Hello000 Formats & Modalities cohort! Welcome to Week 1 of the module. You’ll be hearing from me every Monday morning to provide an optional structure to engage with the module’s content, my own provocations, or pithy/ provocative highlights from our community discussion! I am so excited to dig in with y’all, because I’ve never facilitated the Formats & Modalities module before, and I teach in a highly flexible program that allows students to take core courses online if they need. But Hybrid/ hyflex is HARD! I have so much to learn.
I want to emphasize that you can choose your own path of engagement in this module, and the suggestions below are meant to be a supportive structure for engaging if it helps. However you journey forth, I suggest that you aim to spend 1.5-2 hours in the module each week, reflecting and responding to other cohort members. This will help the online community feel more active and vibrant, and help prevent a mad rush to finish at the end of the month!
Suggested Structure for Engaging
- Topic: Start at our Topics page, which includes a short blurb and video. First the first half of June, we will focus in on “Affordances & Possibilities.” Estimated engagement time: 10 min.
- Resources: Explore the readings on the Resources page, starting with “The Landscape of Emerging Realities.” Estimated engagement time: 30 min.
- Tech tip! If you need a refresher on how to use Hypothes.is, Martha made an in-depth video that will help. If you have any trouble annotating, use our Teams channel to ask for help!
- Questions: As a way for us to come together as a community and share our experiences with various modalities, answer What do you like/ dislike about teaching in [insert modality]? Estimated engagement time: 15 min.
- Activities: Complete the Imagining Classrooms Activity either in your workbook or on the DF website! This activity engages the imagination to push our thinking on what a classroom looks like. I’m excited about this activity because I believe the classroom needs to change in a big way to re-engaged disillusioned students and teachers. Estimated engagement time: 20 min.
- Have you run out of things to do and want more DF?
- Feel free to find another question to answer from the Question page. There are a bunch to start with as you experiment with how this all works.
- Dive into the Choice Resources lower on the Resources page, and choose another reading to annotate. Replying to other people’s annotations is a really fun way to engage with your colleagues, including those from past years’ cohorts!
- Find another activity on our Activities page to do. Remember, you can do them online or do them in your paper workbook and then upload a photo to your portfolio if you prefer. They don’t take long, and don’t have to be done with any kind of “perfection.” Messy, unfinished thoughts are welcome!
Do not spend more time on the module than you spend feeding your soul with summer joy! I am currently on my porch enjoying the 65 degree day, basking in the summer breeze, and planning to be out here A LOT this summer. It was a hell of a year, so we need the respite.
Happy learning!
Elm