How My Singing Career Ended in Better Online Teaching

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How My Singing Career Ended in Better Online
Teaching

• Dolly will miss me, but my students will be
  better off

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Last August

• I began my first online course
• Conscientious to a fault
• Checked in 15 times a day
• Responded to every student contribution
• Three weeks into coursesomething happened

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I Went to Nashville

• Check on the class from time to time
• Might have sent one of two messages
• Mostly neglected the class

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Failing to Secure a Singing Contract

• I returned to Jonesboro
• I checked in on my class

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What I Discovered

• With me gone
• The class had begun talking among themselves
• They were pushing the discussion in directions I
  had not anticipated
• They were learning without me
• I had been in the way

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• Without me
• The class had developed an inner dynamic
• The class had taken on the quality ofwell, a
  discussion, a conversation
• Students were more active than they had been with
  me always there
• Students were talking to each other rather than
  waiting to see my response

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The Class Had Become a Community
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And That Is Really What Online Teaching Is All
AboutCreating Communities of Learners
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Effective Communities of Learners
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The Teacher

• Organizes beginning points
• Facilitates
• Intervenes when things start to go whack
• Intervenes if things become uncivil
• And most interestingly of all

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Becomes a Learner Himself/Herself
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Part of the Community
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of learners
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