Educational Development Associates

Educational Development Associates, LLC

123 of the Most Important Things That I Have Learned About Teaching and Learning at a Distance
Thomas E. Cyrs, Ed.D.
1. Not all knowledge to be learned resides with the instructor.
2. Instructors can learn a lot from their students.
3. Many students have life experiences that are worth listening to.
4. It is very hard to admit that you don’t know something.
5. Talking is not teaching.
6. Instructors do not motivate their students. They create an environment in which students choose to motivate themselves.
7. Teach with passion.
8. Enthusiasm generates enthusiasm.
9. Tell students why they should learn something, the benefits to be derived from learning it, and how they can use it immediately in their lives.
10. Believe in yourself as a teacher and your students will believe in you.
11. Be the best you can be today when you teach and then be better tomorrow.
12. Always find positive things to say to your students in person and in writing.
13. Think of ten different ways to say thank you and use them in every teleclass.
14. Learn with your students and tell the students you are learning with them.
15. Be available before and after class in real and delayed time.
16. Never assume what a student knows or can do something without verifying it.
17. Make students stretch their minds and think for themselves.
18. Give students a sample final exam the first day of class.
19. Model what you believe in.
20. Share your professional values and biases.
21. One size never fits all students.
22. Be clear and concise in your expectations of what is to be learned. Share the class and course learning performance objectives.
23. Don’t trust technology. It is never really transparent. It is usually translucent.
24. Know the opportunities and limitations of the delivery technology that you are using.
25. Have contingency plans when you are teaching with technology. Be prepared for the worst.
26. Students never learn from the technology. They learn from the way instructors communicate through the technology.
27. Technology can never replace the value of a live instructor.
28. You were never 18 in 1999.
29. Never embarrass a student in any way.
30. Instructors are empowered to change the lives of their students.
31. Helping students to identify, clarify, and explore alternative values may be more important than learning facts.
32. Making students remember unconnected facts is irrelevant. Showing them where to find the facts is a skill that will be used for a lifetime.
33. Teaching is more than data dumping.
34. Make your non-verbal communication consistent with what you are saying.
35. Get students involved in their learning from their heads to their toes.
36. Students don’t care unless they share.
37. When you ask a question, remember to balance the gender and ethnicity of the respondents.
38. Love and respect your students and they will return it.
39. Take a student for a ride and they will arrive at where you want them to. Teach them to drive and they will be able to go anywhere.
40. Have fun when you teach and your students will learn to laugh with you.
41. Use lots of humor but don’t tell jokes.
42. Respect diversity and you will be respected.
43. Help students to grow from where they are now not where you think they should be.
44. Create curiosity in your teaching content.
45. When appropriate, let students participate in the decision of what to learn.
46. If for some reason you don’t like a student, the problem is yours.
47. Never generalize from a few particular instances.
48. Whenever you give an example (for instance) always provide a non example (don’t confuse A with B).
49. It is not important what a student knows. It is important what the student can do with what is known.
50. Stop talking so much and let students learn.
51. Learn with your student because no one is smarter than all of you.
52. Wrap your most important learning points in a relevant story.
53. Use lots of attention-focusing strategies.
54. Students can learn at different times and in different locations as well as at the same time and in the same location-the classroom.
55. Students learn only when they want to learn.
56. You can bring a student to a fountain, but you can’t make her drink unless she is thirsty.
57. Your students will have a greater impact on the future than you will.
58. Create high expectations and students will reach out and stretch.
59. Students have different learning styles. Use a variety of teaching strategies.
60. Assess only what you teach and tell students to learn.
61. The fountain of knowledge and source of truth does not always reside in the front of the classroom.
62. Students today have always known electronic technology such as the CD, the computer, and the VCR. They have learned a great deal through it.
63. Students learn as well, as fast, and as much from electronically delivered instruction as in a traditional classroom.
64. The primary role of teachers as knowledge sources and transmitters is shifting to that of learning facilitators and mentors.
65. Teacher-centered education as we have known it historically is shifting to a learner-centered paradigm.
66. We are in the process of taking the “house” out of schoolhouse and moving towards the whole community as the primary resource.
67. A researcher creates new knowledge. A teacher communicates that new knowledge in ways that students can understand. Teaching and research are separate and unequal.
68. The three characteristics of great teachers are enthusiasm, clarity of communication, and interactions before and after class.
69. Create opportunities for students to think critically rather than to parrot.
70. Communicate with as many senses as possible for permanent learning.
71. Don’t kill ideas by waiting until tomorrow.
72. There is no such thing as a dumb question-only the one not asked.
73. Let your students see what you are saying by visualizing it.
74. Talk with pictures.
75. Have fun with magic illusion and transition to a key teaching point.
76. Startle students occasionally with a provocative statement or question.
77. Teach students, not subjects.
78. Teaching is like fishing. Sometimes they bite and sometimes they don’t. It depends a lot on the type of lure that you use.
79. Lecture only 8-12 minutes before you involve students in their learning in some way.
80. Create a safe environment in which students feel comfortable to express their ideas.
81. Fill students souls with dreams and help them to make those dreams come true.
82. If in doubt, don’t.
83. Be a thief of good ideas and then give credit to the originator of the idea.
84. Students can be arrogant and impatient. So can teachers.
85. Look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are the best that you can be. Mirrors can’t lie.
86. Top quality teaching doesn’t just happen. It takes planning.
87. Assumptions about teaching and learning drive your actions.
88. If you don’t know where you are going when you plan your classes, you are likely to land up somewhere else.
89. Critical thinking cannot be taught through lecture. There must be active student involvement.
90. Talk at students and they will forget. Involve them in their learning and they will remember.
91. Excited teachers excite students.
92. Create a stimulating learning environment with the use of visual analogy, storytelling, and magic illusion.
93. There are few good answers, only good questions.
94. Students learn as they are tested, unfortunately. Test for recall and the student will remember. Test for critical thinking and the student will learn to think critically.
95. When you ask a question on television, wait at least 8-10 seconds for a response.
96. There are only 60 minutes in a teaching hour on television. No more.
97. What we want a student to learn is more important than what we teach.
98. A course syllabus or telesyllabus for distance learning is the most important communication device that an instructor can use to provide useful information. It is a legal covenant with students.
99. If it isn’t in writing, it does not exist.
100. Teaching is not talking at. It is talking with.
101. You can’t wing it on live interactive television or you will get wung out.
102. Look around you 360 degrees. There are teaching artifacts everywhere.
103. Laugh at yourself frequently on interactive television. You are the biggest joke.
104. Students are more interested in people than things. Let them know who you are.
105. Develop a personal signature that sets the stage for every class.
106. Take some chances by trying new ideas. If they bomb, find out why. If they succeed, find out why.
107. Whenever you step beyond the bounds of the ordinary and try something different, there must be a goodness of fit for you.
108. Reward students with understanding, kindness, and humility.
109. Listen frequently to students. They might have something worthwhile to say.
110. Let learning drive your selection of technology.
111. Your visual image on television is whatever you want and practice it to be.
112. What we see in our students is based mainly on what we look for.
113. There are three types of instructors: Those that you have to listen to; those that you can’t help listening to; and those that you want to listen to.
114. Traditional courses cannot be transported to a television or World Wide Web environment without significant modification.
115. You can spell the word cooperation with just two letters-WE.
116. Knowledge can be written in ways other than written words. It can be communicated through the use of symbols, graphics, pictures, diagrams, and maps.
117. For a magic trick to be effective in teaching it must have a good transition to the key teaching point.
118. Good questions don’t just happen. They are written and planned in advance.
119. The first seven seconds of a television class are the most important. This is when the student forms a visual impression.
120. Non-verbal communication on interactive television can be as important as what is said.
121. Active learning involves students in their own learning both alone and in small groups.
122. Active learning is the ability to get students to do something with what they have learned and then to think about what they have done.
123. Stories and anecdotes reinforce key teaching points and establish a personal rapport with students.
Copyright (c) 1998 Educational Development Associates, LLC

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This page last updated Sunday, 30 March 2003