Facilitating My (our) First Class

In approximately 8 weeks, I will be facilitating my first online class. As with all things new, there are certain unknowns that I am facing. The first is teaching in an online environment. When I teach face-to-face, I feel poised and confident ... as soon as I open my mouth that is! Before that moment in time, I say a little prayer asking that what I am about to do will be of benefit to the students that I'm about to impart information. I feel that this will be the same in the online environment.

Wikipedia defines facilitator as "someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan to achieve them without taking a particular position in the discussion." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitator This is important to remember! When I (we) present our information to the rest of the class, we are NOT experts but rather information imparting. At least that's who I feel that I am because I have never taught classroom management, per se, nor have I 'managed' an online classroom. So this will be new for me and I expect not to be perfect or all-knowing.

The first task at hand will be the preparation that I will need to do prior to the class. I will do the best research that I can to avail myself of the knowledge that I will need and need to bring to the students. Some tools have been given and I will use these as well as other resources that I have learned from people.

While I feel ( and I have been told as well) that I have all or part of the Seven Principles of Effective Teaching in a face-to-face venue, I believe that all bets are off in an online environment. I have skills and knowledge that I bring to the table in both settings but my biggest concern is not being able to detect the lost student. I believe that effective communication is the key to remedy this and allowing the student to be open and honest with me when they don't understand will help foster trust and confidence. Also there is more opportunities, I feel, in a classroom to get to know people, to get a feel for their concerns and educational well-being as well as their expectations. This can be done in an online atmosphere but I can't help in feeling that some of the communication will be lost.

In closing, I guess I would expect the student(s) to openly or privately express their concerns in how I (we) deliver the content. I would hope that if there is a better way to get the message across that the student(s) would convey this to me (us). I envision that if there are better resources available that could help them (or us), that they would express this openly or privately. Finally, if I (we) miss the boat and overlook a shy student I would hope that it would be pointed out!