Chapter 3 Online Teaching Arrangements

For Reference Purposes Only

The course is currently in standard physical delivery mode. Please check the previous chapter for teaching arrangements.

Introduction

This course is taught physically, but is designed for blended learning. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a chance that this course might have to switch to online only learning in the 2021/22 academic year. This is your 1-stop guide to the teaching structure of the course in that eventuality. Here you will find structural details about online lectures and online seminars - the content of each lecture and seminar is detailed in chapter 6.

3.1 Course Structure & Delivery

There are two types of scheduled online learning on this course:

  • Lectures
  • Seminars

Online sessions will run via Teams. Please download and install MS Teams as soon as possible. Online teaching sessions are arranged by channel (Lectures, Seminars). Due to there being multiple seminar groups taking the course, each seminar group will have a letter corresponding to its timeslot (A, B, C, etc). There will be a Teams channel for each seminar group, please feel free to use it.

Both lectures and seminars will be scheduled by the course convener to appear at the same time as your timetabled seminars and lectures. There will be a link to these reoccuring seminars in KEATS.9

There will be a series of channels in the Teams page dedicated to breakout rooms. This is so that the lecturer can split the class into small discussion groups during the lecture or seminar. You should be able to see the channels for breakout rooms in Teams. The lecturer will start the meetings for these rooms prior to the lecture/seminar, and will instruct you as to which room to join. There is no need to exit the main lecture/seminar meeting to join a breakout room, joining a breakout room simply puts you on hold for the main meeting. If you accidentally quit out of a lecture/seminar or a breakout room, simply click on the channel in Teams and join the ongoing meeting.

Please mute your microphone upon entering teaching sessions on MS Teams. For lectures and Q&A sessions, I’ll be taking questions via the chat function. I may call upon individuals to explain the question more fully to make sure that I get it right.

Chat etiquette:

  • When asking about lecture material, please identify the slide number - this lets me put it up on screen so everyone can follow when I answer
  • I’ll go through questions in the order that they are received. If you have a follow on question, please identify it as such, e.g. “Following from Elizabeth’s question” or “Following from your answer to Liam”

Lectures

The full lecture will be available online for you to view prior to the class. The online session in lieu of a physical lecture will take place on MS Teams, at the same time as the timetabled lecture.

The lecture session will start with a short case study as per the lecture guide, however the discussions will be moved to the end of the session.10

There are specific discussion questions for each lecture, please prepare your thoughts on these questions prior to the lecture session. Please also prepare one or more substantive points about one or more of the readings for the week. In short, the lecture session will mostly be active learning and small-group discussions, so please come prepared.

I will start the session with a short run-through of the material for Q&A purposes (e.g. we’ll run through the lecture and make sure we’re all on the same page). I’ll then split the class into groups to discuss the problem for the week, and how the readings/lecture material has informed your thinking on the problem. Someone from each group should be allocated to give short feedback on the group’s discussion via Padlet, which will be used by the lecturer to work through the issue in a full-group discussion. The class will then do a small-group discussion on the first discussion question, which will be followed by free discussion. We will then discuss the second discussion question.

Seminars

Each seminar group will be run as a webinar. The online session in lieu of a physical seminar will take place on MS Teams, at the same time as the timetabled seminar.

Each individual should prepare:

  • A point about one or more of the readings for the week
  • Their thoughts about the discussion questions for the week

At the start of each week, I’ll clear the Padlet so that students can upload their point or reflection about the reading material. At the start of each seminar we will discuss some of the most interesting ideas or questions. We will then split into small groups to discuss the first discussion question, followed by a whole-seminar discussion. Again, please nominate someone from your breakout group to give feedback on the group’s discussion on Padlet. This will be repeated for the second discussion question.