If you don’t teach online for a while, you forget how time- and energy-intensive it is. My organization, LEARN NC, employs a lot of online teachers, and they’re pretty great. You should see the evaluations they get. They’re awesome.

I’m filling in as an online instructor for a little while, and it’s exhausting. But I really like it– almost immediately, I’ve been able to learn about the students and try to forge a personal relationship with them. It doesn’t happen this way in a face-to-face classroom… some students can be with you for a month before you really know anything about them. I’m not saying that’s good teaching, I’m saying that’s a reality sometimes. In the online environment, they tend to share a little more personal information at the beginning of the course because they don’t see their peers… no immediate feedback.

I don’t know if it’s kosher for me to say this, since I work in online learning, but I don’t know if I like face-to-face teaching or online teaching better. When I teach in a classroom, I have a strong sense that teaching is an art, and one I enjoy. I don’t have that as much online. Which may mean teaching is more science than art, and any gratification I get in the classroom is more my own edification than actual evidence of student learning. I had a boss who used to say, when asked how we knew our program was successful, would reply, “I see that look in their eyes, and I know.” I’ve used that logic myself. And it’s a surprisingly non-measurable metric.

Ah, but that look. That excitement. You don’t see that as much in an online course. Is that look, that excitement the best proof I have that I’m doing a good job? Because, if so, I might really suck at this…