I hope you’re having a great week. It’s been a hot one here in Minnesota….definitely makes me feel like summer is on the way!
A quick reminder: The 25% completion date is coming up one week from Memorial Day Monday, so hopefully you have all had a chance to review your course syllabus and textbook, access your Blackboard shells, and peruse any online resources that are available via the publisher…all of these elements will help you formulate a development plan for your course.
Over the next week, as you begin creating the various course assessments for your new development, consider how you can design assignments and projects that not only engage students in the content, but also engage them with one another. Here are few ideas:
- Discussion Board Leaders – Back in September, Amy Ode blogged about having students take on the role of “facilitator” in the discussion boards….I encourage you to try this if you’re developing an upper-level course. Using this approach, instructors assign each student to be a “facilitator” for a particular unit’s discussion (depending on the number of students in the class, a unit would likely have multiple student facilitators). As facilitator, students would be responsible for taking on a leadership role during their assigned unit’s discussion: asking probing questions, sharing supplementary resources, encouraging critical thought, clarifying points of confusion, etc. If you’re interested in trying this in your course, let me know and I can offer some specific examples of how it’s been implemented in other courses.
- Group/Team Projects – Does your new development have are particular course objective(s) that might be effectively met by completion of a group project? Considering there are limited career paths where our graduates won’t be required to interact as a team in their workplace, it is important that students experience teamwork during their educational career. I know what you’re thinking….how can a team project really work online? Trust me, it can! Blackboard has a Team Project area where the instructor can create groups so students have a space to discuss topics and share files. Thus, we don’t need to worry about the logistics of how teams will communicate with one another….we just need to work together to make sure the project is purposeful and well-designed. So, if you have an idea for a possible group/team element to your course – or you would like to include one, but aren’t sure how to get started – please contact me! I would love to help you formulate a workable group project for your course.
- Peer Review – If your course includes a large writing or research project that students work on over several weeks or units of the course, you may want to consider implementing a Peer Review component that allows students to exchange feedback with their classmates on their projects. Not only does this technique allow students to connect with one another outside the unit discussion boards, it is also a great way for them to offer support and generate ideas that can improve the quality of their final product. Peer Review does not need to be a complicated element within the course (we have successfully implemented it in many of our writing courses), but rather, can be a simple way to increase student interaction while simultaneously strengthening their writing and critical thinking skills. Again, please contact me if you would like some assistance implementing something like this into your course!
That’s it for this week….my goal here is to offer inspiration for designing courses that are engaging and interactive for students. Hopefully these suggestions spark an idea!
Enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend! And please contact me if I can be of any assistance as you get your new developments off the ground….
Kelly
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