Who I am and how I got here Part 2

I'm so glad that you’ve returned to Part 2 of Who I am and How I got here! Remember that the Online Educator is a great resource for you to get information and resources about teaching online in academia. Now this blog is for all educators, but nurse educators will get the most out of it since most of my experience is in nursing education.  

 

So last week, I left you a little cliffhanger in my “Who I am and how I got here” story. So in the last entry I let you know that I made my pitch for a position as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in the NICU and was politely rejected. So I happily went along back to the NICU as a bedside nurse. About a week later I received a call from the Director of the NICU asking if I might be interested in a position as a Regional Perinatal Center Coordinator. I had no idea what that was, but I was open to the idea. After explaining what the job would entail, I quickly realized that this might be a great opportunity for me, so I decided to pursue it. While it was a difficult transition for me to move to a desk job, I was able to adjust and even worked extra shifts in the NICU a few times a week to keep my skills up. I was able to maintain this set up for about 3 years, when the bug to go back to school bit me again.

 

I decided to pursue a PhD degree in Nursing and enrolled in the Nursing program at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. At this point, I was not able to do quite as many shifts in the NICU, but made sure to do one at least once or twice a month. 

 

It was one year into my PhD studies when everything turned around. I was given the opportunity to become an adjunct lecturer at Lehman College, CUNY and I was hooked! I found that I LOVED teaching in academia and decided to pursue it full-time. In a full time role I was given the opportunity to teach online for the first time and fell even more in love with teaching! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it was easy. It was very difficult, especially since I had no experience or formal training in education. I took every professional development opportunity available through the college. I attended conferences and workshops on teaching and online education, and overtime, I became better at it.

 

It always bothered me, however, that unless you were actually in a school that was completely online, professional development in online education was very sparse. This leads me to how I got here. I decided to create a forum and resources for online educators to learn more about the pedagogy on online teaching, best practices, tips and tricks and sample assignments for teaching online. I hope this will lead to lively discussions and even important developments in terms of standards and policies related to online education. I hope you all come along for the journey!