No matter what you may have planned, or how cool or timely it may be, or how exactly it may fit into the material you had planned to cover that day, you’re going to run into a situation where something goes awry. Perhaps it’s a technology issue at work, and that great piece of software you were going to demo just isn’t going to work on the classroom computer. Could be that for some reason, half the class just didn’t participate in the online exercise you had so meticulously planned. What if you have been assuming that an exercise was going to go one way, only to find that it has gone in a completely unanticipated direction?
Fear not. There are ways you can prepare for the worst and expect the unexpected. Whether you’re in the classroom and find yourself working without a net, or you’re staring into the void of empty online space, you just need the right tools and the right strategy, and you can come out unscathed every time. Here’s what you need to know next time things get crazy:
Don’t panic.
Much like lions do, it’s proven that college students can smell fear, and they will absolutely exploit that fact. If you have a tech issue in class, or that cool tool you were using in your online class is proving to be a disaster, the worst thing you can do is to freak out. If they know you’ve lost control, they will pounce. Keep your cool! Remember that you are by no means the first, last, or only person to have the issue you’re having, and it will all be over soon. (Either this thing is gonna start working, or it’s just not happening and you have to move on.) So for now, keep your cool, and move on to step 2:
Have a plan J.
This is not to say that you literally have to have nine backup plans for everything—but you better have at least a couple of them. If that instant polling app isn’t going to work properly, do you have a set of colored index cards to pass out, or a hand signal system so that you can still perform the exercise? It’s a good idea to make sure that your entire class session or online exercise doesn’t necessarily have to hinge on one tool that will crash the whole thing if it doesn’t work. When you designed your exercise originally, it was probably tool agnostic: that is, you probably didn’t have technology in mind when doing it, because the information you have to convey to students is not how cool the tech is, but actual subject matter.
Don’t work hard, work smart.
Are you using this technology for a purpose, or is it just a neat toy? If you are saying toy right now, you may want to rethink your strategy before you unleash this on students. Yes, we are told over and over, it’s about the content, technology is a tool, not a toy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But if making the technology work overshadows the content learning itself, don’t be surprised if that’s the only thing they remember!
If you recently saw three super cool tech tools, it’s far better to focus on mastering just one this time around than halfway mastering all three—you’ll have a far better experience overall because you can get what you want. Next time, do this one plus one more. It pays to be smart about how you implement the technology. You and your students would much prefer one really successful tech-based exercise to three with variable results. Baby steps are key.
When all else fails…
If nothing else works, it’s very important to allow yourself to have a sense of humor about it. There are two very distinct possibilities for the way a bad tech failure can go: either you can try to cover it up and be defensive about it, or you can just admit the failure and move on. Our faculty largely seem to get a much better reaction, and keep a better rapport with students, if they are able to back up and say, “Whoa, that was pretty terrible, right? Guess we’re not doing that again.” Students can appreciate when you tried to do something cool and it didn’t work. Admitting the failure to them makes you more human, and they are more likely to react favorably to your experiments in the future.
If, on the other hand, you try to maintain that steely detachment and insist that it’s not your problem, you risk alienating the students, who may think you are trying to cover up for the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing. And yes, they will remember a bad tech experience when course evaluation time comes around and will surely let you know about it.
Keeping your cool can make all the difference when you’re crossing new tech boundaries, whether they are successful or not. It’s all about attitude, your preparation, and willingness to have a sense of humor about the situation. So take a deep breath, make a contingency plan, and you’re ready!