The quickest way to contact me is via email-

Ruth@networkedtogether.com

If you would like to meet face-to-face, just send an email and we can set up a time.

   

As a young teacher thrust the hand of her stubborn, blind and deaf young student under the flow of cool water she spelled into her hand yet again, one more time the letters for w-a-t-e-r.  Suddenly, the girl’s face lit up, she understood. Helen Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan was able to do what many was thought impossible. A blind, deaf and mute student could use meaningful words to communicate her thoughts and emotions. This scene summarizes much of what I believe about education.  It is often not glamorous; it involves a lot of work, dedication, careful planning, and persistence.  Most of all, it requires the belief that the students have value, and that education is the key to their future.

I believe that education is the elemental key to open doors; it should not become a barrier that keeps a student from fulfilling their potential.  I intentionally plan learner-centered activities that can reach students with multiple learning styles. I let my students know that no matter where they are from, no matter what they have been through, they can overcome the past. My objective is to give them confidence through meeting achievable goals that are mutually set.  Through these activities, students see that they have the ability to learn even challenging concepts. Evidence of the efficacy of this philosophy is the change in their attitude and academic performance. Even though these changes are often only incremental, they become stepping stones which students can traverse in their quest for knowledge. “People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved,” Anne Sullivan.

I believe that students love to learn, especially when they realize that what they are learning is challenging, interesting and relevant.  The danger in seeking to remove barriers to education is that we also remove the challenge. Students may see activities without a growing challenge as menial and demeaning, then they lose interest.  Even though I seek to remove barriers, I purposely encourage the students to stretch beyond their previous accomplishments and constantly reach for the next level. The students help set their own goals and learn to work collaboratively, generating an excitement that is evidenced by a spirit of friendly competition in the classroom. As educator Marva Collins said, “The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.”

I believe that the goal of each class is to go beyond the course objectives; it is to build a life-long love for learning, develop critical thinking skills, to move beyond mediocrity, and teach students to be an advocate for themselves. Through carefully planned activities and clear objectives these abstract principles can be turned into actual accomplishments. I work cooperatively with students, letting the learning process organically develop and stepping back as quickly as possible.  I use vanishing in my teaching, so that as the student gains skills and confidence, I quickly try to get out of the way, much like Lev Vygotsky’s scaffolding and fading concepts.

I move from being directive in the early stages of a class, to more of a cheerleader and collaborator as the class moves forward, and finally to the observing Sensei.  I feel that I have achieved my purpose as the students no longer need me,  and they are able to succeed in their studies.  My greatest joy is to see my students develop tools that will help them in their educational journey; as well as grow in the joy of learning.  I hope that as a result of our interactions they will gain important skills, beliefs and values,  that they in turn, can pass on to others.

 

There are two basic uses for technology in education- as tools in the face-to-face environment or as the basis for a totally online class. In each of these situations, as a result of this class, I have learned there is a need to really step back and make thoughtful evaluation about the use, or even non-use of technology. 

Many times students take online classes as a last resort, only if other sections are full or because the class that they need is only offered online.  At the same time, instructors often dread online sections because of the poor results, extra workload, and lost connection with the students.  With the current advances in technology, online classes shouldn’t be dreaded, by either the instructor or the student.  Ideally, professors could design a class that will become a preferred choice by students, a place where they could learn even more than in the F2F environment, utilizing tools that provide multiple ways to learn and benefit all learning styles. A key to this transformation is fundamental changes in design, developing technological tools that have built into their design pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK).  I think as more of these tools proliferate, the better the student experience will be for both the student and the teacher.

Even in traditional settings, technology should be purposely, and thoughtfully used.  Just using the latest and most impressive technology might impress fellow instructors, but it often only frustrates the students…or in best-case scenarios, the focus becomes just learning the tool and not actually meeting the learning objectives.  Unless, the learning objective is to learn that specific technological tool, the technology becomes a distraction.  The key is to use whatever we use thoughtfully and purposefully. 

I think one of the main “tools” that I would want to have, or design, is a single place to have as a launching place for any and all technological tools that I use.  That way the student could log into one page, one spot, and go into all the various tools and platforms that are needed for successful completion of the assignment/project/class.   Even though I “live” with my computers, tablet, and mobile devices, I find it irritating to try to remember where various places are that we are supposed to use for a class, what my username was for that particular class and what the password was.  To students, these “minor” irritations become barriers that hinder them from successfully completing the task of being participating learners. 

Overall, this class has been revolutionary in my thinking.  I came into it after having many classes online (over 10) and having experiences that ranged from better than face-to-face (my statistics class- she used multiple videos for lectures and showing how to solve homework and enter data into the calculators to run statistical analysis) to horrible (a class about networking- the professor got married in the second week of a summer class, had a death in the family, just disappeared for most of the semester and then they lost all of the documents submitted for the entire semester in a CMS glitch).  Overall, my experience has been that most instructors didn’t really use the medium very well and there seemed to be no apparent pedagogical reason for how they approached the class.  It always felt like it was a face-to-face class that got thrown into the online environment.  In knowing the potential for developing better tools for online instruction from my background in programming and computer work, I was constantly frustrated by the programs being developed by the IT side, they were good for keeping track of students, but horrible for the teacher and student interactions.  My revolutionary revelation was to see a product like Eli that is being developed BY and FOR educators.  It was like hearing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus in the distance.  There is hope.

As more products are developed using TPCK, choosing to teach in an online environment will someday be the first choice instead of the last resort. Also, the boundary between online and face-to-face with become less defined as traditional classes use more Web based tools (such as Eli).