An Unwilling Journey into Online Pedagogy

Once or twice a year, we're supposed to go to the dentist. Once a year, we need to pay taxes, get our flu shots, clean off the desk in our office. The level of anticipation with which I became an online instructor was similar to these rites. Perhaps this was due to my limited experience as a (poor) online student.

One of my courses in undergrad, "Art, Pornography, Blasphemy, Propaganda", offered online lecture recordings for anyone who couldn't attend in person. Even in such a titillating subject, which was engrossing in person, online lectures hit me like the sad trombone of a Charlie Brown instructor. In graduate school, with a bit more scholastic maturity, I did pursue a handful of online seminars in teaching offered by the fantastic Center for Research in Teaching and Learning at the University of Michigan. And? More sad trombone noises. By the time Covid-19 was first replicating in China, I was 100% anti-online learning and hoped never to hear the words "online degree" ever again.

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