Facilitator—a buzzword popular with my professors but with little meaning for me—was how I characterized myself in my 1968 teaching statement. Dictator would have been more accurate back then. Now, as I move toward retirement, facilitator finally fits, thanks to my use of course management software in both online and on-campus classes. In my college classes I provide opportunities, support, and guidance, but students have to make the choice to access materials which await them within the software. In other words, students and I become partners in their learning.
Just how important opportunities for active engagement are became apparent in an on-campus class when a pleasant but passive student groused, “Why do WE have to download materials? I just want teachers to hand me papers, and I fill them out and give them back.” My response? After a very long sigh, “Welcome to college learning!”
Mary Pat McQueeney
Johnson County Community College
Overland Park, Kansas
40 years in education
Related Resources..
Dialogic Classroom, The: Teachers Integrating Computer Technology, Pedagogy, and Research
Editor(s): Jeffrey R. Galin, Joan Latchaw
The essays gathered here suggest both practical and theoretical approaches to teaching through networked technologies.
Multiliteracies for a Digital Age
Author(s): Stuart A. Selber
This book serves as a guide for composition teachers to develop effective, full-scale computer literacy programs by emphasizing different kinds of literacies and proposing methods for helping students move among them in strategic ways. Winner of the 2005 Distinguished Book Award from Computers and Composition and of the 2005 Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication Award (NCTE)