The Digital Classroom

When learning face-to-face professors and students meet in class for lectures and to discuss readings, debate etc. But students also read to prepare for class in the library, or work on their written work in, say, a coffee shop. Thus some learning happens together at the same time (synchronous learning), and some other learning happens "asynchronously" – on the student's own time (e.g. writing papers, doing readings etc.).

When a course is online, this division between synchronous/ asynchronous and group/ individual learning also happens. We will spend some time together in videoconference lectures led by the professor and small group learning led by the teaching assistant(s) via MS Teams platform. At other times, we might post a short piece to introduce a topic and then you respond or do some work on your own time You might want to attend "office hours" (i.e. meet one-on-one with the professor or teaching assistant) or work together in a group of your students via MS Teams. You will do readings and complete assignments on your own time.

We want to make this class to be like an in-person classroom, but this requires students to be open to interacting together online in new environments and with new people. Actually, you students are probably far more at ease with this than I am (whose digital life began with Pong), so maybe I'll be the one worrying more about this state of affairs...