Below, UCI School of Humanities scholars share their top tips for making remote instruction work for both instructors and students.
“Designing on-line,” tips from Julia Lupton
Julia Lupton, professor of English, created an interactive, online version of ENG 9 – “Shakespeare.” Below, she shares five tips on how to teach a successful remote class.
In 2019, I received a grant from the University of California to design an online Shakespeare course. I worked with instructional designer Janet DiVincenzo on the creation of my course, and I recruited colleagues from English and Drama to contribute video lectures. New Swan actors provided voice-overs for key passages from the plays. Student projects, including “Production Notebook” and “Selfie Soliloquy,” combined traditional English skills with elocution and design. The resulting course showcases many talents from across campus – including the students’ own artistic capacities. Here are some lessons I learned from designing and teaching this course.
- GOODBYE TERM PAPER: Consider creating multimodal assignments that take advantage of the digital platform and address students as content-producers.
- KEEP IT SHORT: Break video lectures into chunks followed by questions that test comprehension and keep students interested.
- KEEP IT LIVELY: Make discussion boards and pre-writing assignments substantive and engaging, since these allow students to connect to each other.
- TEST, TEST, TEST: Use frequent quizzes and other low-stakes assessments to continually check student participation and progress – and maybe eliminate a midterm or final.
- IT TAKES A VILLAGE: Consider inviting colleagues from your department, scholars from other universities, or writers, professionals, and alumni to contribute short lectures or interviews to your course.