[This week marks the start of the Fall semester, and my 22nd year at Fitchburg State. So as usual, a semester previews blog series to go with it, leading up to a special post on some of my latest scholarly projects!]
I’ve been teaching at least one online class a semester for more than a dozen years now, but—as is reflected by the number of these pedagogical posts I’ve dedicated to unique challenges presented by that mode—I still feel that I’m learning how to make such courses work as well as they should (not that I’m not still learning about teaching in-person as well, but here in my 22nd year at FSU and 26th overall I do feel more secure in that set of skills!). Since 2019, there’s been another wrinkle in many of these online courses—they’ve been part of our accelerated online program, meaning that they meet for only half the semester but are still tasked with including a full course’s workload. That means any number of things for the syllabus and teaching, but what I’d emphasize is this: accelerated courses demand even more of something that I always try for in all my classes, a focus on student skills and ideas above and beyond any specific content. It’s not that we’re not reading plenty of American lit from 1865 to the present in these eight weeks, but rather that my choices—of readings, contexts I provide, assignments the student complete—are even more overtly driven by questions of what I most want them to get out of this brief time together, and what kinds of texts and topics can help get us there as best we’re able. It’s a work in progress, and la lucha continua this Fall!
Last preview tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What’s coming up with y’all?
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