Thoughts on Teaching – Pre-Semester Preparations – 1/10/2015

Well, here we go.  Another semester is set to start, with just a little over a day left until we get going.  I am teaching six sections this coming semester, three online sections and three hybrid sections.  This last week has been the preparation time to get ready for the semester.  We were worried over the course of this holiday break because we were updating our learning managements system (LMS), and so there were some cautions about doing too much ahead of time in case there were problems.  There turned out not to be any problems, but I scaled back most of my plans for possible changes.  In fact, with my online class, I am simply redoing the course I did last semester, meaning that there were mainly just some changes of dates and a few minor updates.  Otherwise, that course is ready to go.

I have put together a few more changes for my hybrid class.  They have finally gotten my hybrid classes scheduled correctly here, as they are set for meeting only one day a week.  In the past, I have always had them scheduled for two days a week, and then I met for one of those.  Now, I have one class on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, and one on Thursday.  The only negative to that, is that I used to meet for both of the days in the first week, which gave me two days to introduce the class.  Now, I have to get that introduction done in one day.  So, I have developed some introductory materials to show the students how to access my online material and the textbook material.  I used iBooks Author to develop the material, making a .pdf file that is set up like a book and includes both images and links.  I am hoping this provides my students with the information they need in an attractive and accessible format.  If I knew how to attach a .pdf file to this post, I would put an example here, as I am pretty proud of what I did.  It is something new I am trying out, and it worked well.

On that same note, I have put together similar presentations for my hybrid class weekly assignments.  In the past, I had very basic assignments for the students, such as having them watch a documentary, write a response paper, and then discuss it.  Over the years I have been doing this, I have come up repeatedly unsatisfied with my students’ preparation and background knowledge.  So, I have beefed up the activities, providing background information, helpful links, stronger and more involved assignments, and more detailed response papers.  I want the students to be more prepared and to have more engagement with the material.  Again, if I had the ability, I would post one of these up, as I do feel that the iBooks format works pretty well for the material and presentation.  I am not planning on publishing these to the Apple Store, but I do like the ability to create something that looks nice and can be exported in a format that is generic enough for anyone to use.

So, that is what I have been working on.  I have all of the dates in my classes adjusted to the Spring semester.  I have all of the Course Outlines done.  I have the online classrooms ready to go.  The first five weeks of the online course are visible and ready when students get in on Monday.  I have the first three weeks of the hybrid course ready to go, and I hope to get the fourth work done tomorrow and have that be my preparation point to get the students in on Monday.

How about you?  Are you teaching a class this semester?  Are you taking a class?  How ready are you for the semester?