Reflection EDU 651

When I became the Distance Education Specialist for College and Career Readiness at Randolph Community College, I resolved to learn more about online learning in order to better assist current and future students in my program.  EDU 651 has assisted me with this task in many ways, especially since it approaches online learning from the perspective of debunking common myths.

A few of the myths came as a surprise, though most were ones that I have heard frequently.  I was most surprised by the myth "students with significant disabilities cannot learn online."  I had never heard or even considered online learning as a barrier to students with disabilities.  It was interesting to learn about how why this was a prevalent thought about online learning and how it is erroneous to  believe that students with disabilities cannot learn in online programs.

Though I learned quite a bit about various myths throughout the course, I think the most difficult thing for me was the Literature Review.  The assignment itself was not difficult by any means, as I have written multiple Literature Reviews...And I think therein lie my problem.  Previously I worked on a Master of Arts Degree in History, and I wrote Literature Reviews frequently.  I think I am just burnt out on Lit Reviews.  It was a nice switch to focus on one that I can utilize in my career, however.  I felt that the articles I read were much more relevant.

This course did not significantly change any beliefs I held prior to this semester, though it did solidify and provide tools for expressing much of my understanding about online learning.  Two myths were of particular interest to me: online teachers have easy jobs and meaningful student-teacher relationships cannot be formed online.  I have heard these frequently and often struggled to articulate why they were wrong.  This course assisted not only with strengthening my understanding of why this thing was wrong, but it provided me with evidence that I can present to colleagues.  I can better explain the role of the online instructor and how relationships are established and maintained.

From the very beginning, I knew that EDU 651 would be a different experience for me in online education.  At the beginning of the course, we were each asked to create a Professional Learning Plan to plot out our plans for the semester.  My PLP looked like this:

 Creating a PLP helped me to really take ownership of my learning and to assist me in staying on track.  Though I wish I had more time to dedicate to learning information about all 10 myths presented in the course, I was quite happy with the 5 on which I focused.  In addition, throughout the course, I was able to narrow down my Literature Review topic from the very broad, general one that I had in the beginning.  The PLP provided a good springboard for what I wanted to do, however.

Overall, I feel that this course has helped me tremendously with gaining a better understanding of online learning and how to present it to students and colleagues who may be hesitant to embrace online learning.  I feel confident that I can better share my love of online education with the information that I learned in this course!