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

(Why) Does Modality Matter?

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 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.

Weekly Dispatch: October 31, 2022

Topic in Focus

(Why) Does Modality Matter?

Suggested Resources

Our hyflex experiment: What’s worked and what hasn’t

Online learning, a manifesto

From the Classroom to the Keyboard: How Seven Teachers Created Their Online Teacher Identities

Of binaries and blends

The Landscape of Emerging Modalities

Suggested Questions

Suggested Activities

Imagining Classrooms

Starting with Assumptions

Setting Your Goals