Ok so maybe you are
just a little curious about my tagline: “Online Yoga Professor”
That was Henry’s doing, but I like it, although it’s not
entirely accurate. I’m an English professor who teaches all my comp, creative
writing and lit courses online here at SWC, crazy I know. And I’m a yoga teacher who teaches live, in
person, yoga classes to mostly 55+ students in Pacific Beach. This set up
actually relates to the motivation question that challenges us this week. That
is, teaching yoga to people in bodies right in front of me with my body, is a
welcome balance to the somewhat disembodied atmosphere of teaching English
online—staying balanced is one thing that motivates me.
I started teaching
online almost 10 years ago to deal with my waning motivation for teaching live.
I’d been teaching English in a classroom for almost 20 years
at that time and found that my students were just too young to get my jokes or
cultural references. Since I lived for their laughs and for turning on their
light bulbs about writing and loving the written word, I really lost my joy when
those blank stares and awkward silence pervaded the room, never mind the
trouble of lugging around piles of papers and red pens and constant struggles
with overhead projectors and media that didn’t work and group workshops with
only one student actually working and just finding a parking spot in time to
get to class. Back then we called what I had “Burn Out”.
Many of my colleagues suffering from the same malaise became
administrators, or union reps, or early retirees, or just dropped dead on the
way to class, so I decided to go cyber and teach from home, never getting out
of my yoga clothes and having time for a downward dog or head stand between
sets of essays.
So now some voice
might ask: “How’s that working for you?”
(And before I throw up or throw a punch at that annoying
voice. I’ll take a round or two of alternate nostril breathing to balance out
my left and right brain so I can get to my perceived point of the prompt this
week and actually reflect on my motivational strategies and teaching choices in
the here and now.)
So motivation at the end of the semester:
Mainly for me and my students there’s the impending thrill
of Completion. There’s actually a place in the pleasure center of your brain
that’s specifically activated by completing something. So we focus on that. I post reminders that the end is near. And we reflect on how much work we’ve done and
how much we’ve learned in those final discussion boards. In the last essay, they
apply all the skills they have learned. One
of the great things for me about teaching online is that I require myself to have
everything up and running, all the lessons, lectures, assignments, front loaded
at the beginning of the semester. It’s a journey mapped out from the start so
we just have to keep going to succeed.
It’s a scaffold of skills, one thing leads to another, so that students
have, at least, the “illusion of progress”. And this front loading lets me avoid, to some
extent, the procrastination disorder that often plagued me in my live in the
classroom teaching, especially at the end of the semester where putting off or
not really knowing what came next meant high anxiety, coffee fueled late nights,
and the threat of certain failure, no amount of calming breath or homeopathic
remedies could overcome.
But come to think
about it, the most motivating thing at the end of the semester in my online
classroom is the love in the room.
By the end of the semester they have been reading and
writing to each other and to me, literally thousands of words about their
values, their lives, their thoughts and
perceptions of the ideas of other writers—great writers or not so great. And everyone who wants to pass has to
participate, not just the extroverts and high achievers that dominate the conversation
in a brick classroom. They fall in love with each other through
their words as they appear on the page, and so do I. There’s an intimacy in the
online classroom that surprises. People
reveal so much more about themselves when the eyes looking at them are behind a
screen. And even though my eyes are
permanently red from staring at that screen grading and grading, my heart is
filled with joy to see these people find a their voice and the power of the
word and have an experience of community that, in my book, is the real take away from going
to college.
Thank you for reminding me about the thrill of completion. That one really works for me, and I needed to hear it :-)
ReplyDeleteWe need to come up with a "cultural reference cheat sheet," something that lists side-by-side the names of celebrities, popular movies, etc. from "our era" and the younger students' era. Like, who's "our version" of Beyonce? What's their version of Saturday Night Fever? Who's our Tatum Channing? Who's their Tatum O'Neal?
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't begin to account for for new media (youtube clips, websites, games).
Your post reminds me that for some of my most basic writers, just finishing a single book or composing their first five-page essay is a huge accomplishment. So many of them come to my class without having done any sustained project. Worksheets? Homework? Yes. . . but not the kind of sustained work - or relationship building - that we assign. Sometimes they've done larger projects having to do with sports or performing arts.
Yet I see many who walk into my classroom not having completed anything longer than a one or two week project. Nor the kind of "love in the room" from doing a project with a community. Sounds like you're having success. I've avoided even thinking about teaching online courses precisely because I don't know how to scaffold for the kind of "love" online. I'm looking forward to (virtually) peeking into your classes.