The Knowledge Gap
As I stated in an earlier post, I am happily rejoining the ranks of teachers this summer, albeit in a nontraditional way. Honestly, my first day of training was the first day of summer for all of my collagues, which actually felt just fine thanks to my year off (and the extremely flexible schedule that online training affords).
One of the great benefits and occasionally uncomfortable experiences of becoming an online teacher, however, is the experience of becoming a student again and bruising my ego on the “Knowledge Gap.”
The Knowledge Gap is that so easily forgotten void that exists between our students — who truly cannot recognize a comma splice if their iPods depended on it — and our well-worn, well-entrenched curriculum. The Knowledge Gap is what we all experienced many, many years ago… so many years ago that we no longer remember what it felt like to be held accountable for something we either truly did not understand (or truly did not care to understand).
My first Knowledge Gap bump occurred during my first training session and involved the word “email.” Not the concept of email, the word email. My first assignment was to set up my email signature. My second assignment was to reword inappropriate “faculty” emails to students. My third (and favorite) was to edit grammar and spelling errors. I really thought I cruised through each and every assignment — enjoying the experience, but not worrying for a moment that I would received the dreaded red “U.”
Well, I not only received a “U” but I could NOT figure out what was wrong with my assignment! I needed to get “help” from the moderator (who pointed out the missing word “email” from my email address) before a glorious green “S” appeared.
I couldn’t help but think of my years of students who must have felt that same sting of embarrassment and then frustration of puzzling out an error that seemed nonexistent. And how grateful I was for the experience, realizing the value, especially to a veteran teacher, of leaning over the abyss of the knowledge gap once again!
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Related Posts
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment