Abstract
Since the forums of the sophists, our first teachers, we’ve suited our purposes to the geographies, interests, and needs of our audiences, our students. We find ourselves now adapting to a teaching space that’s not much older than most of the students who inhabit it and travel within it, the online classroom. In its first iteration this online experience was characterized by the words “alone together.” Much critique in the time of Covid has decried the lack of physical contact as well as a feared loss of educational integrity. This study argues that fears of arrested progress are often premature and unnecessary. Education is a field both cultivated and sustained by change. Now, in the words of university student Peyton, we may in online pedagogies be defining “the beginning of a new normal (that) gives everyone a voice,” and the asynchronous online forum is a potentially transformative practice that has been insufficiently documented. Indeed, these meetings and the discussions they engender not only serve as helpful activities in this emergency, but portend a creative development in our invention of a cohesive and responsive curriculum. They rise to the level of High Impact Practices (HIPs) that define the most effective means of fostering engagement and retention of our students, the integral collaborators in this story. Their engagement gives the work its integrity and reason. It is they who create this pedagogy as they engage in it, who forge this new path in an ancient field as they, too, walk it.
Presenters
Nancy Fox EdeleRhetoric and Composition Faculty, English, University of West Florida, Florida, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
2021 Special Focus - Transcending Social Distance: Emerging Practices in e-Learning
KEYWORDS
Online Pedagogies, Online Forums, High-Impact Practices, Student Engagement, Building Community
