E-Teaching: Not So E-Z, But Worth the E-ffort

by Lyn Fairchild

Today getting a degree online still carries that taint of sleaze, that whiff of pop-up scam, such that people might regard you quizzically if you say you're taking or teaching an online class. Learning outside the face-to-face paradigm is slowly gaining its fan base since a great majority of people haven't yet e-studied, in much the same way that TIVO or DVR, camera phones, and even call waiting are still rippling their way into American homes. Why would I want to stop in the middle of a TV show? the couch potato asks. Because you need to grab more transfats from the cupboard! Why would I want to take a picture with my phone? Because you shouldn't have to fumble for a camera! Why interrupt my friend I'm talking to so I can get this other call? Because a more important friend might be calling...okay, the latter I still can't justify.

But techie advances have their place and all aim at convenience, speed, and most importantly, access. In the online learning environment, these features can also promote special advances in the educational arena: individual attention, differentiated instruction, and emotionally safe environments. E-teaching is rewarding and helps teens learn in meaningful ways, and I can swear by the pros of the process. Cons do exist (in that I don't mean delinquent students, just problems in learning online), but that's simply because e-learning's not for everyone and for every situation.

I've taught several online classes with the Duke University Talent Identification program, which identifies gifted students and provides resources to families and schools to nurture talent and development. Duke TIP's e-Studies courses (online distance learning) connect students with other gifted students and with a TIP instructor as they pursue advanced high-school and college-level coursework on the Internet. Duke chose Blackboard as its course management system, and using this interface TIP students can read course materials using programs like SoftChalk Lessonbuilder; post their completed assignments that correlate with the electronic gradebook containing numbers, comments, and files; attend office hour and virtual lecture chats; and post to a constantly evolving message board for philosophical and literary discussion as well as ongoing, constructivist research. TIP uses Blackboard for all its worth, and I believe e-Studies courses with Duke TIP to be the most interactive, bang-for-your-buck education outside a live gifted program in a school or summer camp.

Students not only get a level of interactivity, rigor of advanced course materials, and the dedication of the instructors hired. E-Studies can keep this level of quality because it doesn't try to teach thousands as many other online programs do, and it is a selective program (a student must achieve high scores on standardized tests such as the ACT, SAT, or state tests). Some might think that the courses being mostly asynchronous would be a problem, in that if it ain't live, it ain't worth living through, but put teens on a discussion board, and things begin to happen. I make a special point about e-Studies versus other online programs because in our feedback from students, we hear of other competitive programs that are essentially self-paced, automated experiences, where a tutor/instructor checks in once a week. In the experience I've had with Duke TIP, I've been expected to deliver an online course that's as close to a face-to-face experience as one could have.

Gifted kids are a particularly ideal population to attempt e-learning, as their hunger for advanced material, extension activities, and interest-driven projects often exceeds the resources of the average classroom. While some students are struggling to master the standardized end-of-year tests, a gifted student can leave this boredom, move quietly to the back of the classroom (where sometimes only one computer languishes) and log on to a world of like-minded adolescents and demanding instructors who hold this student accountable to his or her ability level.

Gifted peers aren't shy in this environment, where no one can see your hair style or judge your shoe brand, to profess a deep and abiding interest in omniscient point of view, black holes, quadratic equations, or the sociology of stereotypes. Online classes let gifted kids go deep and go wide with the knowledge and skill they crave. I have met some superb students, ones who asked probing questions and offered tremendous support of one another's quest for knowledge. While teaching creative writing, I have met some avid young writers whom I plan on seeing on Barnes and Noble's shelves someday; that is, if Barnes and Noble hasn't gone digital by then.

Online classes let the instructor have a field day with learning as well. With gifted kids being my population and the expectation being that I enrich and accelerate their learning, I could harness college-level texts and Web links to plan my courses. I could pack a weekly series of electronic folders full of not only required but optional assignments as the spirit led me. In my prior life in the live classroom, the whims of the copier and the lines of faculty waiting for it, not to mention my own organizational flaws, prevented students from accessing my best lesson plans year to year.

Within the electronic environment, everything is archived and eternally ready for revision. In addition, both the students and I could practice, create, and evaluate in highly interactive ways. Each new term was a term where my reflective practice could leap to the fore rather than squat in the back like a whiny gremlin: "Aren'tcha ever gonna reconfigure the peer editing groups so that slackers don't disappoint others? Aren'tcha ever gonna add cool graphics to that handout on point of view?" With the original documents always electronic and always easily located, I could whip out revisions in no time and copy those cyberpuppies right into the next term's Web pages.

Gifted or not, a student in this environment can likewise benefit from the structure and organization of electronic folders and a newer feature called adaptive release (a system where you can't move on to Concept #2 until you've mastered Concept #1). Students can also pace and self-select activities according to a personal schedule. All students can benefit when the time of study is more democratic: they could be responding to me at midnight or six a.m. or from the library at school during lunch.

The flip side of this freedom is that students must quickly become masters of their own schedules and good time managers, as a project can consume them endlessly or procrastination can postpone work forever. The students who've been less successful in our e-courses are those who need a charismatic live sage hovering to flagellate them into action or those who take flexibility to the nth degree, believing that no deadlines posted at the site are ever final. Obviously, anyone who's taught knows that this culture of negotiation doesn't plague only the e-world; many a "live" student aimed to writhe out of many an essay in my fourteen years of classroom teaching.

Overall, the individualized interface provides a student with a sense of protection and empowerment and delivers an incredible level of customer service, sometimes to the point where some students are surprised when everything isn't tailored to their every need. A perfect example is the student who signed up for my Short Fiction Workshop and expected to be taught poetry writing; when her interest flagged and her participation dropped off, she and her father claimed that there was a problem with the assignment function preventing her work submission (meanwhile, everyone else had managed to use the feature) and that she had a number of vacations during the fall term which conflicted with course assignments.

The parent thrust all the blame upon my shoulders for not meeting his child's needs. Hmmm: if you weren't so good at reading the course brochure, perhaps you won't exactly thrive in an online, text-based environment - but I digress. Let's just say that electronic communications allow some folks who are a wee bit narcissistic to exercise the more tactless and selfish sides of their personalities. Something about point-click-upload today gets us thinking we can have it our way instantaneously - the Burger King mantra on steroids.

Other students who prefer our face-to-face programs or "regular school" mention the immediacy of student-to-teacher contact and the social benefits of a daily live classroom community. I agree and disagree with their characterization of e-learning - that somehow e-learning is too distant and too dead. True, during fourth period you do have access to Miss Pummelbaugh in the heat of the learning moment, but she is often assailed by your classmates and her attention is at best, divided. I know this because I constantly had my finger up in the air for fourteen years of face-to-face teaching, signaling to Sam or Lakeisha or Phuong to wait just one moment please while I finished speaking with Raul. Unless the class is fifteen students and shrinking, you as student are always competing at the salt lick of learning for an individualized educational plan.

In e-Studies, I was forever compelled to be a better instructor by the simple fact of my inbox or the chat session, where individual needs were routinely expressed. My kids purportedly did five to seven hours of work per week (many reported more because they genuinely liked the subject they'd voluntarily chosen) and I easily did five times that trying to respond to their individual queries and assignments, never mind all the time it takes to prep materials to post online. How much easier it is to differentiate when you're in constant conversation with someone: you know their personal needs, situations, and don't have to be constantly explaining what you just said to Jamal to Joe as well. I could also better communicate when I had time to center myself and plan a course of action before I wrote that e-mail.

Very shy or socially awkward students shine in the electronic environment and even learn some communication skills. Meeting some of my students face to face when they attended our residential programs or on visits after various courses ended confirms that the online persona is a psychologically much safer manifestation than the hand raised in class where your peers can scrutinize every last hair follicle. America is notorious for its anti-intellectual mainstream culture, and exceptionally bright students often feel compelled to bury their talents or underachieve. Online you can boast of your wisdom because that's all you have to share. No one cares if your parents can buy you Manolo Blahniks or if you're cut like the next Heisman Trophy winner. All people care about is how you think and what you can write.

Which leads to my next point: what you write is who you are, so watch out, Teach! If you're not a good writer or don't aim to be, or just plain hate written communications, steer clear of e-learning. Not only do grammatical foibles tarnish your rep, but the inability to get to the heart of the matter with tight, engaging prose can foil you at every turn. Folders must be labeled clearly and cleverly, pithy and engaging instructions must greet a student at every click of the mouse, and handouts and lessons must sing with meaning rather than repel with tedium (kids already have textbooks to dull their senses, so either evolve or go back to papyrus and vellum, e-instructors!) It doesn't hurt to be a super-quick typist, either, as you will be typing long and often. Even the most kinesthetic keyboardists struggle with the chat room, however, where kids can quickly exceed you with typing speed and a philosophical discussion becomes more like a Derrida carnival. Re-reading some of my literary chat transcripts had a distinct parallel to transatlantic phone call delays circa 1940, as if everyone were responding in super-slo-mo, except for Danielle or Brad, our speed-of-light typists, who dominated like WWF writers and kept me hopping. I am still struggling to create the perfect Emily Post Guide to e-Chats, and when I have it figured out, I'll share it with everyone.

And while I sing the many praises of e-learning, I still hug the bit of Luddite in me that balks at cameraphones and call waiting and, oh, why not, all cell phones in public in particular, such that I must ask, "Where is all this technological wizardry leading us?" If it's a vision of being online all the time, then let me run straight in the other direction: I had to firmly set a boundary of "no weekend log-ons" in order to keep my sanity. Otherwise I would have committed myself to 24-7 responses because it's that addicting. Just one more e-mail; just one more tweak to this quiz...Just say no to technological perfection (viruses are here to remind us of that fact) and just give up on human perfection! E-learning is only as good as the humans within it, of course: if the instructor lacks compassion, finesse, tenacity, and wisdom, it doesn't matter how deep and wide the knowledge or rÃ©sumÃ©. Without the human heart pounding within the Tin-Man computer, the art of teaching is too quickly reduced to an e-book on ice.

I may never return to classroom teaching, but you will see me again, online. Why? Convenience: I can teach in my PJs while eating Kung Pao chicken. Speed: I can tap out responses to several kids within an hour and solve their specific issues more efficiently than if I talked at them while moving in a classroom. Access: I can provide them with the World Wide Web, way-better texts, and a wonderful treasure trove of educational materials right to their home or classroom screen. Just point, click, and send. Those faceless, formless children on "the other side" have something to learn and something to say in this two-way deal that is education.

Lyn Fairchild is co-author of Teaching Romeo and Juliet: A Differentiated Approach (NCTE) and The Compassionate Classroom: Lessons that Nurture Wisdom and Empathy (Zephyr Press). She is also the author of lessons in Carol Ann Tomlinson's and Cindy A. Strickland's Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum, Grades 9-12. For more information on the Duke TIP e-Studies program, visit http://www.tip.duke.edu or for employment information about becoming an e-instructor, contact Duke TIP at 919-668-9100 or Brian Cooper (bcooper@tip.duke.edu).