Workshops: Engagement and Authenticity in Distance Education
The Power of Laughter and Lunacy in Student Engagement: How the World's Greatest Action Hero Helped Save My English Students
Workshop Presentation Lachlan Scheuber
Distance Educators are tasked with finding educational innovations to prevent students falling further behind, or worse still, into a world of disengagement with life beyond their homes and families. Only by losing our inhibitions as teachers, by showing ourselves as humans - warts and all, and by being prepared to laugh with and learn from our students, can we hope to truly engage kids in a love of lifelong learning. Take education too seriously, at the cost of student interest. This speech aims to demonstrate how the use of drama, humour, teaching alter egos (like Arnold Schwarzenegger), and immense enthusiasm can be key tools in the engagement of students.
Bringing our Real Teaching Selves Online : Supporting Colleagues in Finding Pathways to Teach across the Distance
Workshop Presentation Mary St George
Te Kura teachers coming from face-to-face environment often grieve for aspects of their professional self they feel they only know how to express in a face-to-face teaching environment. When tasked with supporting teachers in using a wider range of online teaching tools, my starting point was asking teachers which part of their face-to-face teaching selves they missed the most. This was explored as a probable strength, from a strength-based coaching perspective. We then proceeded to find ways to use digital tools to bring these teaching selves online. Selected digital tools and examples of practice will be shared. Workshop participants will be invited to identify personal areas of strength or professional interest which they would find it difficult to use in online teaching situations. Barriers to applying these strengths will be explored in the context of the realities of teachers' current teaching situations. Participants will then explore their own realised strengths in online teaching, along with methods and strategies used successfully by other attendees, and the range of tools available to them. This process will be used to identify a range of possibilities to apply teachers' target skills and interests, and therefore to bring their own best teaching selves to online teaching situations.
