I’m an Instructional Technology Teacher at an Elementary STEM Magnet School. The last several months, through this crisis, has been nothing short of extraordinary. The breathtaking speed that we left school, deployed all of our equipment, created videos and learning experiences for our students to help them login and access their classwork online, as well as assisting staff with training and support, has been phenomenal! Many of our staff had never used a learning management system or taught online before this time. And although our students used devices for much of their classwork, they were now thrust into this new world of using their equipment full time for everything from learning new math to communicating in a variety of ways with their teachers and classmates. This all became part of our journey, to get everyone in place, using the tools they needed, to continue the learning, like we’ve never experienced before.
I’m also a graduate student in Learning, Design & Technology at UNC Charlotte, in North Carolina, where I’ve been fortunate to be selected to help a cohort of STEM faculty transition from face-to-face instruction to an online format for both summer sessions. As a team, we’re working directly with faculty to build their mode of delivery that, for many of them, has also been a very new experience. Their challenges, although one would think would be somewhat different from an elementary school teacher’s challenge, surprisingly were very much the same – how do you build a course of study that is enriching, engaging and helps the student achieve their learning goals. This has become our big question mark, one that has required critical thinking to brainstorm solutions – some even while in the mix of things.
This past semester, taking the course Design, Development and Evaluation of Online Learning Systems, where we used QM extensively, had become a constant guide for each step and with many details to pay attention to. Ironically, I was getting real world experience in real time and was fortunate to have the tools and course working hand-in-hand to make this transition possible, with as few bumps along the way. I still can’t believe my luck.
