Heather HartleyProfessor Heather Hartley discusses adapting her courses to provide students a quality education experience from anywhere in the world.

Insights into learning online subject of video series

The transition to a primarily online learning environment has presented an opportunity for UWindsor instructors and students alike to evaluate and reinvent their teaching and learning spaces to suit a new set of expectations.

Instructors delivering courses they’ve developed for a face-to-face environment have taken advantage of this opportunity to design their Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 courses with the internet as a tool for learning.

These experiences are as varied as the content being taught, and some instructors have found the process enlightening. Taking their teaching beyond some of the limitations of the classroom opens them to the possibilities for student engagement that the digital teaching space provides.

A new series of videos, produced through the Office of Open Learning, aims to highlight the experiences of some UWindsor instructors, staff, and students as an example of how this new delivery model is being used as an inspiring opportunity.

“We’ve seen a really impressive uptake in our Foundations of Teaching Online virtual workshops. Instructors who have taught their courses for a long time, others who are new to the material they’re teaching along with the medium they’re teaching it on,” says Nick Baker, director of Open Learning. “What we’ve seen is some really innovative and inspiring new ways of teaching emerge. And the enthusiasm of the instructors that comes along with that is something we think it’s important to share.”

The video series, Insights into Learning Online, will continue to grow on the Office of Open Learning’s YouTube channel.

Currently featured is professor Heather Hartley of the Department of Communications, Media & Film. Prof. Hartley has adapted two courses for Fall 2020, and focused on solving the challenges of students new to the University, and designing her courses to include interactions to keep students interested in the material, and feel like they’re part of a community of learners.

Her key advice: “Don’t judge yourself if you don’t get it right away. Be kind to yourself, and to others around you. Getting that knowledge is important.”

Do you want to share your experience with online teaching & learning? Get in touch with Shreyas Tambe, media specialist with the Office of Open Learning, who is looking forward to featuring a diverse and exciting collection of success stories working through the transition to mostly online semesters.