Resources

“It’s like you’re crying out for them to trust you.” These insightful words were said to me nearly 10 years ago in a small group conversation at a Wabash Workshop for Pre-Tenure Theological School Faculty. I remember the conversation with gratitude.  We were sharing with each other what we had written down individually in response to reflection prompts about our experience in the classroom. The prompts had elicited some unprocessed emotions in me about my first few years of teaching. I was fortunate to get a teaching job the same semester I earned my Ph.D. I had some confidence in my abilities to do the job well, as I had graduated at the top of my class and gained some valuable classroom experience and mentoring in graduate school. But what little confidence I had was quickly shaken. After I had distributed and explained the syllabus in my first class, a student declared, “We’re going to run you back to Toronto where you came from!” Everyone laughed and cheered. This class was comprised mostly of men, ranging in age from 40-70 years old, with one year left in their graduate program before they were ordained to the deaconate in the Roman Catholic Church. I stood before them as a freshly minted Ph.D., who had just turned 30 years old, and had not yet had the time or experience to find confidence my teaching voice. The demanding syllabus I had crafted may have surprised them, given my age, gender, and long blond hair. I made it through that first semester, but I have the scars to prove it. I still remember one classroom discussion in which a student admitted, “I don’t know why I like to pick on you so much.” In another class, after a student bluntly told me that he didn’t know why I was teaching the way I was, I shouted, “I have a PhD!” In hindsight, over a decade later, I can see the situation for what it was. My body was not welcome in the space. Just by standing in front of the class, as a woman in a position of religious authority, I challenged their assumptions of credible leadership. It’s likely that my students asked the (un)conscious question, “If she can’t be ordained, can she teach those who will?” At the time though, the resistance I faced in the classroom, caused me to doubt my teaching vocation. “Maybe they’re right,” I worried. “Maybe I just don’t belong.” As a first-generation college student, I always felt like a bit of a misfit in graduate school. But now I was feeling for the first-time like a misfit in the church. Sharing these experiences with my Wabash cohort colleagues brought healing and affirmation of my teaching vocation. Each of us in the cohort were all so different in so many ways (i.e., personality, educational background, race, ability, religious affiliation, culture) but we shared a vocation (in addition to a lot of food and fun). Others had not been welcomed in spaces due to their embodiment, in far more violent, ongoing, and consistent ways than I had ever experienced. My cohort experience was also free from the academic pretense that so often deepened my self-doubt. I felt like I could be exactly who I was and that I was valued for it. I belonged. As I began to trust my vocation and my place in the academy and church, my eager desire for my students to trust me waned. It didn’t matter as much. While trust is necessary for real intellectual and spiritual formation to occur, it can’t be earned, begged for, or contrived. In fact, now I understand that the most certain way to gain this trust from students is by embracing who I uniquely am and being true to my vocation.

The greatest potential of the online learning environment is its capacity to foster high levels of interactive learning that lead to “deep understanding.” The instructor’s role is critical to making this happen. The manner and frequency of the instructor’s response to students in the discussion forums is what tends to determine the quality of the learning experience. Instructional Responses Your ability to provide effective instructional feedback on your courses discussion forums will be the key to successful student learning. For effectiveness, instructors should minimize non-instructional responses and maximize instructional prompts. While your instructional prompts will be in response to an individual student’s post, it should serve the purpose of moving the discussion along for the class as a whole. Pay close attention to your student’s posts. If a student’s response is correct, give a short, overt affirmation. If a student’s FORMAT in responding is incorrect, say so and allow the student to correct the post. If a student’s CONTENT response is incorrect (factually wrong, reflects a misunderstanding), provide corrective feedback. When reviewing your students’ responses, judge critically. Look for correct responses and expected incorrect response and use them as opportunities for instructional prompts. Allow time for students to think about and compose responses to complex questions. Use student responses as opportunities to refer the class members to readings or instructional content. INSTRUCTIONAL PROMPTS Instructional prompts are those instructor responses that help the students move toward “deep understanding” of the course concepts. Here are eight types of instructional prompts you can use when responding to student posts online. These prompts are directly correlated to facets of critical thinking. Critical Thinking Prompts Why do you say so? Where else might that idea apply? Is that your opinion, or did you overhear that? What might be the consequences of that action? What might someone else say about that? What would that take? How did you arrive at that opinion? Elaboration Prompts Could you go into that in more detail? I would expand that idea by saying . . . . Who can expand on that idea from your own context/experience? I’m not sure now that applies. Can you build on that idea more? Clarification Prompts What exactly do you mean? Do I understand you to mean . . . ? Please provide an example to help us understand your point of view. Can you provide a short definition for how you are using that term? Comparison Prompts That’s an interesting statement. How does that compare with what was previously said? With what the author of the text claimed? I might compare that with . . . . Do you think that’s a fair comparison? I see the following similarities in the ideas presented so far . . . . What others do you see? Contrasting Prompts How would you contrast your idea to the one that (name of other) gave previously? In contrast to your statement, I think . . . . I see that idea as different from his/her’s in these ways . . . . How does your interpretation contrast with the author’s (with another student)? Can you offer a contrasting view of opinion? Justification Prompts How would you defend that statement against . . . ? What assumptions are you basing that on? Tell me why you think that idea/solution would work. Evaluation Prompts What is your reaction to that idea? My reaction to that/your idea is . . . . What do you think of that idea? Tell me why you think your idea/solution is better. While these prompts also work in the classroom environment, the immediacy of the classroom discussion and the limitations of time constraints make it a challenge for a teacher to engage in deep learning dialogue. The online environment provides the instructor with the luxury of analyzing student responses, identifying the best feedback-prompt to use, and formulating the response to help the student, and the class, move toward deeper learning. Using a hybrid format, an instruction can determine which course components may be best to move to the online discussion forum to allow for more process and discussion so the instructor can be more effective in the use of instructional prompts for deeper learning.