You want me to Teach where?
Diné College is a multi-sited campus, serving students in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. So, I should not had been surprised when I was approached in 2016 to teach via "ITV.” My response was "Wait, you want me to teach where?”
The initial thought of transitioning to Interactive Television (ITV), a delivery method where I would provide real-time communication across all campus sites, was overwhelming but it was also an exciting prospect. I had tons of questions, such as: how do I take attendance, how to I collect homework, how do I log in, and how do I establish and maintain relationships with my students for the goal of meeting course and program objectives. Yet, I was willing to take the plunge into distance education learning. Since then, I have not turned back.
In 2020 I pivoted once more from ITV to fully online class settings with a little push from COVID. Students from across the United States who sought to re-engage cultural teachings and expand their Native American studies learning enrolled in my classes. This time around I was faced with troubleshooting philosophical questions such as: how do I delivery geographically protected content to an online learning realm and how do I replicate kinesthetic learning of the cultural arts without face-to-face interactions. I soon found myself pioneering livestreams with Zoom across social media platforms and creating and uploading YouTube supplemental materials with a little help from iMovie. Along the way I picked up some lighting and camera skills, mastered various LMS interfaces, and test piloted Indigenous research methods online - welcome, Zoom Talking Circles!
But, if you know me, it was not a mere blind dive in. I enrolled in Quality Matters to earn a Higher Education Teaching Online Certificate. I applied best practices to my classes and the Native American Studies minor. I now teach synchronous, asynchronous, flex, and hybrid courses. I continue my professional development through workshops, including how to engage and disengage AI usage in my classrooms. My latest interest is exploring the possibilities of Virtual Reality (VR) for NAS students.
My family's experiences with online education programs also further my engagement with distance learning. My sons are enrolled and thriving at ASU Prep Digital and my husband is completing his studies with Azusa Pacific's fully online Art History MA program. These exposures as a parent and a spouse of online learners provide another understanding of student learner challenges and successes. I take note from those situations to enhance my online classrooms.
The initial thought of transitioning to Interactive Television (ITV), a delivery method where I would provide real-time communication across all campus sites, was overwhelming but it was also an exciting prospect. I had tons of questions, such as: how do I take attendance, how to I collect homework, how do I log in, and how do I establish and maintain relationships with my students for the goal of meeting course and program objectives. Yet, I was willing to take the plunge into distance education learning. Since then, I have not turned back.
In 2020 I pivoted once more from ITV to fully online class settings with a little push from COVID. Students from across the United States who sought to re-engage cultural teachings and expand their Native American studies learning enrolled in my classes. This time around I was faced with troubleshooting philosophical questions such as: how do I delivery geographically protected content to an online learning realm and how do I replicate kinesthetic learning of the cultural arts without face-to-face interactions. I soon found myself pioneering livestreams with Zoom across social media platforms and creating and uploading YouTube supplemental materials with a little help from iMovie. Along the way I picked up some lighting and camera skills, mastered various LMS interfaces, and test piloted Indigenous research methods online - welcome, Zoom Talking Circles!
But, if you know me, it was not a mere blind dive in. I enrolled in Quality Matters to earn a Higher Education Teaching Online Certificate. I applied best practices to my classes and the Native American Studies minor. I now teach synchronous, asynchronous, flex, and hybrid courses. I continue my professional development through workshops, including how to engage and disengage AI usage in my classrooms. My latest interest is exploring the possibilities of Virtual Reality (VR) for NAS students.
My family's experiences with online education programs also further my engagement with distance learning. My sons are enrolled and thriving at ASU Prep Digital and my husband is completing his studies with Azusa Pacific's fully online Art History MA program. These exposures as a parent and a spouse of online learners provide another understanding of student learner challenges and successes. I take note from those situations to enhance my online classrooms.
Ami's Relational Online Teaching Best Practices
Establishing relationality is not just grant jargon nor is it reserved for Indigenous research arenas. Online relationality within the teaching context is about "honouring, attention to relationships, developing a sense of belonging, feeling empowered to pursue a unique path, developing self-knowledge of purpose, and ultimately transcendence of
narrow self-interest" (LaFever, 2016, 416). Mediated through technology, I aim to create learning environments that are holistically safe, productive, and reciprocal with me, understanding my students as whole-persons and the students, understanding me as a whole person.
Yet, the whole person learning experience is not merely about accepting each other as we come; it is about holding each other accountable to the learning environment we have willingly logged onto. As I prepare for classes, facilitate student learning, and assess deliverables, I do my best to model best practices of educational trust. I want to humanize (dare I even say more-than-humanize) their experiences, keeping in mind that we grow not only mentally within educational areas, but we also grow emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Whether that growth is positive or negative varies - but I aspire for positive. In an ideal classroom, I hope to earn student trust in creating a productive learning space and that they hold me accountable in maintaining and co-stewarding that space with them. In that light of co-stewardship reciprocity within our learning environments, I trust that they understand and accept the responsibilities set upon them to produce in that environment to meet course objectives.
As the NAS classes I teach create that space for class community accountability, we also continually re-balance power and control in the relationships we find ourselves in. This is not merely as Shawn Wilson identifies as the battle between Indigenous and Western within the confines of academia (2020), but most importantly, within our space as a class. Our roles as teacher-student are not static. Throughout various times in the class, I hope to find myself as the learner and I aspire that my students rotate into the position as teachers. As shared by Cortes et a. (2024), this building of online relationality within teaching contexts "requires time, respect, and a genuine commitment to Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty." My job is to creates many opportunities for fringings of roles to take place as possible through diverse classroom activities and assessments. At the time, I place extreme emphasis on academic rigor and scholarly production of research methods and materials.
A combination of professional development, scholarly distance education pedagogy literature, online instructor blogs, and a lot of hands on trial and error has resulted in some of my best practices in fostering positive online learning environments for my students.
narrow self-interest" (LaFever, 2016, 416). Mediated through technology, I aim to create learning environments that are holistically safe, productive, and reciprocal with me, understanding my students as whole-persons and the students, understanding me as a whole person.
Yet, the whole person learning experience is not merely about accepting each other as we come; it is about holding each other accountable to the learning environment we have willingly logged onto. As I prepare for classes, facilitate student learning, and assess deliverables, I do my best to model best practices of educational trust. I want to humanize (dare I even say more-than-humanize) their experiences, keeping in mind that we grow not only mentally within educational areas, but we also grow emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Whether that growth is positive or negative varies - but I aspire for positive. In an ideal classroom, I hope to earn student trust in creating a productive learning space and that they hold me accountable in maintaining and co-stewarding that space with them. In that light of co-stewardship reciprocity within our learning environments, I trust that they understand and accept the responsibilities set upon them to produce in that environment to meet course objectives.
As the NAS classes I teach create that space for class community accountability, we also continually re-balance power and control in the relationships we find ourselves in. This is not merely as Shawn Wilson identifies as the battle between Indigenous and Western within the confines of academia (2020), but most importantly, within our space as a class. Our roles as teacher-student are not static. Throughout various times in the class, I hope to find myself as the learner and I aspire that my students rotate into the position as teachers. As shared by Cortes et a. (2024), this building of online relationality within teaching contexts "requires time, respect, and a genuine commitment to Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty." My job is to creates many opportunities for fringings of roles to take place as possible through diverse classroom activities and assessments. At the time, I place extreme emphasis on academic rigor and scholarly production of research methods and materials.
A combination of professional development, scholarly distance education pedagogy literature, online instructor blogs, and a lot of hands on trial and error has resulted in some of my best practices in fostering positive online learning environments for my students.