Response to Peterson (with images)

Represent your experiences/perceptions of online learning with 3(ish) picture/symbols/etc. and briefly explain how your choices relate to Peterson’s three key issues.

Teacher Role:
Peterson notes that some composition specialists think about online education as “decentered, thus inviting students to become co-constructors of knowledge in the classroom” (375). I am not sure if I buy into this concept, but I like Peterson’s discussion of how binary thinking will lead us nowhere. So, thinking about the quote above, this picture of a table comes to mind as the students and teachers are able to co-construct a space that will be comfortable for both parties. They are all able to “come to the table” to talk about needs and wants in the virtual space (and I thought that the orange slices add a nice touch).

Educational Goals:
The author also highlights information from Sharon Crowley noting that, “any time a new population has been admitted to higher education, a learning crisis has been identified (or constructed) due to the challenges posed by the outsiders to the traditional structure of the university” (378-79). I think that it is interesting that she uses the word constructed because it speaks to hegemony (in my eyes). Nonetheless, issues of access come up again. Peterson alludes to Selfe a great deal here to validate her claims about nontraditional students and questions of access. I chose this picture to represent educational goals because I do think that it is a structure that has fewer people at the top who make the decisions.

Student Learning:
Peterson’s discussion about how online education is teacher-centered makes great sense as it models many state and federal programs. Even more, many administrators in our own academic systems make rules and regulations for faculty, staff, and students to follow with little feedback from those who will be impacted by the decisions. Thus, Peterson brings up some important points pertaining to student’s feelings of isolation and the potential lack of communication with teachers in the virtual space (381). I hope that these feelings can be alleviated by some kind of merger between students, teachers, and administration...that we move away from the image that I mention in the education section to a more inclusive model. This image of arrows remind me of student learning. Each arrow represents a student because most students have similar goals (to obtain an education), but they have different modes or ways to reach their goals.

Note: All pictures were pulled for google images.