Blog

Welcome to my blog, where I share thoughts, ideas, and imaginations for a better world.

My Experience with Online and/or Distance Learning

As a student from Northern Virginia, we are likely to take online courses sooner rather than later and, often, we do not have the choice of onsite vs. online. It is one way or the other. I took my first online class about 3 semesters ago and it was very challenging. We had constant technical issues such as the sound fading in and out or unstable internet. It seems that no matter what approach the professor used to teach in class it was difficult as a student, to stay engaged. Professors had their own connectivity issues at the beginning of most class periods and help desk staff was often trying to fix them. In one semester, sound and internet connectivity were so bad in one of my classes that I had to retake it. Another semester, after planning my schedule carefully, I learned that a class I was taking was cancelled less than a week before the semester started. The professor did not want to teach it online due to her previous negative online teaching experience.

In reading The Advice Guide on How to Be a Better Teacher by Flower Darby, I found good suggestions for best practices. However, I did not find how to deal with unexpected and ongoing technical issues. Online/distance learning still present some challenges for students such as set schedule office hours. It is difficult trying to schedule appointments by email when communication is not perfectly synchronized and there is delayed in reading an email by either side, for example, and the receiver or sender do not respond on time. For me, picking up the phone and getting a quick clarification on a question can be more efficient than emailing several times. Phone communication is not always as effective for instructions as email is. Instead of using one way to communicate it would preferable to be flexible about communication methods.

In the online classes I have taken, I witnessed that the teacher was intentionally present for the students and sometime frustrated by technology challenges as well. They made a concerted effort to interact with the students and share their passion for a subject; they organized the content of the class with the student in mind to minimize confusion, and explained expectations. The classroom was inviting and pleasant. Thus, my frustration did not result from having a bad instructor; they resulted from having dated technology.

The good news is that comparing this semester to previous semesters and after noticing un upgrade in microphones, things have improved greatly. I enjoy online classes.

Why is Diversity, Inclusion and Representation important in the classroom and in your profession?

As a Latino PhD student in Urban Affairs and Planning, I do not often encounter Latino professors on the East coast frequently. Nor do I find Latino Urban Planners in meetings or outreach events. The immediate questions I ask myself are the following,

Why? Aren’t we intellectually capable as the rest of the population? If we, Latinos are almost 18% of the total US population and perhaps half of them go to college, why don’t we see equivalent numbers in the University faculty? What is the problem?

First, I am going to offer one reasons why I decided to teach. It makes me visible to higher education institutions and to those students from underrepresented communities that are interested in becoming professors. For example, currently, the missing piece to Latino student success is recruiting and retaining Latino Faculty Members.

According to the Pew Research Center, the US Hispanic population reached 18% in 2018. Unfortunately, this growth has not been mirrored in higher education. Hispanic students have the lowest percentages (27.5 percent) of college enrollment compared to White and Black students. The good news is that Latino enrollment numbers are rising from 14.8 million in 1999 to more than 20 million in 2009. However, Latino faculty has not seen similar growth. Latinos in higher education should not be a number to fulfill quotas; they have an additional point of view to bring into education and the decision making process. Research in higher education has examined the institutional and educational benefits of having these underrepresented faculty members in higher education institutions. They have found that Latino faculty members benefit higher education by uniquely engaging students in the classroom, improving Latino students’ higher education retention and degree completion rates, enhancing campus heterogeneity, and conducting academic research on racial/ethnic communities. Therefore representation and role models are important. It is not just about being welcome; it is not just about numbers. Seeing someone that looks like you signals that you may have equal access to opportunities to advance your career, and that the environment is diverse and inclusive so one will not feel like an outsider.

Second, as a practitioner in urban planning, we conduct outreach efforts to find out how the public feels about a transportation issue, for example. When a white planner goes into an entire black community and they trying to convince the members of that community about the benefits of a new policy, they may have a credibility/relatedness issue. Sometimes is helpful to have a planner of similar ethnic/racial background if the community sees you as one of them instead of as an outsider.

The American Planning Association, after realizing their members were not representative of some communities is working to recruit students from different backgrounds to be the planners of the future. I am not saying that standards should be lowered to make racial and ethnic numbers to work. Colleagues have to accept first, that there is a problem with diversity in the industry and they have to agree that inclusion and representation is  a problem before change occurs. In a previous class, I had the so non-enlightening experience to find out who was a racist when they became irate as I discussed the racial and ethnic composition of planners and why it needs to change.

Case-based learning vs. Project-based learning. Is one more effective than the other?

A few semesters ago, I took a class that explored innovative transportation technologies and how those new technologies became disruptive within an industry that has not experienced any significant changes since cars became the most popular mode of transportation. Disruptive transportation technologies have the potential to change the way we live, where we live and how we do business. Often, these types of courses are tailored to engineering and computer students. Thus, when I noticed that the Urban Affairs and Planning department was offering it, I seized the opportunity and took it. The syllabus included a compilation of multi-disciplinary readings and cases about on how these new technologies are changing urban spaces. One requirement was for the students to look for interesting articles on the course subject and blog about them once a week. A second requirement was that each student had to do a final project and then present it to the group. The final requirement was for students to link their findings and apply them to solve issues that cities of the future are likely to encounter. Blogging, looking for alternative solutions, applying and contributing one own’s findings may be a common practice today; it was not when I did my master. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw myself becoming very engaged in the class.  Diversity in student backgrounds was conducive to a collaborative environment as well. As a result of such an experience, I will likely consider a CBL approach when I teach a class in the future.

The teaching method was one of the reasons I immersed myself in the class. It gave me a deeper and better understanding of the subject matter and made me think of additional ways these technologies might impact us and other areas we can apply them; it was an effective method to teach the class. Pedagogy has evolved for the better and it continuous to look for approaches to keep students engage while keeping learning “fun.” Looking back, I see the professor used a Case-Based Learning approach to teach the class I mentioned above; the approach worked well. It changed the way I approach learning, how I research, and how I apply the knowledge acquired.

As to what approach is better, I do not have a simple answer. CBL appears to work well when there are multi disciplines working towards a solution; it also depends on what type of audience you have and how much self-guided learning the instructor want to encourage or discourage. When you are teaching a class, it is impossible to know what methods would work better in advance. Thus, I would try to use a combination of CBL and lightly introduce PBL with some assignments.