Michelle Everson joined eLearn Magazine as a monthly columnist after writing some of our most popular articles. Her first column is Why Should Educators Blog? She joins our regular columnists Roger Schank and Bob Little as well as those who write less frequently.

I interviewed Michelle about her new role and about her role as an online teacher:

Lisa: What are some topics you are considering for upcoming columns?

Michelle: I feel there is so much that is always on my mind that I could write about. Just off the top of my head now, I’d like to write more about time management issues for the online instructor, fostering active learning in the online course, and coming up with ways to create effective online assignments. I’m also very interested in how online teaching can inform teaching in the classroom, and vice versa, and I’m interest in how to best prepare faculty for teaching online.

Lisa: As one of eLearn Magazine’s most popular writers, what do you thinks makes your articles resonate with eLearn Magazine readers?

Michelle: This is a good question! It’s so flattering to me to see that several people have read the things I have written so far for eLearn Magazine. I’m not sure why my articles resonate with readers. I am very passionate about teaching online, and I hope that comes through in what I write. It’s important to me to create an online learning environment that is conducive to student learning. Because of this, I’m always reflecting on what I do and how I could do better, and I think a lot about advice I might give to new online instructors, or about advice I wish I had when I first started teaching online. Perhaps my articles resonate with others because they tend to wrestle with some of the same challenges I do.

Lisa: What is your favorite aspect of online teaching?

Michelle: I like that when I teach online, I get to learn a lot more about my students and how they think than I ever could in the classroom. In my classroom-based courses, students engage in a lot of small-group activity and discussion, but it’s impossible for me to hear the contents of each group discussion (let alone participate in all of those discussions), and I don’t always come away with a good sense of who is “getting it” and who is not. In the online environment, I can read through small-group discussions from start to finish, and I can see how these discussions evolve. I can also participate in each small-group discussion, and this is important to me because I feel the instructor should have a presence in the online course. I can see right away which students really understand the material and which students might need extra help, and I have the opportunity to reach out to the students who are having difficulties. I find I learn a lot about how students reason through different problems by reading through the thoughts they post, and I hope they are reflecting more deeply on the material since they have to write out their thoughts and post them in a public forum. I’ve actually ended up changing a lot of my activities and assignments based on what I’ve learned by reading through student discussions and seeing what some of their misconceptions about teaching are. I like that I get such a different perspective on students learning by witnessing what goes on in the online classroom.

Lisa: What is something interesting about you that you would like to share with readers?

Michelle: I live on a small hobby far about 60 miles north of the university I teach at. We have chickens, ducks, a goose, two dogs and several cats. I often think that if I weren’t teaching, I’d probably be a veterinarian because I love being around animals so much.

Watch for Michelle’s next column in January.