Weekly Dispatch: October 31, 2022

Each week, the Dispatch provides suggestions about what to focus your attention on. You may use it as a kind of weekly syllabus, with a suggested topic to explore, resource to read and annotate, questions to answer, and activities to complete. However, you should also feel free to deviate as you like from the suggestions; we want your participation in this module to reflect your own goals and interests.

We encourage you to choose at least one “engagement” a day:  join a conversation by responding to a question, complete an activity and share it in your portfolio, or choose a resource to read and annotate

Welcome to Week One of Formats and Modalities! As you get started, feel free to use this dispatch to help guide your work for the week.

As Robin mentions in the video, to receive your stipend, by the end of the module you should aim to have engaged once a day and annotated the two group readings and one choice reading you decide on.

Finally, make sure you’re logged in when you’re working on the DF website–and when you get a chance today make sure you’ve updated your profile with your avatar and Hypothesis name. You can find the “Update Your Profile” button in your Portfolio.

Topic in Focus

We will start this week thinking about the reasons why course modality matters to us, both practically and pedagogically. As we consider the topic more deeply, we encourage you to grapple with your own unspoken biases and sit with the tensions at the heart of this topic.

Suggested Resources

The group reading this week (for everyone to read and annotate), by Valerie Irvine, is a great introduction to the history and current state of modality in higher education.

We encourage you to also pick one of the other resources to annotate for your personal choice reading. Or, feel free to explore all of the resources from the module to find your choice reading.

Suggested Questions

We’ve selected a few questions to get us thinking about our past and current perceptions of modality. We also encourage you to share a bit about yourself on the DF introduction thread.

Suggested Activities

The activities for this week will help you set your goals for the module while also revealing some of your unspoken biases and assumptions about course modalitities.

Setting Your Goals

Take some time to think about your goals for yourself as you explore and experience this DF module. What are you hoping to learn more

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Starting with Assumptions

Examine any of your existing biases about face-to-face vs online teaching. What are you bringing to this work that may be impacting your ability to

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Imagining Classrooms

Take a moment to visually represent (literally or abstractly) an ideal face-to-face and online classroom. Consider the differences/similarities between what you drew; what do they

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