Sharing…we learned how to do this as children, and it should become more natural as we grow. How and how much we share about our lives with our students are lines each of us draw in different ways; some professors may be as open as a One Drive file, while others permit limited sharing based on our teaching styles. During our last meeting for our TLT Faculty Learning Community Innovative Instructional Technologies in the Classroom, we also connected by weaving some of these boundaries into our discussion. In one previous career incarnation as a newspaper columnist, I curated carefully what I was willing to share about my personal life with others and what I needed to keep to myself, and for better or for worse, that has extended into my classroom experience. I am protective. When I speak from experience, I do so very briefly, but openly with examples of that experience for relevance to connect with meaning. I share work/life experiences I’ve recently observed in my own daughter, who also a Penn State college student, (i.e. “form study groups – here’s why”) but hold back details about our family and her name and her life outside of school. At our IITC meeting, I really liked how Ebonie described her outlook when she expressed she remains “authentically who I am in the classroom … within limits.”

At this meeting Cat shared students frequently ask her about their career decisions and I’ve seen her listen, hold onto their words, when they talk with her. Both she and Ryan emphasized the value of classroom communication even when it can get away from the main topic. This rang true to Darby’s statements about revealing personality so students “know that you are more than just a name on the screen” in Small Teaching Online (91).

The technology we share affected our collective connections in the classroom this semester as well. Beth Ann shared she finds it helpful to “give a little bit of yourself” and tries to give everyone a video response back in her classroom. Dawn has had very positive responses with Zoom pop-up office hours. Donna has seen an increase in engagement connecting with students visually with popular images and GIFs – sharing her feelings about a Mandalorian character popularly referred to as Baby Yoda with them has spawned an unexpected communication breakthrough. Another example of getting asynchronous students to share thoughts with one another was Jennifer’s use of project groups at the beginning of a semester and then effectively shaking up the groups at the midterm mark. As we continue to move through our group text, we’ll explore group practice and reaching out to others as well, only this time as it relates to “developing as an online instructor” (also the title of Chapter 9), to help learners continue to improve their connections – with our course content.