I am currently in the thick of my participation in ADTED 498A, Teaching Adults Responsibly, another required course in the Adult Education program at Penn State. Recently I had a conversation with the course instructional designer in which I shared some of my reflections on how the class was going.

A bit of background – the class, as designed, is presented as a series of readings accompanied by a course syllabus. Grading is based on class participation as well as a series of essays which provide an opportunity to reflect on our own real-life teaching experience. What the class lacks is content – a guided, well designed path that describes our learning goals and weekly activities in depth. Essentially the hand of the instructional designer has been tied. The instructor’s hand has been tied as well, in the sense that she is teaching a class that has been “designed” by another faculty member.

The class instructional designer mentioned in our conversation that she had been trying to convince the new instructor to start a blog as a way of supplementing the course materials. I thought it was a fantastic idea when I heard it, and the more I think about it, the more I think it is a great idea, not just in this class, but for any teacher who wishes to provide a more motivating and enriching class experience. It gives a venue for class communications that provides a twofold purpose:

1.  It keeps the class “alive” as it were, providing a tempo and a personality as well as learning enrichment, important considerations especially when teaching learners at a distance.
2. Blogging’s inherent informality takes some of the pressure off both the faculty and the students. Our blogging platform at Penn State is separate from the LMS, and this is a good thing. Faculty can be expressive and engaging without, say, having to post a formal announcement in the course LMS, where meanings and intentions might be examined more closely and are more likely to cause anxiety in the learners.

These are my initial thoughts. Any others?