The Second Naiveté of Online Learning

Increasingly, unhealthy online learning is a part of theological education. And yet, ailment the vast majority of current professors were trained in traditional classrooms. Many of us are finding ourselves teaching in settings we ourselves have never had to learn in. How can educators embrace a second naiveté towards online learning?

While I was working on my master’s degree, cialis I remembering attending a workshop on “developing a teaching philosophy.” I was in the early stages of applying to doctoral programs so I thought it would be a good chance to learn how many of my professors reflect on their vocation as teachers.

Good or Bad

As the first presenter got started he asked us to think back on the teachers who have left a lasting impression on us, good or bad.

After some silent reflection, the presenter reminded us that our “teaching philosophies” had already been partially informed by all the past experiences we have had. Even if we had never taught a class or given a lecture, we likely already knew something about teaching because for most of our lives we have been students. He wisely reminded us both our expertise as scholars and our craft of teaching would be life long journeys of failure and success.

That made a lot of sense to me and it got my reflecting carefully about what kind of learner I had been. But as I did that, it hit me: I’d been learning in settings my own teachers had never learned in.

If I may, I’d like to offer a few reflections on my own trajectory as a hybrid learner, a student for whom both online learning and traditional classroom settings have been a part of my own education. In these experiences, three opportunities in online learning stand out.

We Need Higher, Not Lower, Standards

Students often correctly assume online classes will be easier (e.i. less work). Many online classes end up this way because they are taught by part-time adjuncts, or they are designed with an inadequate understanding of the technologies available and what challenges and opportunities come with them. But the best online class I ever took was taught by a professor well into his eighties. It was not his unique tenacity to learn a new way of teaching alone that made the course effective, though that certainly made a difference. Rather, it was his profound respect for his students. He asked us not to do less because it was online, but more.

In online forums weekly lead posts were 1000 words and students were required most weeks to respond to that lead post with 500 words of substantive response. The professor’s engagement on the forums modeled how to give careful critiques generously enough to be taken seriously. Using the discussion forums this way invited us to carefully consider each word we penned since we knew those words would be seen by our peers and responded to. Theological ideas were not simply stated, they were developed.

Interacting Online

Often in online learning, interactions are transformed by their environments. That can be a good thing, but it can also be quite bad. We all have received (or sent) inappropriate emails, the kind where the author should have hit the delete button rather than the send button. But I also have a small group of close friends with whom in monthly emails and Skype calls we share every joy and sorrow life brings: a new job, an engagement, a pregnancy that had to be terminated, or a loved one in the hospital. Even in these new environments, I have seen the best and worst of our humanity comes through.

Skeptics of online learning rightly raise questions about how to replicate quality interaction between faculty and students. But it’s not the tools that present the biggest challenge for online learning, its a commitment to tend to the possibilities and limits of the mediums we choose that matters more.

The Advantage of Non-Linear Learning

One semester in graduate school I took course in history. Now, I love history, but this professor’s style of lecturing was not particularly captivating for me. Over time I realized that if I paced myself watching fifteen minutes at a time and doing other things in between, I learned a lot more. What was even better was going back and revisiting the lectures when it came time to write our seminar papers. Soon I learned to think differently about how I moved through the requirements.

In most online classes, the course is documented in ways that traditional classrooms lack and this has real advantages. For example, discussions “exist” in searchable text (what was that my colleague said about postmodern hermeneutics?), recorded lectures are repeatable and sharable (which raises questions for a whole other post!).

Moving beyond traditional linear, start-to-finish trajectories might offer entirely new approaches to elusive program objectives such as retention and integration.

A Second Naiveté

Gone is the day when online learning is short hand for private, for profit institutions with questionable education quality. In its place are MOOCs sponsored by Stanford, Harvard and UCLA. In its place is a contentious debate concerning motivations for profit, assessment of online programs, and appropriateness for particular areas of study.

We need to have those debates.

However we also need something like what Paul Ricoeur had in mind when he talked about a “second naiveté.” While the first naiveté occurs in front of a yet-to-be complicated text, the second comes after it has been thoroughly complicated by the situation surrounding the world in which the text is being read. If we think about online learning in this way, we will have to question our own presuppositions about learning and teaching. We will have to hold the limits and possibilities in tension (like many of us already do in traditional classrooms), and allow our thinking about education to wonder towards places we might otherwise hesitate to go. Places like the future of teaching religious and theological studies.

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