It's incredibly important for people who teach to be open to learning. The pandemic has presented an extreme version of this. Transitioning conventional in-person classes to online, blended, or socially-distanced versions of themselves requires more than an investment of time or effort; for most, it requires a willingness to think about something in a new way. However, even when we are teaching entirely within our wheelhouse, in a format we are comfortable with, having an identity as a learner as well as a teacher provides critical perspective. This doesn't mean that one should overwork themselves learning everything under the sun, but it does mean that one can't effectively appreciate how hard learning is--and thus be cognizant of their students' experiences-- if they haven't been willing to be a vulnerable, new learner at something in a while.
Because of that, it can be really helpful to take a chance on learning something in a way that may not be familiar. There are a lot of ways to embrace being a learner, even without a lot of time on your hands. My go-to this fall: MOOCs. (If you're not sure what a MOOC is, take a quick look at the Beginners Guide to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) at Class Central, which provides a short intro.) I have long been a fan of MOOCs (even as, yes, there are limitations to them, and they cannot replace all other types of courses). In this post, I'm not analyzing trends, predicting the future, or discussing how to make a MOOC or whether one should make a MOOC; rather, I want to talk about how I've found them useful in my attempts to improve my teaching through being a consistent learner.
First, an aside: where am I getting all this stuff? Illinois folks: I only learned this year that we have access to two resources for picking up new skills online for free: LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) and Coursera for Illinois. (Of course, many things on Coursera are available for free, and you can in fact access a good portion of the material in Coursera for Illinois courses even if you aren't affiliated; Illinois affiliated folks, however, can earn the certificate for these courses for free.)
Both platforms have a variety of online courses on various topics. From Coursera for Illinois, I've worked my way through several courses on instructional design, one on leadership, and one on accessibility and inclusive design, but there are also offerings in poetry, computer science, sustainability, finance, and race and cultural diversity, among others. From LinkedIn Learning, I've been slowly poking through an HTML course as well as a few learning and design-related offerings, but there are lots of topics like figure drawing, effective listening, social media management, just about every programming language you might imagine, and using specific software like OneNote, Powerpoint, Adobe Captivate, etcetera. Other popular options for free or low-cost online learning are Khan Academy, EdX, and Udacity, though I haven't explored any of these very much.
MOOCs offer a great deal of flexibility (only have five minutes at a time? No problem!) combined with a structure that makes it easier for me to mentally organize information and find it again later on (unlike, say, reading multiple articles or watching a few YouTube videos on a topic). Many of these also have phone apps, so I've been able to spend a few minutes here and there that I might have spent doomscrolling on learning something new instead. There are so many things I want to learn that I didn’t take formal classes on that can be picked up through these resources.
Not everything can be effectively learned or taught this way, of course; however, it is also true that this method of learning makes some content-- important content-- that I might never have the opportunity to learn in a formal class available to me. Making online content accessible, for example, is something that I'm constantly trying to do better in the work I do as a scholar, a presenter, an educational developer, and an online writer; yet it is seldom taught (or indeed practiced) in courses that I have taken in person. I have been pleasantly surprised by the online courses available which focus on this or incorporate an awareness of it into their content. (For example: the first MOOC I ever took, The Accessibility MOOC: Inclusive Online Course Design, which sadly seems to be defunct; Coursera for Illinois's An Introduction to Accessibility and Inclusive Design; and the HTML Essential Training course on LinkedIn Learning, in which designer and developer advocate Jen Simmons clearly explains why thoughtful, accurate markup is so critical for disabled web users.)
Learning new skills is nice, of course, but there's another plus to taking a look at these kinds of courses: they offer the opportunity for you to see what works best for your own learning, and imagine how you might be able to use some of these strategies for your own teaching.
For example, you may notice that you retain information more easily when you're able to read along with a transcript as the lecture video plays than by either reading or watching alone (this was true for me, and quite a revelation, though I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised). If you have an auto-generated transcript available from your video lecture, you might consider cleaning up the errors and making it available to the class, or you might be inspired to create an outline for students to focus on as they watch.
Or, you may realize that one platform's style suits you over the other for your own goals-- LinkedIn Learning tends to use a series of extremely brief videos divided into micro topics and arranged into subsections with multiple-choice quizzes; Coursera at Illinois courses tend toward fewer, longer videos with a wider variety of assessments. (So, if you have minuscule amounts of time to fill with knowledge, LinkedIn Learning might be a good bet for you). This may then lead you to think about the amount of time you want your students to spend on various activities, and edit videos or assign activities accordingly.
Or, if you're feeling critical of the course you're taking, you might ask yourself why, and find an answer that allows you to avoid similar pitfalls. Do the instructions for a skill or assignment not make sense to you, or do they make sense but you disagree with their relevance? Does a multiple choice question seem unduly picky, or offer multiple answers that seem correct? This kind of reflection can help you pinpoint what kinds of questions will actually help you to assess student learning in your courses, and which will get in the way of that process.
Again, this post is not designed to suggest that you spend ten hours a week learning a passel of new skills, nor is it even an exhortation to go take a MOOC! But if you want to remember how it feels to be a learner, spending a little time trying to understand something new might give you a few ideas.
Related Links:
Class Central is a search engine that can help you find MOOCs on subjects or specific topics you're interested in (though a lot of these cost money).
Although there's lots of free info on the internet, a lot of online courses are paid, which can be prohibitive. Feel free to send along any widely available free courses you're familiar with!
