0.3 Findings  (Page 6/22)

Philosophy of teaching

Nancy described her philosophy of teaching:

I think that students do best when they’re active learners, so in a course like theories, there’s a lot of didactic expression for sure. I also wanted them to apply the knowledge as much as possible. It’s important that they reflect on what they’ve learned and interact with the materials, so I do assign reflection papers. It’s a very open classroom. People ask clarification questions, or give examples from their own experiences. I really think the community of scholars piece of education is hugely important, especially in graduate school education. And as counselors, I want them to really be comfortable with consulting with each other. So having that built in through things like the case studies where, “This is my idea. What is your idea?” is really important.

It was clear that Nancy had been influenced by her mentors in the way she thought about teaching, especially concerning the importance of building a community of learners, a concept originating from the writings of Lave and Wenger (1991). They believed that all learning is embedded in the social and physical context of the learner, and the activity in which knowledge is acquired cannot be separated from learning and understanding.

Technophobia and technology training

Before pursuing her Ph.D. in psychology, Nancy had graduated with a law degree and worked in a law practice for a few years. She came into using computers late, and describes herself as “technologically very phobic.” Nancy explained,

I was just that generation that got sandwiched in. I think there were one or two computers in my high school. In college, even law school, they were just beginning to do online research, which was fabulous and wonderful, but I got through law school with a word processor. I didn’t even have a computer.

Only two years before, when Nancy attended Computer Boot Camp during spring break, she learned to use PowerPoint. Recently, her department received training on using Blackboard, “I became less frightened of Blackboard,” Nancy claimed. In addition, she attended a workshop on how to teach a hybrid course.

I am very intrigued with the last thing we did about the hybrid courses. It was probably the most thought-provoking experience that I had in terms of how do you make a discussion work? How do you grade what the students post? And that’s gotten me thinking. So I do see certainly next fall when I teach this course off campus, I do see driving there about half as often and doing more with Blackboard.

She was beginning to see how she could use the discussion board to promote interaction among the students, which made the idea of teaching a hybrid course more appealing than before. The thought of being able to save driving time every other week also made hybrid teaching very attractive to her.

Technology in the classroom

Nancy was surprised to find that her off-campus classroom did not have the technology that she was accustomed to teaching with. There was no VCR, no computer with a projector, and no Internet connection in the classroom.