My experience with online teaching a graduate course
I am the responsible lecturer for a graduate course on assessment of existing concrete structures, which runs between September and November in Delft. During that period, I am not physically in Delft, so we have to find a solution for this issue.
In the first year of the course, I taught all my lectures via Teams (in a hybrid synchronous mode) with one of my colleagues present in the classroom to address any questions, help set up the system, and help with the interaction with students.
The main challenges in the first year were that hybrid lectures are a difficult beast to navigate, and, in addition, due to the time zone difference with Ecuador, I was teaching on Thursday and Friday late afternoon, so attendance was very low (especially on Friday late afternoon, when many students were already on their way home for the weekend).
So, for the second year, we switched things up. I recorded my lectures as short videos, designed online activities for the students including Edpuzzles and Brightspace quizzes, and developed virtual synchronous sessions (based on those activities) with the students to address their questions and test their knowledge of the material.
Overall, I think the format of the second year landed better with the students. While many commented they still overall prefer in-person teaching in the classroom, many also mentioned they liked the balance between the online videos and activities, and that they felt the recorded videos were well developed and the overall course felt organized and clear.
Have you been teaching online, post-pandemic? What is working in the post-COVID world?
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This Post Has 2 Comments
I was teaching online asynchronous, both grad and undergrad, prior to the pandemic. In 2022, I moved my grad courses to a synchronous format, but everything is still online. I’ve always told people it’s like teaching in black and white; the things that make me really know and love a student are missing, but so are the things that make me really dislike a student. It takes more effort, on their parts and mine, to really humanize them.
But I’ve embraced the idea of designing really effective courses and experiences, like you described for your second year of this class. I lean into the things that I couldn’t do in person, so that online is not some shadow of in person work, but a different modality with its own benefits.
Thanks! Indeed, I had not realized, but it certainly magnifies everything into a black and white experience.