For those of you new to teaching online, being bored is likely the last thing to come to mind. However, in my CNG 101 class, I've become bored. I'm grading the same assignments, posting the same news and discussions and I think my boredom is starting to influence my teaching. So, I'm going to make some changes.
No, I'm not reinventing the wheel or even changing books, but rather just changing up how I do things. For example, I've had a weekly quiz which is three short paragraphs. I'm going to change this up to be a matching question of terms and then some multiple choice questions instead. With the reduction in writing in the weekly assignments, I'm going to add an essay question to the Unit Exams. They'll be graded the same way, just in different places.
I also want to make the discussion board more formal, at least the initial post. Right now, students aren't graded on their writing ability (grammar, sentence structure, spelling, etc.) in the discussion boards. The problem is by this point in the semester, the boards are sloppy and very difficult to read. Students log in Sunday night, post quickly reply twice to others in the class and call it good. This isn't what I want. I want longer, more thoughtful discussions.
So, I'm looking at fewer discussions with more points for each. I want to make each one more valuable. I'm also thinking of requiring students to submit their first post before being able to read and post other's thoughts. I'm just getting too much "group think" in the discussions. Any other ideas for making the discussion board more formal?
No matter what I decide on the discussions, I'm sure the summer will be anything but boring.
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