M2: Apply to your course

During your course you will need to communicate regularly with your students. We recommend that you consider how you will respond to students during the term and that you prepare course messages (or video(s)).

      1. Course welcome message. Thinking about the course you are teaching, what information would you like to convey to your students at the beginning of the term? Consider including responses to questions such as:
        • What information about yourself will you tell your students?
        • What information about the course will you tell your students?
      2. In course communications. Spend some time thinking about the ways that you will communicate with your students (announcements, emails, discussion posts), the types of messages that you will send using each of these formats, and the frequency of your messages.

Example Discussion Post Response

Dr. Sarika Bose posted the following response a a week’s discussion post on Jane Eyre

This week’s comments were exceptionally thoughtful and well-considered. There were a lot of observations that demonstrated close reading and the ability to find connections with many different ideas. There was a useful comment that the supernatural functioned as a gateway to social commentary, and another that supernatural episodes might be ways to articulate or deal with difficult experiences. As some of you observed, the references to the supernatural create a sense of mystery throughout the novel. There was a perceptive observation that the effect of supernatural elements in an otherwise realistic novel was to make the novel unsettling. You also noted that the kind of supernatural presence in this novel was different from that in the ghost stories. Rochester’s supernatural naming of Jane is often seen as reductive, but you make a great observation about the powerful abilities of supernatural forces. The growing sentimentalism in mid-Victorian fiction may also have had an effect on some of the choices to make Jane and Silas such isolated and self-sufficient characters. If you have the chance, you might wish to read The Wild Sargasso Sea, which was discussed by some forum members this week. This is a powerful and important literary reading of Brontë’s text, but reading it first means that it’s difficult to read the original text as a whole. Reading Jane Eyre primarily as an adjunct to Bertha’s story can result in a slanted and partial understanding of the original text. As you said in your discussion, both authors are trying to address proto-feminist ideas that are available in their own historical periods. There was a very useful comment that Jane had a happier ending because she was able to get away in a way Bertha was unable to do.

I notice this week that you are all engaging with the material at a new level, with deep thought and meaningful connections. Excellent work!

 

Great teaching can happen anywhere, but teaching online requires different skills, strategies and tools than teaching in a face-to-face classroom.

If you would like to “practice” or “rehearse” with online teaching tools and receive feedback, consider meeting with an Educational Consultant at the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT). To arrange a meeting, please complete the request form.