Teaching online: it may be the future, but how are teachers feeling about it now?

From technology use to lesson plan adaptation, shifting from an in person classroom to an online one can require a lot of adjustments. While some teachers love the breadth of opportunities online teaching presents, like access to new locations, subjects, and students they couldn't otherwise reach, others struggle with managing new platforms, reshaping lessons to suit a chatrooms instead of classrooms, and doing without that in-person 'je ne sais quoi.'

In honor of "Online Teaching Tuesdays" (our weekly series covering topics in virtual education), we asked Teach100 Mentors: what do you think of teaching online? Would you do it? Have you done it? And if so, would you be okay with internet instruction being the future of education?

Here's what they had to say:

Donald Trump’s choice for the new Secretary of Education faced a grilling at her recent senate confirmation hearing.

Betsy is a wealthy businesswoman who has long called for changes to public education which she terms “a dead end”. However, her practical experience in public schooling is non-existent. She hasn't worked as a teacher, administrator or policy maker for public schools and has no personal experience of the system either.

I used to think that if I taught my students to read a poem critically or to question ideas in class discussion, that I was giving them the tools that they needed to take on the manipulative and possibly malicious media that they would come across in their lives. But now I know that I wasn't doing enough.

So you want to teach online and work from home?  Many people want to do this, but they have no idea where to start. I get the question all of the time, “where do I even begin to look for an online teaching job?” Most people think teaching online would be a great thing to do full time or to do on the side to supplement their incomes. They just need to know where to start looking and what to look for.

Don’t get Teach.com’s monthly newsletter? Here are the stories you missed:

Communication is without a doubt an important 21st-century skill. Likewise, there is no doubt that students of today have more information at their fingertips than at any time in history. But the challenge for teachers is in helping students to effectively convey all of that information when they communicate their ideas. One of the best ways to do this is by focusing on citation.