Max J. Lee

Anyone who has been teaching for a while knows that stress is normal for our vocation. When stress is prolonged over a long period of time, we experience exhaustion. Online instruction can compound the effects of mental, emotional, and even physical exhaustion because of course design that extends the time ...

As an online instructor who understands the rigors of course design and management, I often wonder if it would be easier to livestream a class through video conferencing, rather than prepare an asynchronous course module by module. In a Hamlet-esque way, I ask: “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to ...

I titled this post after Trevor Noah’s introduction to the Black Panther film at the 2019 Oscars when he cited the Xhosa proverb, “Abelungu abazi uba ndiyaxoka.” Trevor translated it to mean: “'In times like these, we are stronger when we fight together than when we try to fight apart.” ...

George Bernard Shaw, recipient of the 1925 Noble Prize in Literature and award-winning Irish playwright, famously said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” As I reflect back on my years of online instruction, I confess: I’ve made this mistake. I often assumed ...

We live in exciting times. Even just 10 years ago, the technology to teach the kind of online course that I would dream about was simply unavailable. But not anymore. Today the technical tools needed to teach a course can scale the heights of one’s imagination. They are not only ...