Our Story
Our Roots
Teaching Without Walls emerged from the passionate teaching innovations of two educators, Michelle Pacansky-Brock and Michelle Macfarlane. As full-time California community college professors Michelle and Michelle began teaching online in 2002 and quickly began experimenting with the use of emerging technologies in their own course design. Working in an underfunded district with no instructonal design support, which is sadly the reality of most community college faculty, they were aware that innovation in their classrooms would only occur if they were willing to shoulder the extra workload required for researching and experimenting with new tools and integrating them into a solid pedagogical framework.
Teaching Without Walls is our focused effort to leverage what we've learned in our own teaching environments and deliver our learning models to other colleges and districts who may be thirsty to identify proven and effective strategies for creative engaging learning activities for online, hybrid or web-enhanced environments. We realize this is a challenging time for many faculty to be teaching but we also believe it as an exciting and rewarding time to be an educator, as well.
Through Teaching Without Walls, we aim to share our enthusiasm, support and innovative learning models with educators to promote increased access to education, foster high quality learning experiences, meet the learning preferences and expectations of a new generation of students, as well as model practices for teaching 21st century skills.
What are you waiting for? The 21st century is here. Experience Life Beyond the Lecture!
