Dynamic Online Teaching-Resistances & Conversions

Even if you are convinced of the quality and importance of online teaching in theological education today, many students, colleagues, board members, church members, members of our various guilds, and other public audiences still need convincing.  As a recent convert to the possibilities of dynamic online pedagogy, I share a brief account of why I did not want to teach online and what I learned when I did.

Resisting Online Teaching

I did not want to do online teaching.  Like many theological educators, my education in divinity school and doctoral work was in traditional classroom formats.  I attended residential institutions, spent hours in stacks with physical books and their distinct smells, and daily conversed with students and professors in hallways that connected one classroom to another.

I am not opposed to benefits of some teaching with technology.  I use social media.  Email, Facebook, internet searches, and more recently (for me) Twitter are part of what social theorist Pierre Bourdieu calls my habitus.  I now notice when I am in a place for long without wifi.

I accepted technology as a support to my teaching.  Social media provides regular and seemingly endless access to cross-institutional collaboration, primary sources, library research at any hour, and on-the-pulse connection with a variety of perspectives of current events around the world.  But I was not convinced that fully online pedagogy was appropriate.

Even More Resistance

It is difficult to imagine teaching pastoral care and ethics online. My personal resistance was matched by the resistance of my training and field.  Is it even responsible?  How could I possibly replicate the embodied attentive presence, silences, tone of voice, awareness of boundaries in physical space that are so important to the content and practice of teaching pastoral care?

Resistances have a way of building up a long list of reasonable reasons “why I can’t.”  I can’t create the kind of community in an online course.  I don’t have time to teach online.  Contrary to popular belief about newer scholars, I don’t have automatic fluency in all emerging technologies.  Would I need another degree in online pedagogy?  I had serious concerns about student services. The most pressing was wondering how we could build up the kind of local referral system to support students who may be in crisis but who live in other communities.

Seeking a Conversion of Imagination

My resistance deepened when I was asked to teach online.  I am not alone, as an expectation to teach online is increasingly present in job postings for theological educators.  But I felt alone.  I had colleagues in History and Bible who had been teaching online for more than a decade, but I was the first asked to bring courses in my disciplines online.  While I had a Dean who graciously listened to mounting concerns, I needed to imagine not just online pedagogy, but my online pedagogy.

I sought more information.  I was looking for what I now realize was a conversion of imagination.[1]  I thought online teaching was impossible for me.  I needed to be convinced that it was not only possible, but lively, dynamic, responsible. Online teaching became a matter of moral imagination.

Before I taught my first online class, I sought and found conversation partners at several institutions to help enliven my imaginative sense of what is possible in online teaching. I discovered colleagues who believed in and had evidence to support responsible online teaching.

Practicing New Possibilities

When I began online pedagogy as a practice of teaching on par with more familiar forms, I was amazed.  Sure, I was anxious, sometimes doubtful, tired from hours of work, but still amazed.  Community was forming.  Learning was happening.  The virtual classroom was dynamic.

Conversions of my imagination had awakened me to new possibilities and I continue to learn about the dynamics of online learning, particularly in my field.

I have now taught six online classes in the fields of pastoral theology and ethics.  My introductory course in pastoral care stretched my imaginative possibilities the farthest.[2] .

Characteristics of Dynamic Online Learning

Six characteristics of online learning are emerging in my online pedagogy.  It is significant that these characteristics connect in important ways to the content in my online ethics and pastoral care courses.

1. Layer Course Structures: Students participate in my online classes as individuals, partners, small groups, and whole class activities. But, introducing all of these components the first week can be overwhelming.  So, I layer in course structures over the first three weeks of class.
2. Set a Tight Frame: No care practitioner or ethicist can be “on” 24/7 and neither are my classes.  I open the class for 3-4 days a week depend on course learning goals.  I thus remain open to asynchronous learning while also adding clear time boundaries to the class.
3. Name Anxiety and Vulnerability: Thinking online carries all of the risks of class participation with the addition of a written record of everything said.  It is important to name the anxieties and vulnerabilities involved.  It is important to commit to confidentiality and good boundaries.
4. Provide Structures of Accountability: I have discovered that online students are accountable to each other because of the nature of online discussions.  I don’t use anonymous commenting, but ask every member of the learning community to be accountable within the learning process through discussions, assignments, and class exercises.
5. Celebrate Community: Like any group of people, online classes form a sense of community over time.  Online communities are just as moving as traditional classrooms.  It is important to name and celebrate this.
6. Reflect on Learning Across Formats:  Finally, every online class provides an opportunity to reflect on pedagogy across structures.  In online pedagogy literature, professor after professor reports making changes to traditional formats because of pedagogical innovations that were better online.   I have also found this to be the case.

Open to Deepening Conversions

I am a recent convert to online teaching, but I am not convinced that only online teaching suffices for robust theological education. A hybrid system is best. My institution provides fully online and fully on-campus courses; most students come to campus for some of their classes.

I welcome opportunities to deepen my conversion to social media as a teaching support and method.  I have experienced a deeper conversion while sharing amazing examples of learning from my online classes with board members and in conversation with several students in the first week of my most recent online class who expressed gratitude that seminary was finally accessible to them because of the online format.

Pastoral care begins with an acknowledgement of suffering.  With this in mind, in the summer of 2014, I experienced a deeper conversion of the relevance of social media to teaching through many experiences of contemporary suffering, particularly through #FergusonSyllabus twitter discussions.

Teaching online in the face of my own resistances has opened me to deeper conversions around online pedagogy in theological education.  I still have questions about technology, time, and compensation for faculty time, but I now live in the creative tensions between my resistances and my conversions.  I welcome you into these tensions too.

Photo Credit: “i’m the 5th out of 5” by merri – CC by 2.0

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