I started this blog as a way to think through what I’m doing with my classes. At the time, I had no idea what would happen, if I’d stick with it, if anyone would read what I wrote. Although my writing ebbs and flows, I think blogging has been incredibly useful and has undoubtedly helped me improve as a teacher. I talked about some of those benefits in a session at the 2012 ASSA meetings, summarized in my post “Why I blog about teaching (and you should too!)”. If you’ve ever thought about getting into this blogging thing, Lee Skallerup Bessette, who blogs on InsideHigherEd, will be doing a free webinar, An Introduction to Academic Blogging, July 10, 2013 (starting at 10am, PST – the website doesn’t say how long it will last). And if you want to start with a few guest posts here, just let me know!
As someone who has worked hard to build a lot of interactivity into my courses, I have never been interested in teaching fully online courses, in part because I have felt that the level of engaged interaction could never match that of a face-to-face class (not that there aren't some exceptional online courses out there; I just have a strong preference for the in-person connection). But the current situation is not really about building online courses that are 'just as good' as our face-to-face courses; it is about getting through this particular moment without compromising our students' learning too much. So if you are used to a lot of interaction in your F2F class, here are some options for adapting that interaction for a virtual environment: [NOTE: SDSU is a Zoom/mostly Blackboard campus so that's how I've written this but I am pretty sure that other systems have similar functionality] If you use clickers in class to break up what is otherwise mostly lect...
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