With the transition to online teaching and learning in Fall 2020 well underway, UWindsor instructors are now looking ahead to their students’ online experiences in Winter 2021. In their continued efforts, the Office of Open Learning is preparing instructors for success, through offering an advanced workshop series, Introduction to Teaching Online II.
Building on the successes of the Introduction to Teaching Online course, which supported over 200 instructors in bringing their courses online for the Summer and Fall semesters, the Introduction to Teaching Online II series is a more advanced, supported pathway through deliberately designing for the online teaching and learning environment. And for those who were unable to participate in the summer, the first level of this Introduction to Teaching Online series will be running simultaneously, in a more distributed format.
“We’ve seen some really incredible reflections and work through our first Introductions course,” says Dave Cormier, Learning Specialist and co-facilitator of the workshop. “Now what we’re seeing is a hunger for a bit more -- just that little extra edge for instructors to deliver an exceptional online course in the winter, and maybe even beyond. So we want to build on that momentum along with them, and develop increased skill sets in our community of practice.”
Based on feedback from the spring and summer participants, and the continuous support she’s been involved in with instructors this term, co-facilitator, and fellow Learning Specialist Ashlyne O’Neil says building this advanced course has been on the minds of OOL for awhile. “Our team has been sharing the great work of our instructors, and we knew this was the right time for some of them to elevate their practice, to use the internet to build the kind of courses that students will enjoy learning in.”
With time constraints of current workloads, personal bandwidth, and care for families in mind, OOL is running this workshop series bi-weekly, in the evenings. There will be three live sessions, with some independent work and feedback from the instructors incorporated over the course of 6 weeks. The first live session of the advanced course will take place 6pm- 8pm on Tuesday, October 27th, with the first level of the course starting on Thursday, October 29th. UWindsor instructors can register for either of these workshops on the Open Learning workshop database: https://ctl2.uwindsor.ca/openlearning/workshops/.
Open Learning and the Centre for Teaching and Learning are offering a varied range of other workshops and courses to help instructors explore all the possibilities for developing their online course. Check out some of the offerings that will help you!