Learning

Issues of Time in Teaching Online: Part 1

One of the things I have struggled with in going fully online is thinking through issues related to time. Specifically I have had to think through: (a) how much time students should spend engaged in the course during a week and (b) how much time I will be…

Read, Watch, Do, Play

In working to set up my fall online class, I eventually made it to the point where I needed to get serious about getting the schedule organized. Now, a typical syllabus would normally have a table that includes the date, topic, readings, and whatever might be due. It’s perfectly…

The Messiness of Online Teaching

As you know, I am gearing up to teach my first fully online course this fall (and a second in the spring). Until now, I have taught only hybrid classes. I’m very excited and, if you’ve been following, I’ve been exploring lots of ideas for what I might do (see here, here…

The Importance of Failure

Recently, I came across this article which discusses the importance of normalizing failure as a part of the learning process. Failure, the author argues, is a part of the learning process. However, from the moment we first enter schools failure is treated as something to be avoided…

Examining The Points-Based Grading System

Recently, I came across this article on point-based grading systems. The ideas in the article were nothing new, and I’m sure you’ve heard most (if not all) before. This includes things like:

• students expect and are used to points

A Student’s Reflections on Grading

Today I bring you a guest post from a recent student. In this post, the student reflects on what it’s like to be in a class that uses gamification and XP as a form of grading. I’m thrilled to be able to share this with you because it’s always helpful to get a…

Dual Pathways in Online Learning

I’m slowly plugging away at developing my online class for the fall. In previous posts, I have talked about developing a story for my syllabus to tell (see Part 1 and Part 2). And while I’m still working on identifying readings, I am also exploring ideas about how to…

Last week, I discussed considering what story you wanted your syllabus to tell. At that point, I had taken the ideas I learned from this site and developed a story line for the first half of my fall syllabus. My goal was to complete the story which I was able to do…

What Story Does Your Syllabus Tell?

Recently, a colleague of mine shared a a post with me, “Steps Towards a Big Idea Syllabus.” The larger blog that this seems to be a part of, My Teaching Notebook, doesn’t seem to be getting regular updates. Too bad. It looks like it has tons of good content to sift…