Dear Colleagues,
It seems impossible but the summer is finally upon us! Congratulations on making it through this extroardinary year. I know that some of us will be teaching summer courses, conducting research, and continuing university service work across our community, but I hope that everyone is able to take at least a few moments to breathe, rest, and recharge.
Even as we break out the sunscreen and finalize plans, I imagine that you, like me, have a lot of questions about and ideas for your Fall courses. The coming academic year is shaping up to be rather different from our current one, but one thing will stay the same: we instructors will be doing our best to provide our students with the best education possible. There are so many tips and tricks I've learned over the past year and I'm sure that you've tried new methods and techniques; but as we wait to see what the coming year will look like, I want to take a moment to zoom out, and spend this last Teaching Tip of the year to think about an element of course design can occur in any format: story. I've picked up some of these tips by participating in the Association of College and University Educators program for Effective Online Teaching Practices, in which a cohort of UT faculty have participated in conjunction with the Faculty Innovation Center.
Stories are a powerful vehicle for teaching. They create memories that help students recall content more readily and engage our thinking and emotions (Green & Brock, 2000). They can also be used to explain and illustrate complex content in a way that makes it accessible, especially to novice learners (Ellis, 2005), and they provide a common background from which to ask students probing questions that link the story to course content and help to develop critical thinking skills.
Discussions can be a great place for stories to emerge. Student-led discussions can lead to improved interactions between students, increase the sense of community in the virtual classroom, and encourage students to participate in online discussions. By asking a student to take on the role of a discussion leader, you enable them to ask questions and support and challenge the responses of their peers, helping them gain valuable lifelong skills including learning how to notice when someone is talking too much or not enough, drawing people out, and asking follow-up questions. The FIC has many resources about designing student-led discussions in your courses, or you can check our Carlton University's guide to leading discussions to share with your students.
I wish you all the best for the summer and the coming year.
Sincerely,
