Be Careful What You Ask For
The saying "be careful what you ask for" has a special meaning to me. Since embarking on my career as an educator, I have been blessed with three teaching contracts. One at a community college and the other two are at online universities. The courses that I teach include coding and billing, medical transcription, law and ethics and administrative office procedures.
At one of the online universities, the term last for 10 weeks. I teach a live chat session once a week for an hour. I am required to hold office hours for 2 hours during the week. This provides students the opportunity to ask questions regarding assignments. The office hours are held on AOL instant messaging (AIM). This allows the instructor and the student to instantly chat about the course or socialize. This is a great way to get to know the students. This course requires that the students be involved in active discussion by posting an initial post and responding to their classmates. I have about 13 students in the medical transcription course. This is followed by attending the live seminar session and engaging in discussion about that week's reading assignment. The students must also transcribe weekly reports that correspond to the unit we are discussing. Of course, this means that I have to be engaged in discussion, create a PowerPoint of live seminar and grade their transcribed reports. Oh, I forgot to add answering all of those e-mails from students and faculty. The heart of online teaching is constant communication with your students.
At the second online university, the schedule is entirely different. I conduct two live chat sessions once a week. All live chat sessions last for 1 hour. I am required to hold office hours for 1 hour a week. Office hours are part of the universities instant messaging platform. I have 19 students in Introduction to Coding and Billing. The students are required to engage in discussion by posting an initial response to the discussion board and respond to their classmates. Each week the students complete an assignment that requires them to research a topic from one of the week's reading units. The research must be supported by credible references. The students are also required to complete a group project with their classmates.
The students have 1 week to complete the discussion board posts and assignments. I have about 3 days to grade all of the assignments.
The community college semester starts in about a week. We typical take about 15 students into the 16-week program. I will be teaching administrative office procedures, law and ethics. The students will have reading assignments, tests and projects. I will have to have the course syllabus and course calendar prepared prior to the semester. My lecture notes and PowerPoint must be up to date.
I have to approach each course with the same amount of enthusiasm and stamina to give each student the learning experience that will further their career or launch their career. The problem is that some days I get the courses and the universities mixed up. How do I keep all this straight? I will need to develop techniques to keep all the courses/universities straight. Tune in next week for my tips on organization.