Saying Yes to Online Learning: A First-Time Experience Teaching an Online Graduate Course in Literacy Education

摘要

A literacy education professor teams up with a colleague whose specialization is technology and education to analyze students' contributions to a graduate course taught online for the first time. This article explains the modifications that the instructor made to a face-to-face course to adapt it to an online learning environment. The online format provided an effective forum for in-depth discussion of the topics and issues and for students to develop relationships with their peers and their instructor. Over 60% of students' notes went beyond descriptions of classroom practices and observations to reflecting on practice using the article ideas and evaluating the ideas in the article. On average, students received 3-5 comments from their peers each week and one or two from their instructor. The instructor found a pedagogical advantage in online teaching as a result of the increased accessibility to all students' thinking about the topics and the greater opportunity for all students to participate fully.