Research and Practice in Social Sciences Vol. 1, No.

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Learning by Doing: Some preliminary reflections of an online educator

Beloo Mehra* Antioch University McGregor

Abstract Written as a teacher-autobiography, this paper presents a story of one educators experiences with online teaching and learning. This critical, reflexive dialogue with her own contexts and realities, and with herself as an online educator of research methods helps the author to draw lessons for her practice and practice of fellow online educators. The notions of academic quality and community building in an online teaching-learning environment are emphasized. By focusing on the narrative and reflective nature of the first-hand experiences of an online educator, this paper adds to the growing knowledge in the field of online and distance education.

(* Beloo Mehra, Ph.D, Associate Professor of Education, Antioch University McGregor, 800 Livermore Street, Yellow Springs, OH 45387, Phone: (937) 769-1874, Email: bmehra@mcgregor.edu)

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If you want to understand what a science is you should look in the first instance not at its theories or findings and certainly not at what its apologists say about it; you should look at what the practitioners of it do. -- Geertz, 1973, p. 5

This paper presents a story of what one practitioner in distance education does in her virtual classroom. Storytelling and narrative are the approaches used by this teacherresearcher to make sense of her experience with online teaching. Lortie (1975) suggested autobiography as a way to increase awareness of ones views about teaching and to expose them to personal examination. As a teacher-researcher, I use autobiographical narrative to ask my own questions, articulate my own story, explore my own memories, and affirm the legitimacy of my own real experiences (Grumet, 1978). Schons ideas on reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action (1983, 1987) lead me to conclude that a reflective teacher is a more effective teacher. As a result of engaging in a critical, reflexive dialogue with my own contexts and realities, and with myself as teacher and researcher, I believe I can become a more effective online teacher, and a more reflective practitioner and researcher. We are experiencing a virtual revolution in American higher education. According to a report by International Data Corporation, in 2002 approximately 85 percent of two- and four-year colleges will offer distance education courses, up from 62 percent in 1998. One main reason for such an expansion of distance education is that it allows to provide educational access to students who are unable, or find it extremely inconvenient, to attend a traditional institution. Another important reason is that as colleges and universities see more and more non-traditional, adult, professional students join their undergraduate completion programs and graduate programs, the demand for alternative ways to provide learning opportunities increases. These non-traditional, adult students are generally highly motivated and self-directed learners, and feel most comfortable in a learning environment that allows them to be in control of their learning, and provides ample flexibility. An online learning environment can be effectively designed to provide such learning conditions.

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A large number of instructors start teaching in cyberspace when their institutions start offering online distance courses. Often they are thrown into an online classroom without much advance learning or preparation. Thats how I started too. While some of these online educators may go through some training at some point, most of the learning comes by doing. Just like teaching in general, online teaching is also more of an art than a science. In the following pages, I take the readers with me on a personal reflective journey into my experiences during last four years of online teaching. Teaching in an online environment where the instructor and students only communicate electronically has been a valuable learning experience for me. As a teacher-researcher, in the process of deliberately reflecting on my experience I draw lessons for personal practice and practice of fellow online educators. I also emphasize the notions of academic quality and community building in an online teaching-learning environment. A process of systematic reflection on ones practice can be a valuable learning experience for both the practitioner and others in the community of practice. McDermott (1999) distinguishes the community of practice from other types of communities by arguing that communities of practice are not just celebrations of common interests, but instead focus on practical aspects of a practice, everyday problems, new tools, developments in the field, things that work and dont. Though most of my learning about online teaching has come by practice, I also had the privilege of learning with and from a group of faculty from several higher educational institutions, who were enrolled in the Online Learning Certificate pilot program developed by a regional higher education consortium. This experience helped us learn and reflect together about online teaching, building online communities, online course design, assessment, intellectual property issues, and other important matters related to teaching in a virtual classroom. One of the strengths of this pilot program was that it allowed a group of instructors with a range of online teaching experiences to interact with one another, share and reflect on their experiences, and learn from one another. Reflection is the best way to learn and grow as online educators, especially since the experience-based literature in this field is still limited. It can show them the path they

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have been on, and the path they need to take for future practice. It can help them see the mistakes they have made along the way, how they corrected them, and how they must keep reflecting on their practice to grow as online educators. Situating My Role: A Practitioner and a Researcher The university where I teach has been delivering online courses for its distance students for the past four years. Initially, two faculty (including myself) ventured into the realm of online learning as a way to better serve their students, most of whom are working professionals and many of whom are living outside the area. Currently, the entire curriculum of two Master of Arts programs are offered online, with two others offering a growing number of online course options. I work with two of the distance, adult education programs. These programs, namely, Individualized Liberal and Professional Studies (ILPS), and Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution (MACR) combine online teaching and limited residency. Most social science students in ILPS and all students in the MACR program take at least one qualitative research methods course with me. In addition to these research courses, I also teach two core courses, Foundations of Academic Discourse and Applied Curriculum Design, to ILPS students. Before Spring 2001, I and other faculty members used the universitys electronic communication system, FirstClass to deliver online instruction to our distance students. Since then, we have added WebCT in our tool bag as another online instructional delivery system. All the research courses I teach for ILPS and MACR programs are now being offered on WebCT. Don Foshee (1999)argues that the use of the new technologies is only as good as the people and content behind them. Offering an important lesson from the evolution of technology in education, he notes, Good teaching is good teaching, and bad teaching is even worse in a technology-based environment (p. 26). This paper presents the journey taken by a teacher-researcher in pursuit of a simple, solitary goal to be a better teacher. In this journey, I am reflecting on my practice and constructing a teacher autobiography

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from which I hope to learn, and hope that other online teachers and teacher-researchers will also learn. Self-reflection, personal narrative, learning by doing are all valid and credible ways to construct knowledge that is personally meaningful and professionally rewarding for teacher-researchers. Lewin, who is often credited for bringing the word action into action research, asserted that the person stands at the center of his or her own life space, and that an understanding of that life can only be accomplished by beginning with the perspective of that individual (1948). Emphasis on self has been a noticeable aspect of many teacher-researcher projects. Often it is by knowing our self, we know the world around us. This perspective is reflected in a common phenomenological value and research strategy that Eger (1993) describes as one "which tries to stay close to the phenomena by avoiding as much as possible all abstraction and imposition of constructs, and by relating always the object of study to the experiences of the subject who does the studying." When teacher-researchers describe and understand their students, classes, curriculum through personal reflection and narratives, they are "staying close to the phenomena" (Jungck, 1996). Aggarwal (2000) presents a composite of the experiences of faculty members from around the world who are experimenting with web-based teaching and learning. Important learning can come from knowing others experiences in this still-elusive field of online education. Boettcher and Conrad (1999) present three questions that form the foundation of good instructional design: Who are my students? What do I want my students to know, to feel, or to be able to do as a result of this course or experience? And where, when, and with what resources will my students be learning? In the next few sections, I provide an account of my online teaching experience, as I address some of these questions and point out the successes, lessons learned and areas for improvement. The reflective nature of this paper demands a narrative style of presentation that allows for my personal voice interwoven with some of the literature I have read on online teaching and learning. Such an account will add to the growing literature on first-hand experiences of distance learners and educators in cyberspace.

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My Typical Online Classroom My online courses are generally divided into four to five instructional units. Each unit includes: (a) a set of brief online lectures posted by the me that outlines and discusses the major concepts for that unit, and also poses some open-ended questions for student discussion; (b) a set of student responses; and (c) instructors comments on selected students responses and questions. For each unit students have reading and written assignments, which they are expected to finish before the next unit. Detailed guidelines for the assignments are provided as needed. When students register for the course, they are sent login information and other detailed instructions for accessing and navigating through the course site. Below is a generic homepage of an online course offered via WebCT at my university. Often I personalize this generic look by using different colors, graphics, and by adding some inspirational quotes or lines from favorite poems in the top or bottom of the screen.

The Learning Units contain my lecture notes. Segments of the units are broken into subcategories for easy searching from within the course. The screen appearance is that of an outline format so that the lecture can be digested in increments. This outline format 9

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also allows the student to return to particular segments of the lecture to easily review the needed material. Early in my experience I learned that if I wanted to provide a learning environment for my graduate students where an in-depth exploration of the subject matter is not only desired but also a class expectation, my lecture notes needed to be more challenging, informative, inspiring, full of examples, and practical advice. They must provide information that is both complementary and supplementary to the information students were expected to obtain from the assigned readings. The Discussions area allows for the academic discussion that so richly enhances the online learning experience. It is here that students and I work together to generate ideas and meaningful knowledge through our discussion postings and responses to one anothers postings. The Discussions folder has several sub-folders to keep our thoughts organized and knowledge manageable. Within each sub-folder students find an introductory posting from me explaining the purpose of that particular sub-folder. Students are encouraged to follow the suggested guidelines so that we all can efficiently and effectively navigate through the multitude of online discussion postings. Sub-folders are created for each instructional unit of the class, where we participate in dialogue about course material, and share our insights, reflections, and experiences related to class readings and assignments. Under the sub-folder General we post our introductions, ask questions and post general comments or announcements about the course material as well as other related issues emerging during the course. In this folder, students also find a posting from me regarding Netiquette. Students are encouraged to observe the netiquette as a courtesy to other members of the class. They are also encouraged to post any tips they can think of with regard to online interactions. Periodic announcements about the occasional online chats and any other matter related to class schedule are posted in this General sub-folder. A separate sub-folder called Student Lounge is used to allow students share with rest of the class any interesting stuff happening in their lives, or simply to drop in a line to say hello. Another sub-folder called Web Resources is available for us to share any relevant online resources or readings we come across during the course. These resources

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are not part of required class readings, but help in building a personal electronic library of interesting material. Occasional online chats are also part of the course design. Chat allows real time communication among students or between students and instructor. The need for synchronous participation varies from course to course and depends on the needs of each particular group. Teaching Socially Responsible Research Values of an institution and its faculty are important factors that shape a courses design, syllabus, teaching strategies, learning activities, assignments, and assessment tools. This holds true whether the course is taught in a traditional face-to-face classroom or is taught online in a distance program. This brief section provides a peek into the fundamental values that lie at the core of the research courses offered at this institution. At our school we emphasize a broad definition of research. We believe that a good research can serve several different purposes. It can be exploratory in purpose, with an objective to investigate little understood phenomena; to identify or discover important categories of meaning; and/or to generate hypotheses for future research. Research can also be explanatory in nature, where the goal is to explain the patterns related to the phenomenon in question; or to identify plausible relationships shaping the phenomenon. Our faculty and students also understand that research can also be descriptive in nature, where the objective is to document and describe the phenomenon of interest. And finally, research can also be emancipatory in purpose, with an objective to create opportunities and the will to engage in social action. This broad conception of academic research is very much consistent with our philosophy of education that emphasizes social responsibility and personal understanding of social justice, freedom and equality. In all the research courses I teach, during the first few weeks of the class, emphasis is placed on helping students identify their personal research interests. Part of this identification process involves discussing the reasons why a topic is worth researching. Students are encouraged to reflect on their academic and professional interests to find

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areas where they would like to conduct a systematic inquiry. They are also encouraged to choose topics that may help them connect their professional world to their academic field, or that may help them address some particular problem or issue they are facing at their workplace or community, or that may allow them to seek answers to an academic question that always interested them. A key advice I give to all my students in the very first lecture posted online is to choose a topic for their research that helps them achieve continuity with who they were, who they are, who they want to become, what they did in the past, what they do now, and what they want to do in the future. Another important value emphasized in my classes involves ethical considerations that a researcher must pay attention to in designing and executing his or her research project. These ethical considerations include but are not limited to seeking voluntary informed consent of research participants, and assuring them of their privacy, confidentiality and anonymity. My online lectures thus become an important tool in disseminating my understanding of good research theory and practice and what I consider to be ethical responsibilities of a researcher. Content robustness is concerned with the breadth and depth of the content included in or part of a web-enhanced or asynchronous course and the extent to which students are required to interact with that content and with each other. An online course has robust content if it goes well beyond the mere inclusion of a course syllabus and a few pages of instructor notes or readings (WebCT, 2001). My online research courses do aim to being robust courses, and provide a lot of different learning situations in which students can interact with the content. One such learning opportunity involves requiring students to engage in real-world research (library research or fieldwork depending on the course objectives) that allows them to apply their newly acquired theoretical knowledge of research methodology and design, and also learn by doing. This blending of theory and practice is an important value of the university I work at, and is incorporated in all online research courses currently available. In the methods courses, students are expected to engage in fieldwork, report on their progress in online discussions, and submit a research report. In the course that teaches library research and critical analysis skills, students are required to conduct extensive library and critical

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research and submit a literature review on a research topic of their choice. Similarly the proposal writing course requires students to submit an acceptable research proposal. All these assignments involve practical application of theoretical knowledge students are gaining in these courses, and also provide them with opportunities to test the new skills they are developing. By blending theory and practice these research courses also prepare students to embark on their masters level research projects, encourage critical thinking, provide opportunities for collaborative learning, and promote the integration of life and work experience with academic knowledge. Creating Learning Communities My pedagogical experiments in both face-to-face and online classrooms draw heavily from the idea that the first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught (Aurobindo, 1939). Good, leaner-centered teaching is the most critical part of online teaching. It is through this learner-centered teaching that we can hope to create a virtual learning community of people who would perhaps never (or very rarely) meet one another in real world. In my experience as an online educator over the last four years, I have learned that I have to take an active role in helping an online community to evolve during the duration of the class. Building of this community begins by requiring students to post their somewhat detailed introductions during the first week of the class. I start a separate discussion thread titled, Online Learning Community under which the first posting is my own introduction, which serves as a model for students trying to figure out what to include in their introductions. This structured activity allows students and instructor to get to know one another in a more personal way. One clear sign of this emerging community was evident in 2001 when after the events of September 11, 2001, students in my class posted messages to one another making sure that everyone in the class and their families were safe. Specific messages were also directed toward one student whose wife worked as a flight attendant for one of the airlines whose plane was involved in the tragic events. These exchanges reflected the sense of closeness that these students felt a part of as the class went on, despite the fact that none of these students had ever met one another in person.

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The real working of a learning community is visible only when members start participating actively in discussions about the class topics. This participation is closely related to academic rigor in an online learning environment. Palloff and Pratt (1999) suggest that in an online learning environment, the key to the learning process are the interactions among students themselves, the interactions between faculty and students, and the collaboration in learning that results from these interactions. In describing the evolution of a learner-centered learning community, the authors suggest that instructors need to find ways to make students feel embodied with the course content. From my experience, I have learned that such a learner-centered learning community evolves more easily when students are given a general framework for discussion, or some specific open-ended questions to respond to. As mentioned earlier, in each units lecture I include a list of questions to guide student discussion. Also, the in-depth discussion of critical topics and issues related to subject matter in my lectures provides ample opportunities for students to engage with the content, thereby creating a learning environment where academic rigor is valued. To give an example, in a class I taught three years ago, we witnessed some powerful and passionate discussions among a small group of students. It started when one student posted his responses to some of the discussion questions. His responses were thought provoking and invited several students to respond and raise more questions. The conversation thread continued for several days as more responses and more questions were being generated. One student who was participating in this conversation told me that he now logged on more frequently to the class because he was anticipating a response to his post. Another mentioned that though he was a silent participant in this conversation, it still was an important way for him to learn about issues that he hadnt thought too much about. Two other students mentioned that an important lesson they learned from this experience was about the passion we all feel about certain topics and the logic and reason we try to come up with to defend out positions. Participating in a democratic conversation allows for alternative points of view, leading to a better understanding of the issues by all concerned. It was very gratifying for me as an instructor to see this real learning community develop.

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Palloff and Pratt (1999) suggest that one of the most significant ways of involving students with the online content is to establish minimum levels of participation which require students to make use of the communication tools inherent in any online instructional platform. This involvement is critical to understanding of the concept of academic rigor in an online course. Palloff and Pratt have emphasized that in order to encourage active participation by students, instructors should specify in their class requirements a minimum number of comments that each student must post for each units discussion. Even the nature of these minimum required postings could also be made specific so that some of these postings include students responses to one anothers comments. The important thing to remember is that these expectations are notified to the students before the beginning of the class. In all the online classes I have taught so far, I have been very specific in my expectation that active participation by student is an important class requirement, but initially I was not specifying the minimum number of postings to be made by each student. Because I work with mostly self-motivated, self-directed adult students in my classes, I initially thought that it might not be very appropriate to be this specific in my class requirements. Most of my students have participated in class discussions, though some have been more active than others. However, my experience in a couple of classes three years ago made me think further about being more specific in my class expectations about student participation. I also realized that this might be more important to consider when the class size is small. In order to ensure everyones participation and collaborative learning in all my classes, I now include in my course syllabi a specific class expectation in terms of the minimum postings required per student per week. However, I do remind students that the academic quality and originality of their postings are valued more than the number of their postings. Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that a sense of learning community contributes to the performance in group settings. It is important for an online educator to discover best strategies and techniques for community building that may lead to enhanced learning outcomes for students, and also promote retention and satisfaction. Through my experience, I have learned that it is important to create safe spaces where students can

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explore issues, share their opinions, contribute informed perspectives, and feel confident that their views will be acknowledged and respected and their questions will be answered. This makes students feel responsible for their own learning, and also share the responsibility of creating knowledge in the course. These safe spaces, are however, best created when the instructor establishes some structural guidelines, e.g. by setting some deadlines for completing each unit and certain assignments; by providing students with some open-ended discussion questions; or by introducing a new unit with some lecture notes that invite students to directly engage themselves with the content. The discussion questions, if challenging, help encourage an atmosphere of reflection and adventure in learning, keeping students interested in the process of learning. The openended nature of these questions encourages reflection and critical thinking about the class material and about its application to their world of practice. These questions act as starting points or somewhat-loose anchors to facilitate a more free-flowing conversation. They help develop an atmosphere of reflection and adventure in learning, keeping students interested in the process of learning. Once students start responding to these questions, I participate as and when needed, share my perspective, pose more questions based on student responses, respond to their questions, and sometimes may also play the role of devils advocate to encourage some deeper thinking. The purpose is to demonstrate how meaningful knowledge can be constructed through and within these interactions. This tells students that I am just as active a participant in the class as they are, reminding the learners that I may be somewhere in cyberspace, but am still accessible and fully engaged with activities going on in the class. This reflexive exercise about online learning and teaching is only partially meaningful without students voices. I now present some perspectives shared by some of my former online students. These voices, expressed to other students in the class and on students own accord near the end of the course, represent the experiences that these students had in an online collaborative learning journey.

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I love the interactions on this discussion [forum]- especially the connections we are making to other ideas and past experiences. Just wanted to take a moment to tell you all how much Ive appreciated our discussions. Im lucky to have been associated with such intelligent and insightful women. Ive benefited from knowing you. And thanks so much for your support during my familys illnesses! I do hope we all stay in touch. Just wanted to say that has been great learning with all of you! I've been inspired to think about some things that I really gave much credence to! This class has been so "live"! I hope at some point we can get together for a meal and just talk about what everybody is doing. I guess this is the place where we would all do a group hug and say see ya next time if it were in person. Alas - the isolation of the online discussion group - in the final analysis, we're all alone at our computer keyboards looking at words on the screen. Teaching and Learning by Listening An important issue in an online classroom concerns the role of the instructor. Should an instructor be only a provider of the content or a facilitator of interaction? Should an instructor be a sage on the stage or a guide on the side? My experience suggests that the instructors role is situated somewhere in between the two. Online learning and teaching is just as much about the process as the product. The instructor and students engage in a process of creating knowledge through their interactions with one another and with the content of the course. This content is again constructed in several ways through the readings and lecture notes assigned by the instructor, and through the discussions and conversations that occur in the online classroom. Because the online environment allows students and instructor to go back and review this always-developing content by clicking on the Discussions area, the knowledge itself is always in the process of construction as new interpretations are made, and as new questions are posed either by students, instructor or both. This breaks down the dichotomy between process and product, and allows for a more meaningful and collaborative learning experience. Breaking down of the process and product dichotomy also raises new issues for managing the process. Palloff and Pratt (2001) argue that the instructors response to the development of the process management role needs to be a willingness to leave behind

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the traditional power boundaries that exist between instructor and student. Internet has been described as the great equalizer essentially eliminating the boundaries that exist between cultures, genders, ages and also eliminating power differences between instructors and students. It has been suggested that the discussions that occur in the online classroom are as free of socio-cultural bias as is possible. Though this issue of role of socio-cultural frame in online interactions needs deeper inquiry, something that is beyond the scope of this paper, I will quickly add that in order to achieve a more equal relationship between instructor and students, instructors must be able to relinquish their power over the educational process and let the learners take on their process management role. Clearly, instructors hold the extra edge in the process because they assign a grade (or as in the case of my university, write a narrative evaluation) for the course. However, in the area of process management, learners can and should play an equal role (Palloff & Pratt). This revised role of the instructors, however, does not eliminate the traditional role, which is to create learning opportunities that challenge students and motivate them to participate fully in the process of creating knowledge. At the heart of online learning communities are Discussions. Learners and instructor engage in co-construction of learning through exchange of ideas and perspectives, provide challenges and clarifications, explore better ways to articulate thoughts and reflections. All of this is done in the spirit of learning with and from others. Part of instructors role in an online class is to create a supportive, encouraging, motivating, inspiring and safe space for Discussions. This is done by: Setting up minimum class participation expectations; encouraging students to post substantive and reflective comments instead of mere electronic nods; positioning oneself as a fellow learner (thereby opening instructors views and postings to be as much available for interpretation, challenge and/or criticism as students); paying attention to who is speaking and who is not; ensuring the quality and relevance of discussion and at the same time allowing students to be creative in their thinking and reflections; allowing the multiple perspectives to emerge; helping students see the value of their perspective; gently challenging the students to look beyond their perspectives; demonstrating inclusiveness and co-existence; ...among other things.

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Students often are not just learners but also teachers for one another. Over time I have had to learn to be another learner in class and let students be my fellow-teachers. It has become important for me as a teacher now to silence my teacher voice so that students can take more ownership of the learning space. If numbers hold some part of the truth, here is one. In a 10-week-long class in Summer 2004 with 7 students, out of 616 total discussion postings, my active voice was limited to 95 messages (15.4%). I am not counting the individual responses to student queries and feedback on assignments that were sent via private email to individual students. My voice was of course also hidden in the way the online classroom was set up, lecture notes were prepared, and discussion questions were framed for students to engage with the class material. Some of the active voice included some postings made to motivate and encourage students to engage with one anothers perspectives and ideas. Besides speaking, an important part of participating in online discussions is Listening. Listening requires silencing oneself to really listen. Listen to the Silence. An important part of my role, as I am beginning to understand, is also to help students see the value of Silence. So what did I do when I first experienced silence in an online classroom? I listened, learned, and spoke. Here is a posting I made in the General discussion folder in a class two years ago:

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I would like to share something I have learned about online learning/teaching in the last few years. Even if no one responds directly to a comment we make, we must remain assured that people are reading what we post, thinking about it, and are learning from it. Part of the beauty of online learning is that it is self-directed, selfpaced, and involves a lot of independent study and reflection. So one should not feel that their ideas are not inspiring discussion - it is just that people may be either chewing upon ideas and will respond in due time, or may be having a discussion with themselves as they read and think about your ideas. We often learn our most important lessons in silence. There is an Indian literary tradition of "Samvad" which can be translated to mean Discourse among Equals. This samvad doesn't always happen between or among people, it can just as easily happen within an individual...between the various positionalities and subjectivities we hold based on our multiple and shifting identities and roles. While I am really happy to see a lot of samvad happening among the class members, I hope the discussions in this class along with the readings are also facilitating a Samvad within all of us...so we can begin to understand our own ways of knowing, learning and being.

Within a few hours, there was this response from a student:

Thank you for saying that, Beloo! I wanted to say something just like that to the entire class, because it's almost impossible to give a respectful answer to everyone's comment. If we were sitting f2f, we'd be able to get immediate feedback - but there would be no written record of what we said. With this method of exchange, our words are there to review for the duration of the course - right? (And, if you have enough paper and toner, you have the option to print everything for future reference!) No - I don't expect everything I post to be answered, because I can't answer everything either! I love it when someone defines something I'm thinking about but didn't quite have the words to say. That's happening a lot in our discussions. "Samvad." So that's what we're doing. That's a good thing. Namaste.

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Some concluding remarks While Namaste seems like a good place to close these reflections, I have one more point to add. As a teacher living in-between cultures, I value my role in bringing up alternative, non-western perspectives on topics related to course content and ways of learning. I enjoy spending time in coming up with learning activities and class readings that encourage students to know self in the process of knowing the other. Because some of my teaching and learning happens in an online environment, I am also discovering that online learning spaces can also be effective spaces for acknowledging and incorporating crosscultural awareness. I enjoy the challenge of thinking about possible ways to do this. The above little snippet I have chosen to share here is also an example of bringing crosscultural awareness into our ongoing discussions today about online pedagogy. As the above example shows, I tried to make the students see a meaning of silence that may be quite different from how silence is understood in our more mainstream thinking. Silence is not only about a feeling of being silenced or having no voice. Silence can also give us profound moments of introspection and learning. While it is certainly easier for us to assess student learning by listening to their online voices, how do we listen to their silences? How do we document Quiet Knowing? I am reminded of a pithy Einstein quote The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. Questions like the ones above compel us to look beyond our commonly accepted ways of learning and assessing. They compel us to question some of the things we learn in schools of education about how to teach and learn. For example, we begin to recognize that brain-storming is only one way of learning, brain-silencing or mind-silencing to be precise, can be yet another powerful way. Finally, it is important to remember that teaching and learning are primarily about the experience that students and teachers create collaboratively. Only in a secondary way it is about the mode of delivery. To quote from Dr. Vincent Tinto: The irony of our current situation is that while we are willing to recognize the importance of shared learning among students, we sometimes fail to recognize the need for us to become shared learners as well. It is perhaps telling of the

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character of higher education that faculty and staff, more so the faculty, are placed in work situations where they are isolated one from another, where their learning is highly individualized and isolated from the learning of their peers. Perhaps it is time, no let me say it more clearly, it is more than time for us to tear down our castles and moats and reorganize ourselves into learning communities as well.1 It is in this spirit of shared learning and organizing ourselves into a learning community that I have presented some of my, admittedly, general reflections about teaching and learning in an online classroom. As a result of engaging in a reflexive dialogue with ones own contexts and realities, and with oneself as a teacher and researcher, I believe educators can become more effective teachers, and also more reflective practitioner-researchers. Sharing such reflections with peers could be the beginning of a true learning community. References Aggarwal, A. (Ed.). (2000). Web-based learning and teaching technologies: Opportunities and challenges. Hershey, PA: Idea Group. Boettcher, J. and Conrad, R. (1999). Faculty guide for moving teaching and learning to the web. Mission Viejo, CA: League for Innovation in the Community College. Eger, M. (1993). Hermeneutics as an approach to science: Part II. Science and Education, 2, 303-328. Foshee, D. (1999). Instructional technologies Part one: Leveraging the technology menu A practical primer for new learning environments. In Teaching at a distance: A handbook for instructors. League for Innovation in the Community College and Archipelago, 1999. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Grumet, M. (1978) Curriculum as theatre: Merely players. Curriculum Inquiry, 8, 37-62. International Data Corporation (1999, June). Online distance learning in higher education, 1998-2002. Council for Higher Education Accreditation, CHEA Update, 2. Jungck, S. (1996). Teacher inquiry in the traditions of social science research: "Is it real?" In G. Burnaford, J. Fischer, & D. Hobson (Eds.), Teachers doing research: Practical possibilities (pp. 165-179). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.
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Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University. Lewin, K. (1948). Resolving social conflicts. New York: Harper. Lortie D. (1975). The schoolteacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McDermott, R. (1999) Knowing in Community: 10 Critical Success Factors in Building Communities of Practice. Community Intelligence Labs. . [Accessed March 18, 2003] http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/knowing.shtml Olcott, D. (1999). Instructional technologies - Part two: Strategies for instructor success Selecting and using distance education technologies. In Teaching at a distance: A handbook for instructors. League for Innovation in the Community College and Archipelago, 1999. Palloff R. M. & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Palloff, R. M. & Pratt, K. (2001). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom: The realities of online teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schon, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books. Schon, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Sri Aurobindo (1939/1997) The Life Divine, Centenary Edition, Vol. 17, pp. 204-5. Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. WebCT (2001). The WebCT Exemplary Course Project. [online]. Retrieved August 21, 2001 from http://www.webct.com/prodicts/viewpage?name=products_exemplary_course1

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