Seminar on 1 March
I found the reading and resources for this seminar really helpful for teaching online. The video ‘Performing to an invisible audience’ especially so. I had been feeling anxious and blocked with planning for online sessions. Part of the difficulty was that I missed seeing faces and being in the same space physically with students. On top of this the young age group I teach tend to be quiet and need encouragement to contribute. So not only was I missing faces and bodies, there were a lot of silences to deal with. I was stuck on finding strategies to encourage engagement. While delivering I felt stiff and found it hard to be my natural self while simultaneously attempting to make the online class engaging and informative.
The list of tips from the video were great. ‘Embrace the awkwardness” resonated. Reminding myself this at the beginning of a session allowed me to relax. Something as little as checking in with this phrase before a session, was a real breakthrough for me. I realised that previously feeling less in control and powerless teaching online had been a problem. In my sessions I often encouraged students to let go of perfection to free them up. I was in need of listening to my own advice here. More advice from the video; ‘Be kind to yourself’ and ‘Don’t aim for perfection’.
Watching peers delivery online and witnessing their ‘mistakes’ or awkwardness also helped. After some reflection I realise that as an observer I hardly register these moments that don’t go to plan for someone else. This helped me remember my self talk when I first started teaching about the audience being ‘on your side’. In the shift to teaching online I had forgotten this.
In the video another bullet point tip was ‘accept silence isn’t necessarily a bad thing’ time is needed to process. I found verbally asking a question and asking for contributions on mics and chat had mixed results. Sometimes lack of responses would throw me out of my zone for the remainder of the session. I found using the whiteboard a good antidote for this, It allowed anonymity for students who felt under the spotlight. I spent time drawing or writing something on the whiteboard while allowing their processing time before they could respond to questions, it took the awkwardness away and freed students up to play a bit with their contributions.
So I’ve worked through my initial difficulties with switching to online delivery, and found some ways to relax into the online platform. I now feel more inspired to be creative with it, a work in progress.