Beth's Story

Beth’s Distance Education Journey.
As a mature student with grown children of her own, Beth has “been a classroom assistant for about 15 years [with] 12 years here in Yellowknife” and is in her “sixth year in junior kindergarten.” Beth “was hesitant about going back to school at my age” but enrolled because she says, she had “professional day funds that will pay for [the program] and there was no tests.” Beth also said, “I've been doing it for such a long time … I knew I was still going to learn things, but I have experience under my belt. So, I figured you know, I could, I could do this, but I still need to work. So, I'm working and doing it online. Yeah, so that's why I chose to do it online.” Beth began the program this fall and wants to complete it within two years.
Engagement.
When asked about engagement, Beth says, “having a lot more people [is] more engaging … they'll separate us in little groups to have conversations. I get to know some of the other students and I get to have more of their viewpoints and I mean [it] becomes really good discussion ... and that's a big learning thing too. And so then when you see them posting something, you already can see them, you can see their face. You've had conversations with [other students and instructors], so the learning experience is more enriched.” Beth describes an exceptional example of when she was engaged, and she says, “they'll [instructors] bring something up and they'll explain it to you … they would explain it to you how you never heard of it before … You're like, oh, I never thought of it that way.” Beth says, “I've been able to actually do my job way better than I have done it … I am getting something from it. But it's more from the online sessions than reading documents … it can't just be all online. … for me, it doesn't work.” Beth says, “I need that in-person [synchronous] experience too.” Beth reflects on an asynchronous course and says, “So you have like a whole, the one course where … we didn't even see each other, the other people and stuff like that. We don't even have a rapport with one another. They don't put anything online like their Padlets and stuff and they don't comment on your palette. So, it's almost like you're left in the dark and you're like well why did I do that then right? Did the teacher even see it? Like did anyone see it? Like why am I doing it? You know, [in asynchronous sessions] I'd rather just write the CAP and forego with a participation mark because I'm just participating with myself.”
Beth’s reasons for her success are summarized by her commitment to her education: “I believe that [when] I decide I'm going [to do] something, I'm just going to do it; it took me six years to actually go and do the course. I knew that I could do it … [the] kids [in Beth’s classroom] don't even know I'm not the teacher.” Beth confides, “I was struggling to go back to school ... I don't know if I want to do it. And then when I make my mind up to do it, I do it, there's no… I quit… I'm gonna do it. I put my mind to it and doing it, so I focused. That's probably my biggest thing I know about myself … if I commit to it, I want to follow through.”
Supportive Relationships.
Beth identified several supportive relationships including her husband, her classroom teacher, and other students and the instructors in the program. Beth’s husband is a big supporter and helps around the house so Beth is able to complete her homework and attend classes. Beth’s classroom teacher at work is also very supportive. Beth says, “Genevieve is a really, really good teacher … I've been working with her for six years … we bounce ideas off one another … and I’ll say ‘this is what my project is. Do you mind if I tried doing this with the kids?’ She’ll say ‘sounds like a great idea.’”
The Facebook page that Beth set up for students to connect with each other outside of class “is [also] very, very helpful” for Beth and other students. Beth says that the instructional “support is also really good.” Beth says, “So Janna [instructor] said the other people have done that [connected on Facebook] and that is really good for your participation marks. I heard participation marks … it was mentioned throughout the two hours and then at the end she's like, so what do you guys think? And nobody was stepping up and I'm like, well, I'll start it. I'll start the [FaceBook] group [for] participation marks, I’m in.” Beth adds, “I just started the group, and it actually is turning out to be it's slow … I can see it being really amazing. [I’m] going to be getting a lot from those people too.” Beth comments about the students on Facebook and says, “we're getting to know each other and we're seeing each other online, and more and more people are posting on it and so I think that eventually that will be helpful especially now that they changed everything so it's like half in Moodle and half in Teams.” The Facebook page has continued to grow overtime and now supports students in multiple classes.
Beth really appreciates the online support provided by instructors. A supportive comment Beth received includes, “oh I saw you doing this … have you ever thought of trying to do this? Then I would take that in a lot more … they email me back right away and they're very flexible.” Instructors know that there is a steep learning curve for most students with regards to the variety of technology and applications that are used. Beth says, “we're going from Moodle to [Microsoft] Teams” so instructors build in classroom support and extra time to figure everything out, “you have a little bit extra time and stuff. I try not to take [up instructors time] … if I fell behind, I’m dead, like I need to be on time on stuff. But at least they are flexible … so it's it kind of puts you at ease and they're always reminding you of what you need to do. I'm glad I took it [the program] online, especially with the interaction.”
Course Content and Resources.
Beth also has a wide breadth of life experiences which she wanted to convey in her weekly reflective posts but found it a challenged to summarize the complexities of her learning into the limited 200-word posts. I’m “trying to explain to somebody online… but I'm only giving you 200 words to show you that I'm doing that. But I am doing it and I just don't know how to convey that. If they were to spend a week in my classroom with me doing it, they would get probably the two years’ worth of work done in that one week of watching me do what I already do.” Beth says, “The limitations about having word restrictions is that you don’t know if the instructors” understand what you know.”
For example, Beth talked about how learning is emergent with children: “most of the time in this job, in this profession, it is on the fly. Like I could be sitting there and all of a sudden the kids start talking about apples. And well I don't have anything planned for apples, you know, but they're also asking me all these questions about apples and then I'm having [a] conversation about apples. And then we talk about apple pie. And oh, do you know what's really good in that? Oh, cinnamon. Well, how does cinnamon grow? I don't know. Then it becomes cinnamon and like you know what I mean? Like it's on the fly all the time.” Beth says, “I wish that they [the instructors] could see that.” Another example relates to Beth’s lived experiences. “I used to be a foster parent for a few years so I have that education. I went to university to become a classroom assistant; I have that education.” “I'm trying to pinpoint, like one experience … but then that one experience is not just one experience … There's like a whole lot in there but you only have 200 words. So you're like, ‘I hope you get it in the 200 words.’” Beth summarizes her thoughts and says, “So, it's not like I'm just coming in brand new … so if I'm struggling in that point of view, I think that if I was in-person, they would probably see it a lot quicker and a lot faster.” Beth adds, “I want good marks.” Beth also found “the questions about adding the CAPS tend to be very repetitive.”
Beth described two course experiences she had, one synchronous and one asynchronous. Beth states that the synchronous course layout is “very well put together” and “the Intro to ELCC [online course] was great.” Synchronous classes are held once a week for eight weeks. “I have a two-hour session tomorrow and we get a lot of information in there. It's not all about just having to do a lot of research … we discuss things.” Beth indicated that instructors really want to see how the student’s learning is connected in the reflective CAP posts. Beth enjoys the weekly online sessions, the “whole experience like especially in the ones that had the interaction. I find it quite nice and very easy.”
Unfortunately, the course that Beth was most looking forward to was offered in an asynchronous format and she was disappointed by the lack of engagement in the course. “I was really looking forward to this course in particular … I felt that this course is what I was gonna learn the most because I didn't have any information on it. I was really, really wanting to learn that I wanted to learn how to put it in the classroom, because I'm not part of the culture and I wanted to know what my role was going to be in order to, to meld it into my into the classroom into the kids and mostly just for my own sake living in [this community]. I was really looking forward to it. But I felt like I was on my own again.” Beth says, “My big frustration too about the one course is, there wasn't a whole lot of information put out there … there was a little bit … go read this and read that. And then what are your thoughts on it … I didn't need to go to college for that, you know, I'd rather have a little bit of a lecture … I felt lost and that I really wanted to know more and be more enlightened. And I think my expectation was a little bit high. And in that, in that perspective, I was I was upset about it.” Beth expresses, “I wanted to know what my role is, not being Indigenous … I can make a bridge [between cultures] and wanted to know what my role was … I think it's very important, especially where I'm living … I feel it more here and I want to know more.” Beth says, “I'm glad that I had those links, because I personally would probably go into those links on my own time. But I needed to be more specific to the classroom, so I could get the course done and do it where I felt like I was being helped and learning what I needed to learn for the classroom.”
Also, sometimes the pedagogy didn’t match the learning approach. For example, during the final class in her asynchronous course Beth says, it’s “the last session [and] I'm like yes, it's the last week, probably super simple, right? No, she put us in group works! Group works? … What other students are going to be part of this group? As I expected nobody responded to my emails, my Padlets, my messages, nothing and so I just did it myself.” Beth states, “You can't put group work in where you've don't have like interaction with the participants. Yeah, so I don't find [group work] works, but that's my opinion.” Beth says, “I've done online before and I've never done online where I've never had interaction with a teacher before… and it’s not okay.” Beth adds, “I think that that the online session needs to have the [synchronous] session like even if it was once a week, half an hour. Just like, do you have any questions? Oh, here's some articles to look at or something like that, even if it was just a check in. I think it's a must for an online course.”
“I thought maybe that's what the online courses were going to be like. And then I was freaking out like, oh, is this what it's going to be like and no, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to handle two years of that … I was even thinking, well, maybe I'll take a year off school and do the second year in person … but the two courses I'm taking now just reverts me back to … this is your course … next time I'm thrown in that position again, I think I would email and express my needs. I don't think I did that … because if I express my needs, then I might get what I need then. Right?” Beth says, “So [its] my fault for not expressing what I needed. I learned my lesson. I [need to] specif[y] … my needs. No one can read my mind and I will express it.”
Assignments and Assessments.
Beth was frustrated by the lack of connection and explanation about how her CAP reflections would be marked. In preparing her CAP reflection Beth said: “I wrote 200 words for each CAP. I spent a lot of time writing that and in this course; there was no online session [asynchronous]. Like, so it was all reading, it was all about me researching and I spent a lot of time so I got in 1,000 words and I put it in and oh no, no, no, she wanted 200 words for the five CAPs. And I'm sitting there going okay, so I had to scratch it and start all over again. But I'm like how does someone who doesn't meet me online [understand or communicate with me]? Maybe if they meet me online [then] they can see my personality. They can see how much I'm into it. They can see what I'm, what I'm about, but for not even knowing me at all and for me to have to explain to you in just 200 words, how I'm meeting these competencies I mean, it's really like I don't know. I mean, I got good marks. I ended that course in 88%.”
Beth found the feedback on her reflective posts was limited and not meaningful to her learning. “I didn't find it very useful feedback…it was five CAPs, 200 words…how do you extend that? … it was more than 200 to answer the question.” Beth adds, “I just gave up putting too much effort in that particular course.” The lack of engagement and feedback in the asynchronous course was not useful. “I didn't put as much effort as I am in the other courses where I'm getting more feedback, more engagement with the other students.”
Beth is looking forward to her next classes that will be held in Teams. “[I] kind of like in Teams … the one thing that I really want [to be able to see] is the grades.” Beth says, “and then it has your feedback … that would be so brilliant because right now you have to wait, click here and click there and try to find it …. [There is] a place for Teams to like, have conversations and that hasn't happened and then there's a tab for assignments and I'm hoping it's like this assignment, this is due, these are your assignments and [a way to] keep… track. Where [in] Moodle you kind of had to like oh yeah, this Padlet, how did that go? Did anybody reply on my Padlet? Oh, where's the other Padlet? I had to go back in through the entire course of that week and then scroll through all the work. Oh, here's the Padlet, click on the Padlet, scroll through to find and then okay, I'm finished that then go back to the course scroll through the course to find the second Padlet … I wish they said okay, week one Padlet one, Padlet two, Padlet three, right there and you can just click, click, click, right? [It’s important for students to] … still ha[ve access to] your course [but also be able find and access Padlets easily] … so that you can go back to it easily so you can, you can respond or, you know, see what other people have posted … and what they've posted about that assignment and then you can respond in each one … right now you have to search for it … even if they just put a link to all the Padlets in one spot. Week one done, you know, it would have been, it would be really nice.”
Challenges.
One of the challenges that Beth has faced is that teacher assistants are marking her CAP entries. Beth says, “Other people are marking my work. Like this one other teacher is marking [my] work that's never [met me before] because I do think like I said the struggle of it is that Janna has a little bit more in, she kind of knows me now.” Beth believes that … “you do have to be precise. You do have to write it [your reflections] out so that other people know that you understand it. But I think that there's another key component there that at least Janna … she sees me talking and participating in class and she … [might think] ‘oh, she [Beth] does understand that concept’ … and because maybe I'm not so good with my words or writing and being precise. I might have missed something. So yeah, so that's kind of bad.” Beth believes it’s important to understand the instructor’s approach to marking as well as understanding the course materials.
Beth said the challenge in being successful is “sometimes like it's just time … I'm all school, school, school, grades, grades, grades.” Beth says, “I'm not finding time to do the things that really ground me … Right now, I'm, I'm struggling a little bit, finding time to do school, to do work, and then finding my me time of doing my art and those kinds of things. So, I'm missing the art part because… my brain’s full and I'm exhausted. Yep. It’s two years … so now I am going to work and then I'm kind of bringing it home because it's all about work in your schoolwork. So, I'm feeling like ‘oh my days are filled with work’. Like literally. Yeah. So, you know, I'm sure that will even out to once I do have my own classroom and manage my time …. It will be a little bit different. I still will put extra time in it, which is fine. But I'll have more of a bit more of a balance, I think. Yeah …. So that's on me. I just I need to balance myself out.”
One Word to Describe Why You are Successful.
When Beth was asked for one word that describes herself Beth says, “Determined. Determined to be successful.”
Most Important Thoughts from the Interview.
The three most important things that Beth wanted me to remember from our conversation were that: one, “engagement with a teacher online, whether it be 30 minutes, or two hours a week is essential to my success in this course.” Beth says, “I really want to improve myself … to get something from it. I need online linkage.” Beth says, “Two, I think that as a student of online learning … it is on us as students… if [I] need something [I] need to ask for it.” Beth adds, “Let them know what you need, because they need to know.” Three, “I really like this courses that I'm taking… except for a few little details of [it] like the Padlets and stuff like that … the instructors are lovely [and] I'm getting a lot out of it and becoming a better CA [classroom assistant].”