Hello everyone!
1. How do you facilitate a course overview and classmate introductions in a face-to-face environment?
In a face-to-face class, I facilitate classmate introductions by having students free write on a prompt that’s relevant to the course content, and then having them explain their answer to a classmate. The classmate then has to pay attention because they’re going to introduce each other and explain each other’s answers to the rest of the class. This helps them meet someone new (hopefully!) and gives them something concrete to discuss that also relates to the class. It helps me to remember them as well. Once introductions are complete, I go through key portions of the syllabus and class expectations, making sure to ask questions and helping them understand the course design.
2. What challenges might you encounter trying to facilitate these things in an online environment?
I think my teaching thrives a lot on immediate response; when a student says something, such as giving a key fact or an interesting perspective in their introduction, I can ask follow-up questions or invite them to speak more. That builds their rapport with me a bit and gets them comfortable speaking with me and each other. This might be tricky in an asynchronous environment where there’s less immediate opportunities for back-and-forth.
3. What successes have you had facilitating classmate introductions/offering a course overview in an online environment?
In my previous online teaching, I’ve had some success with using discussion forums and prompting students to respond to each other directly there and build a similar rapport. While it’s been harder to initiate freewriting, I have asked students to write about past experiences with writing or a specific form of literature and asked them to then respond to two of their peers with a specific question. For course overviews, I’ve done short syllabus quizzes to emphasize key concepts and also had a discussion board where students had to both ask one question they had about the course, and to also try to help each other find the answers before I would come in and respond to each of the questions. My hope is that this gets them comfortable asking me questions and also turning to each other as a resource.
1. How do you facilitate a course overview and classmate introductions in a face-to-face environment?
In a face-to-face class, I facilitate classmate introductions by having students free write on a prompt that’s relevant to the course content, and then having them explain their answer to a classmate. The classmate then has to pay attention because they’re going to introduce each other and explain each other’s answers to the rest of the class. This helps them meet someone new (hopefully!) and gives them something concrete to discuss that also relates to the class. It helps me to remember them as well. Once introductions are complete, I go through key portions of the syllabus and class expectations, making sure to ask questions and helping them understand the course design.
2. What challenges might you encounter trying to facilitate these things in an online environment?
I think my teaching thrives a lot on immediate response; when a student says something, such as giving a key fact or an interesting perspective in their introduction, I can ask follow-up questions or invite them to speak more. That builds their rapport with me a bit and gets them comfortable speaking with me and each other. This might be tricky in an asynchronous environment where there’s less immediate opportunities for back-and-forth.
3. What successes have you had facilitating classmate introductions/offering a course overview in an online environment?
In my previous online teaching, I’ve had some success with using discussion forums and prompting students to respond to each other directly there and build a similar rapport. While it’s been harder to initiate freewriting, I have asked students to write about past experiences with writing or a specific form of literature and asked them to then respond to two of their peers with a specific question. For course overviews, I’ve done short syllabus quizzes to emphasize key concepts and also had a discussion board where students had to both ask one question they had about the course, and to also try to help each other find the answers before I would come in and respond to each of the questions. My hope is that this gets them comfortable asking me questions and also turning to each other as a resource.