Ann Murray: trailblazer in on-line teaching
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Ann Murray confessed. Now and then, she teaches in her bedroom slippers. For all she knows, her students attend class in their bedroom slippers.
Dr. Murray teaches all her classes - assessment of young children, foundations of infant mental health, child development, and infant behavior and development – online. Most of her students do not live in Manhattan; most are non-traditional graduate students. Class discussions take place in chat rooms and on message boards. Students on a team project may live states apart.
This summer she moves to the retirement condominium she and spouse John P. Murray are building in Chestertown, Maryland. In the fall, she downsizes her teaching load and, in two years, fully retires.
Trailblazing secrets
Ann Murray is a trailblazer in the intricate art of online teaching, a title solidified by the 2008 Excellence in Teaching Award from the University Continuing Education Association for leadership in distance education.
The associate professor of family studies and human services was an early adopter of distance learning technologies on campus and was one of the first professors to use K-State Online to teach on-campus and distance students.
The most time consuming part, she said, is developing a course specifically to teach online. “You have to be organized,” she stressed. She has developed a variety of online learning tools and techniques.
“The secret to being a good online teacher is to be a good teacher,” she said.
Murray likes teaching via computer for several reasons. She said she believes that online classes can make students more active.
She finds that it is easier to engage students in dialog (normally quiet students interact online) and to reflect deeply on material. “They have the flexibility to do class work and discussions at their own pace and on their own time,” she said.
She required that all students log in for 2 hours a week together. “Synchronous time,” she calls it.
“You’ll never again get the question, ‘Did I miss anything important?’” she laughed. And students can’t miss class because of bad weather, she added.
Research in infant development
Murray’s original goal was not to be an online education superstar.
For 20 years, she has conducted research on infant and child development.
One longitudinal study with high-risk premature infants led to standardization of hearing tests given to all newborns today. Another evaluated the effects of labor and delivery medication on newborns.
At K-State, without access to research maternity hospitals, Murray dove into teaching. “It was a shock,” she said. “We are not taught to teach.”
So she taught herself. In 1999, she went online, teaching some classes long distance and some “on the ground.”
Murray grew up in Virginia and looks forward to a return to the East Coast. Her home is on a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, two hours from the ocean beach, 45 minutes to Amtrak that can zip her to Washington D.C. or New York or Virginia to see family and friends.
Upon retirement, Murray may return to research. “I want to keep my hand in it,” she said. She has questions about language environments of infants and toddlers.
“I plan to spend more time away from the computer and outside,” she said. “We’ll see.”
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 and is filed under Dean's Blog.