This winter session I am excited to be teaching my death and dying course for the first time (officially titled Helping Children Cope with Grief and Loss) and I have 12 students taking this course (I even have a student from Maryland enrolled this semester). Since I am a Certified Child Life Specialist-current students, or recent graduates, can take any of my online courses and use them for the requirements to sit for the Child Life Certification Exam (one of the new requirements is that each student MUST take a course from a Certified Child Life Specialist). This has really helped me boost my advertising ability to other child life specialists and recent graduates because they can take the course as a "special student" without officially applying to UW-La Crosse and while paying a discounted rate.
What I love most about teaching online is the flexibility that it offers (to me and to my students). I can work on the courses I create while my kids are in school... and I often grade papers while they are in bed at night. They barely even notice the time I spend on it and I am able to make money in the process. I also love that students can take these courses and still fit them into their current class schedules. They can find a time that works for THEM to work on coursework. I always inform them that they should be prepared for a great deal of work for an online course. Some students believe the myth that online courses are easier (but having gotten my master's degree online-I KNOW this is not true). There is a great deal of self-discipline required...as well as a need to be a good writer (because most of your assignments are written).
I love finding ways to spice up the online learning experience by including You Tube videos, Jing presentations, and other innovative methods to help engage the students. I also require that they respond to their classmates posts so that I know that they are engaging with others in our "classroom". I have had a lot of positive feedback about the online learning environments I have created and this is great because I spent a LOT of hours creating these online courses. The good news is...that once I create a course online...I can copy it and paste it into a new course to use another semester (of course I delete items, change test/quiz questions, update information, add new requirements). So far I have 3 permanent courses that are now set into the TR course rotation (Helping Children Cope with Grief and Loss, Coping with Pediatric Disabling Conditions, and Helping a Child in Pain). I am also working on creating two more (one on family centered care and the other to be determined) so I will eventually have 1 course every semester (including summer and winter sessions).
Another thing I LOVE about teaching is that I get to connect with many of the students I have in class through my job at Gundersen. I am in charge of supervising all of the child life students that do practicums and independent studies at Gundersen Lutheran. Many of these students that I have in my classroom also complete hours with me in the Outpatient Surgery Center. It is always fun to help them apply what they are learning in class to what they see in their hours with me!
While I really enjoy teaching, I am fortunate enough to be able to do it without being away from my kids. I did teach one semester of in class coursework (Child Life Theory and Practice) while the regular instructor was on sabbatical and I hated being away from my kids for 4 hours every Thursday. Teaching online is a great compromise for my family and for my students.
