{"id":9,"date":"2010-12-20T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T20:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/interview-with-garth-johnson-art-instructor\/"},"modified":"2014-09-21T23:48:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-21T23:48:40","slug":"interview-with-garth-johnson-art-instructor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/interview-with-garth-johnson-art-instructor\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Garth Johnson, Art Instructor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Innovation in Teaching in MyCR
A Faculty Profile<\/span><\/div>\n

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 <\/i><\/span><\/b>1.    Who are you and what do you teach? <\/span><\/b><\/span>
My name is Garth Johnson, and I teach art at College of the Redwoods.  In addition to the art appreciation course that I teach online, I also teach face-to face courses in art history, drawing, Photoshop and \u201cintro to art\u201d, which is a studio course for non-majors that is designed to let students experiment with different media.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve taken a pretty meandering course to College of the Redwoods.  I grew up on a farm in Nebraska, spent a year in Germany as an exchange student, then owned a record store in college as an undergraduate ceramics major.  I went to grad school for ceramics, but wound up working as a designer for an architecture firm in Atlanta for seven years (while dabbling in battle rapping on the side\u2026.no joke).  I also started a blog called \u201cExtreme Craft\u201d that launched my career as a writer and public speaker. <\/p>\n

When I was working as a designer, I realized that I really missed teaching, so I got a job at Columbus State University, which was a two hour drive from Atlanta.  While I was working 40 hours a week as a designer, I was also driving to Columbus two days a week to teach classes in ceramics and art appreciation.  That teaching job in Columbus helped me to get a full-time teaching job at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, which in turn led to my current teaching job at College of the Redwoods.<\/p>\n

2.    How did you get started teaching online?<\/b>
I was mentored in online teaching at Golden West College, which is a part of the Coast Community College district, which has the largest online presence of all of the community colleges in California.  I taught an online class on the history of graphic design for students that were a part of the vibrant design program at Golden West. <\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have a lot of formal training, but I had great colleagues and a large support staff.  I approached my online class the way I would approach a face-to-face class in the subject\u2014with a lot of visuals.  I built my own course modules and embedded YouTube videos into the modules and course discussions.  I also started doing collaborative projects where students actually took ownership of the material we were exploring in class.<\/p>\n

3.    Has distance learning changed your approach to teaching?<\/b>
Distance learning has made me much more organized in my face-to-face classes.  I am much more comfortable with the course software (in our case, MyCR), to the point where I actually stopped handing out any pieces of paper a couple of semesters back.  My students can find everything they need on MyCR.<\/p>\n

With my busy lecture and travel schedule, I\u2019m out of town at least once a month.  I use MyCR to conduct my classes when I\u2019m away.  I post lectures, videos and discussions that let my face-to-face classes practice their writing and engage with each other in ways they can\u2019t in the classroom.
My online class is still more influenced by my face-to-face classes than the other way around.  I love finding ways to inject my personality into the course, such as posting regular videos.  I also require the students to post a video or slideshow introduction for themselves at the beginning of the semester to reinforce the sense of community in our online class.<\/p>\n

4.    What are your secrets to a successful online course?<\/b>
I want students to feel like they\u2019re doing something other than just taking a quiz and writing discussion posts each week.  Students should feel a sense of ownership in the class\u2014it\u2019s something that we all create together, rather than something that I\u2019m spoonfeeding the students.<\/p>\n

I require a lot of technical skills from my students.  They have to be able to post photos and embed HTML code in the discussion board.  They also build a collaborative class website using Google sites and produce a video podcast using a website called VCasmo.com.  I provide a lot of instructional resources, including screencasts to help technologically-challenged students to achieve these goals.<\/p>\n

In the end, I want students to feel like they have created something meaningful\u2014something that exists outside of the MyCR world.  To succeed in my course, students have to engage with art in their community by interviewing artists and reviewing local galleries and museums.

5.    What tools, resources or techniques have you found to be most useful? <\/span><\/b>
We\u2019re living in an ever-changing world of web resources that can mimic classroom interactions.  This is a golden age of \u201cWeb 2.0\u201d technology that allows students to record and share video and audio with others for free.  I have always tried to make my online classes visually interesting by designing headers and graphics for my courses and embedding plenty of photos and videos.<\/p>\n

More importantly, I teach the students to do the same.  I teach students to record video directly to YouTube QuickCapture http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/my_videos_quick_capture).  I have also devised a way for students to create narrated slideshows with nothing but a cell phone and a web connection.  Students can use a website called \u201cCinchCast\u201d (http:\/\/cinchcast.com) to record audio narration as a voicemail from their cell phones, then they can marry the .mp3 audio from CinchCast to VCasmo, which allows them to add photos or videos to their narration.  VCasmo also hosts the resulting slideshow, and allows them to embed the slideshow in MyCR to share with their classmates.<\/p>\n

I also use Google Sites to allow the students to create a collaborative \u201cNorth Coast Gallery Guide\u201d website, where they adopt a gallery for the semester.  They have to post reviews of the art in the gallery each month, as well as conduct artist interviews, which are posted to the site.  Google Sites is free, as well as visible to the public.  All CR students automatically have access to Google Sites through their CR email.<\/p>\n

I also have plans to host live artist interviews using CCC Confer, which will let students interact with guest artists through the magic of technology.  Another interesting technology that I\u2019m testing is BlogTalkRadio.com (http:\/\/www.blogtalkradio.com\/), which allows anyone with a telephone to host a call-in chat show on the internet.  Students would be able to call in and chat with me and any guests I bring on, then download the resulting file as a podcast that they can listen to on their iPods or computers. <\/p>\n

6.    What are some of your biggest challenges in teaching online?<\/span><\/b>
I rely pretty heavily on reading the emotions of my students in the classroom.  It\u2019s pretty easy for me to sense when they\u2019re bored or having trouble comprehending material.  Online, it\u2019s a different story.  I can\u2019t force a student to ask me a question if they\u2019re not understanding something.  I have to create a learning atmosphere where students feel comfortable asking for help.<\/p>\n

I also find it difficult to find the fine line between challenging students and scaring them away because of unfamiliar technology or heavy workloads.  It\u2019s frustrating to me when students fall behind in their workloads and can\u2019t catch up.  It\u2019s much harder for me to be encouraging to these students in an online environment than in a face-to-face class.

7.    What have been the challenges and\/or benefits of online classes for your students?<\/b>
I would hope that my students come away from my online class with a greater understanding of what artists do, and how artists are a part of their community.  Strangely enough, I\u2019m using the online class to encourage my students to go out into the real world and engage with real art and real artists.  I already talked about trying to foster a sense of community in my online classes.  It\u2019s always great to know that lasting friendships come out of my online classes.  When I finally get to meet many of my students, I feel like I know them.<\/p>\n

I also benefit from the diversity of learners in my online classes.  I have had students from all walks of life in my online classes\u2014even students in other countries!  The discussion forums in my classes become places where we can talk about all of these different life experiences.<\/p>\n

8.    What surprised you about online teaching?<\/b>
When I started teaching online, I was pleasantly surprised by how many analogues there were in teaching a face-to-face class.  Thanks to technology like VCasmo, I\u2019m able to conduct my class in a way that\u2019s strikingly similar to my face-to-face classes.  I\u2019m always encouraged by the enthusiasm of my students, and I try to channel that enthusiasm into helping them connect with art that they will continue to love for the rest of their lives.  <\/p>\n

On the flipside, I was surprised by how ill-equipped a lot of students are for online learning.  Taking an online class where you can take your classes home on the couch in your pajamas sounds like a great idea, but the reality is that no matter how visually oriented the instructor is, the burden falls on the student to communicate almost exclusively via writing.
 
9.    What advice would you give to new online teachers?<\/b>
There\u2019s a whole world of resources outside of your textbook, writing assignments and quizzes to help make your online classroom lively.  You can create lessons and collaborative assignments that let students participate in ways they might not expect, like collaborative research assignments.  It\u2019s also not tough to make your course visually appealing.  MyCR offers plenty of opportunities for you to embed content in your course like videos and photos.  <\/p>\n

Use plenty of hyperlinks in your writing to connect your course to what\u2019s going on in the web, and teach your students to hyperlink and post photos as well\u2014it will add another layer of interest to your class.  Finally, do unto your students as you would have done unto you.  Think about what would excite you if you were taking an online class, and find a way to make that happen for your students.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re going to experience as many learning styles for students online as you do in the classroom, and you\u2019ve got to find a way to teach to those learning styles without having the benefit of face-to-face interaction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Innovation in Teaching in MyCRA Faculty Profile  1.    Who are you and what do you teach? My name is Garth Johnson, and I teach art at College of the Redwoods.  In addition to the art appreciation course that I teach … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}