pedagogy, about assignment design. I have a whole section about being mindful of the human being on the other side of the screen and self-care. Reaching people we would have never reached before.
It’s stressful and exciting and limiting for better and for worse. I’ve seen the tremendous generosity of our community share resources and support. We’re looking for faculty mentors to help too, help their colleague who might not have wanted it otherwise.
Many will slide back into the status quo afterwards, but there is a possibility of an opening for more campus-wide critical conversations about critical digital pedagogy. About access. About inclusion. About equity.
If we are generous now (a tremendous investment of affective labor, I know) then it will pay off afterwards in being more central when these conversations happen.
So yes, be bitter about the system that has made these conversations harder if not impossible before this moment of crisis. But be generous to those individuals on all sides left scrambling because of it. At the end of the day, we want our students to succeed.
I’m working all weekend because my bosses are working all weekend because we care about student success. We’re all stressed and yeah, we all came home Friday completely spent. But this is the work. It’s the work I care about and I’m good at.
It can be chaotic and uncertain and fast-moving and frustrating. But it’s the work, ultimately, I wanted to do, I chose to do. I always said in my interviews, this is where I think I can have the most impact. And now the moment to make an important difference is here.
And I take all the lessons I’ve learned, all the experiences I’ve had on here, from and with all of you, into this work. The work no one (institutionally) cared about for so long is being put into the work we’re doing now. All of it.
So the moocmooc and femtechnet and NITLE and thatcamp and #digped and cMOOC and hashtag chats and all of it. It all lives on in the people who are now doing the work with faculty, informing our advice and interactions every day.
The institutions didn’t notice (and I feel that in my bones personally) but the people did. And those people went on to be parts of the institution, and now we are spreading it into our institutions.
So to those who have been doing the work for so long and without recognitions, we all owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you. We carry the lessons forward with gratitude.
Addendum: I want to say that this is our chance to do it in as responsible, ethical, and sustainable way as possible. It won't be perfect, but a chance to influence things for the better.
One more point of clarification: While I invoked online learning, the opportunity I see is to really introduce critical digital pedagogy into the conversation. That got lost.
And that's my own fault. I explicitly invoke (wait, is that an oxymoron?) online learning in the first tweet, but then only allude to critical digital pedagogy without naming it. Well, consider it named now.
What I meant was that this is an opportunity to finally have these discussions about critical digital pedagogy. In fact, if faculty struggle, even "fail", can we turn it into a productive conversation as to why, and what we can be doing better no matter the medium.
Ultimately, that is the the work I love to do and the place where it can be so meaningful. Yeah, today it's emergency online/hybrid learning. But what does that mean for our classes tomorrow?
