In my first blog post, I read about and discussed MOOC. The conclusion from that article was that it is difficult for online language learners to be identified and, therefore, have lessons/assignments be tailored to their specific language needs. But, what if the professor/instructor is new to teaching a course? Being a new teacher is always difficult - the article for this week's post discussed the hurdles new online language teachers must overcome and is titled, "The perceptions of a situated learning experience mediated by novice teachers’ autonomy" by Paul Booth and Isabelle Gunimard and published in the journal Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.
The study compared tutors and teachers from London, English with those from Lyon, France. Tutors and teachers alike were given pre- and post-tests about their experiences leading an online language course and the results lead to three commonalities: "self-directed learning as a teacher, which focused on areas such as creativity and task design; teacher-learner experience
in relation to professional development, which focused on areas such as
learner and teacher autonomy, time-management, experience, roles and
misunderstandings; freedom to self-direct one’s teaching, which focused on areas such as expectations and complexity" (Booth & Guinmard, 2017). All these components boiled down to the understanding that for an online course to be meaningful, both instructors and students must be thoroughly engaged, ask for and provide concise clarification, and for course goals and participant expectations to be clearly defined.
Overall, I've found the online TESOL Master's program to meet those qualifications.
Question: For the professor/instructors at Wilkes in charge of leading online courses, was there some sort of mentorship program for new teachers like there are in the elementary and secondary levels?
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