Online Teaching and Fairness

I teach one fully online class through VHS and one blended class. It was through my online class that I realized something about fairness that I had not noticed until now - that the concerns I often have with fairness with a f2f or blended class disappear in the online class.

I teach high school students, and it's well-known that adolescents have a keenly defined sense of justice. So I always strive to be fair in my dealings with them. But there are challenges especially with regard to missed work. There's always the athlete who didn't get home from the away game until 10 pm and didn't get to study for the quiz. Do I allow her to take the make-up quiz, when in the same room is the drama student who didn't get home from rehearsal till 10 pm but DID manage to study? What is fair?

I've only just realized that there are few fairness issues in the online class because all those encounters take place in the LMS in private between the student and teacher. So if I have an online student who started off on the wrong foot, but is now working hard to catch up, I have no problem excusing a few assignments to help him get out of the hole faster. Only he and I know.

What this means, then, is that the online teacher can truly individualize the learning experience for students. Not just through interaction with the content, but through interpersonal experiences.

It's not earth-shattering, but it's another advantage to online teaching and learning that I had not realized previously.

Now I'm excited, not only to better personlize the experience for my online students, but to carry this concept over to my blended class as well. These are the same students with whom I have struggled to provide a fair learning environment. Perhaps the answer is within the online portion of that class.

Stay tuned for the results.