WVS Teacher - Jack Schneider

Contact Info:
jack.schneider@mail.aventalearning.com
Voice Mail: 888-228-3682 x5732

Courses taught at WVS:
German

Teacher Certification:
German

Educational Background:
B.A. German Lingustics University of Minnesota, Mpls, MN Teacher certification from Augsburg College, Mpls, MN

Personal Info/Hobbies:
I enjoy singing and playing guitar and sax in a band, camping, hunting.  I’m married and have 5 children. 

Personal Statement about Online Teaching:

We all learn differently and at different paces.   Having taught in a traditional classroom for ten years, I constantly struggled with finding the correct pace for a course.  The pace I’d choose was, at best, never more than a happy-medium.  The fast learners would, at times, be bored, while the slower learners would struggle to stay afloat.  Additionally, I would constantly have to keep in mind the different learning styles and intelligences, so my delivery would have to be varied.  Audio learners received the visual learner instruction.  Visual learner had to sit through the audio instruction.  I happen to learn well through music, so there was a decent amount of instruction via music.  Even if I were at the top of my game, the best case scenario would be that learning for each student was occurring some of the time.  The student never had a say in the matter.  They were stuck in the classroom the entire time.

With online learning, I believe these 2 problems are being remedied to a decent extent.   Individual pacing solves the problem of keeping the fast and slow learners together, because the problem doesn’t exist anymore.  Online students have much more freedom.  They are no longer “captives of the classroom”.  The courses I “teach” or “guide” allow the students to pick and choose what deliveries for learning (text/audio, flashcards/games, etc) work best for them.  No one forces them to sit through an hour-long review game, as might have been the case in a traditional classroom.

It’s not perfect yet, of course.  A student had better be a visual learner to some extent.  As a teacher of a foreign language, I feel auditory input is critical.  I wouldn’t say I’m totally satisfied with the amount of auditory input a student gets in an online course, but it’s getting better.  In addition, kinesthetic learners, unless they’re the kind that would have disrupted a traditional classroom because they can’t sit still, aren’t receiving really any advantage over traditional classroom learning. 

These courses require more self-discipline and time management skills, so some may see this as a disadvantage.  I’d argue it’s an advantage.   Unless a student utterly fails, or we as teachers fail to guide the student, he/she should be developing self-discipline and time management skills as he/she progresses in the course.  I’d argue that traditional classroom students, with all the structure that they have, often don’t develop adequate self-discipline needed once they move on into the workforce or on to post-secondary learning.