The online class I was teaching this summer is over–huzzah! It went well–better than I expected, actually. The students were generally very motivated and engaged, and participated in discussions, group work, and other assignments. Of course, there could have been more discussion, but that’s usually the case. And I definitely need a better tool for conversation!

I was especially pleased with how well students completed a group project, particularly given that I didn’t offer them a ton of time in which to complete it. I suggested a number of ways for them to communicate, but since many of them were out of state and out of the country–and thus in different time zones–most of their communication took place via e-mail. The project was specifically designed to facilitate their breaking the assignment into chunks, which they all seemed to do. The end results, and the discussion around them, were fantastic.

Interestingly, my in-person group balked at the notion of doing group work, given the same amount of time. I like to be flexible, so I gave them each their own projects to do. This actually entailed doing more work, but they were happier, and I was glad to have them do it. One unfortunate side effect was that, if a student was unclear about what to do and/or didn’t follow directions, they got to fail in front of the class. In practice, that was…unfortunate.

Overall, the experience was a positive one. It’s offered/offering me an opportunity to reconsider how I teach in person as well as online, which will be beneficial. I think online classes make it easier, in a way, to lecture, which is not something I do a lot of in person. (And I don’t see it as a good thing.) I will continue to work on finding more interactive ways to teach various subjects, both in person and online. I’ve come to think that using documents with embedded audio will be beneficial, in that it allows them to have and review and print the doc, while also letting me explain the content more granularly. We shall see how that goes.

I did try building a presentation in Canva, but MAN, it was frustrating. I kept wanting to twiddle things, and it wouldn’t let me. Super pretty, but…no. Can’t do it. So, there’s several hours of work down the tubes. Oh well. I should be able to transfer some of that work into another format, though. Not sure which one, yet. I’m focusing on another project right now. Well, several of them, really. But they’re SECRET. Shhhhh.