The Flow of the Course

Every Sunday during Unit 1 (the first 4 weeks of the course) I will post a weekly orientation video and blog post with an overview of the week to kick off the week. The video and blog post will be posted in two locations; the Moodle News Bulletin forum and on the WordPress site under Instructor Posts.

Assignments and activities are usually due Sundays. The exception is the team feedback and learner feedback assignments which are due on Tuesdays.

For graded assignments, I aim to have feedback and grades back to you within 5 days.

Speaking of grading, the design of this course means that most of the graded activities happen towards the end of the course. For many weeks, the only grade you will see will be for Assignment 1 so it may feel like you are operating in a bit of a vacuum with many of your grades coming in towards the end of the course. I do keep tabs on where people are, especially with regards to the participation grade, and will prompt you if I see your participation waning.

My presence in the course

In order to manage expectations, it’s important for an online instructor to set expectations with their learners around availability and presence. Here are some general guidelines around what you can expect from me during the course.

1. The best way to contact me is via email. I usually respond to emails within a few hours, but it can sometimes take up to 24 hours for me to respond depending on other commitments.
2. I usually spend 30 minutes each day checking and responding to email, catching up on discussions, reviewing assignments and activities, and generally having a presence online.
3.  I don’t have a regularly scheduled drop-in session, but I am very happy to talk with you one on one or in small groups. Please email me ahead of time to set a time that works for both of us.
4. Once Unit 2 begins, you can expect my presence to fade back & lessen in the course. I am very active in Unit 1, but pull back my presence in Unit 2 during the student-led facilitation weeks in order to let the facilitation teams establish their own presence as the focal point for the week. It might feel like I have disappeared during the student facilitation weeks, but rest assured I am still around. I will still be responsive to emails and messages and follow the discussions and activities, and I may pop in with a comment or two occasionally because, well, I enjoy participating. But generally, expect my visible presence in the course to be light during the student-led facilitation weeks. For those of you who are facilitating, I will be in touch with you and your group, but it will be done via private emails.