Online Teaching and Learning

Category: Resolution (page 1 of 1)

May 8, 2021 / 0 Comments

TRU – TEACH OTL 301 POST 4

I’ve had long conversations with various colleagues this pandemic year about online teaching.

One of my primary questions for more experienced faculty has been how they promote community and connection in the class. I had colleagues tell me to put together a Student Cafe online forum for students to socialize, a Course Q&A for students to ask each other questions about the course, and a Wellness Check forum to periodically ask how students are doing. I’ve found, however, that students prefer to connect over their own social media, using discord or even Instagram. My colleagues and I have typically encouraged this social contact outside of the classroom as a way of creating community cohesion. Within the class itself, I have sometimes found that students enjoy posting funny gifs to the wellness forum rather than a serious post which at least allows students to feel as if they are going through the course together.

I have also asked colleagues how they create back and forth around class content. Some have told me that they put together an online forum where they ask students to periodically post either 1) 2-3 major takeaways from the unit; 2) 1-2 confusions from the unit. This allows the instructor to then address and clarify these issues within the forum for the benefit of all the students working their way through the course. This also helps to create a sense of belonging to a community of inquiry, especially when students comment on each other’s posts and help one another come to conclusions about course content.

Finally, colleagues have told me that students come into these courses with varying degrees of experience with online learning. Having a forum where we can discuss and establish course norms is helpful to make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to online learning. Since each course is designed differently, we need to also help the students navigate through the course design.

May 8, 2021 / 0 Comments

TRU – Teach OTL 301 Post 3

Learning Objectives:

Define neoliberalism in the context of the construction of a self-governing neoliberal subject

Discuss how the concept of neoliberalism impacts feminist thinking about choice and agency

Learning Activities:

Read Eva Chen’s article

In your small discussion groups: 1) define the concept of a self-governing neoliberal subject; 2) discuss how this concept impacts feminist thinking about choice and agency; 3) discuss how contemporary debates about whether women can “have it all” relate to this discussion.

Write a personal reflection where you: 1) summarize the major points raised by your group; 2) discuss how you are personally implicated within neoliberal ideas about freedom and choice.

November 25, 2020 / 0 Comments

TRU Engage – otl 201 Learning Activities Portfolio – Activity 3

Another forum I could develop would be a toolkit for online learning. I’ve noticed that students who do not have experience with online learning can experience particular challenges (this has been particularly true with students who had to abruptly transition during the pandemic!). One way I could help increase social presence is to create a forum for us all to share strategies for online learning. Here’s a possibility:

Toolkit for Online Learning

Here’s a forum for us to share tips and strategies for online learning. Let’s start a discussion! What challenges have you experienced with online learning? What strategies have worked for you in the past? What resources (blogs, articles) have you found helpful for issues such as time management? Let’s help one another to successfully complete this course.

November 25, 2020 / 0 Comments

TRU Engage – otl 201 Learning Activities Portfolio – Activity 2

As I think about how to create social presence in my classes, one thing I’m considering is to create a forum for events/blogs/articles/etc related to the class. Since I’m unable to modify the course content, this would be a way for me to help my students develop a sense of shared purpose. Here’s an example:

Welcome to the Current Events Forum! Here’s the place for all of us to post events, newspaper articles, blog posts, or YouTube videos related to our course. This could be content related to issues such as Indigenous legal systems, police brutality or  incarceration in Canada. Let’s start a discussion! How do these current events relate to and extend the conversations we’re already having in our class?

November 25, 2020 / 0 Comments

TRU Engage otl 201 Learning Activities Portfolio – Activity 1

Activity 1 – Introduction Post

Students can enter my TRU classes at any point in the year, so unfortunately this makes it difficult to engage them as a community. However, I’m thinking that creating a forum for introduction posts — where I’ve posted one as well — would be a good way for me to attempt some community for the small number of students in these classes. Here’s a possibility:

Welcome to the course! The Moodle class discussion forum is one of the community spaces we will be building in this class. If you have not yet done so, please upload a profile picture for your Moodle account and indicate your pronouns.

Then, for your first ever post:

1. Introduce yourself and, if you like, post another photo of yourself

2.  Say why you signed up for this class and/or what social justice means to you

3. Tell us something about the land where you currently live or post a photo

4. Tell us something that has recently made you laugh

OR … do none of the above and instead write your own creative post to introduce yourself!

July 28, 2020 / 0 Comments

Post 4 – Feedback

As an undergraduate student I remember my own feelings of dread when my professor handed back assignments. Over the years I have tried – not without difficulty – to replace this dread with curiosity. Curiosity in response to feedback allows for growth. There’s a sense of exercising choice and creativity in deciding what pathways to take moving forward. This is in sharp contrast to feedback that exacerbates self-judgment or comparison with peers.

I would like to create an environment for my students to allow them to feel curious about feedback. I appreciate how Hattie breaks down feedback into three questions for teachers to consider: Where am I going? (creating manageable goals) How am I going? (the steps/process to get there) Where to next? (actions to be taken to move through these steps). Reflecting on these questions I’ve realized that I often only cover one or two of these questions. This list helps me consider how to give well-rounded feedback that covers all of them.

There are two issues that especially stood out for me in this reading:

  • Providing feedback oriented towards the task, not the self. Hattie points out that couching critique in positive self-directed feedback actually lower the engagement of students. In the future I will attempt to work only with task-oriented feedback.
  • Providing an environment in which students can take the risk of being wrong. This is not easy to do. In the classroom, I think this can be especially difficult in terms of feedback from peers. For written comments, focusing on how students can move along a pathway towards a learning goal may be helpful. Still, I hope this question will be covered further in this training.