Teaching in Focus 2015 Conference

MY BIG FAT ONLINE COURSE

About myself……

AMPD/Film 1701 Hollywood Old and New

2006 - 300 students6 tutorials

2012 - 800 students19 tutorials

Class size and number of tutorials

2009 - 500 students14 tutorials

IT! THE TERROR FROM CYBER SPACE!

True Grit: The Webmaster

OOI: Shared Online Course Fund

CollaborationDepartment of Film

Faculty of Fine Arts

Fine Arts Computing

Teaching Commons

UIT Learning Technology Services

Teaching and Learning in the Office of the Vice President Academic and Provost

DeadlineMay 2014 – Project Begins

August 2014 - Funding/ Spending for Design Ends

January 2015 – Course Begins

THE TASKS

Design

Revamp the website and make it more user-friendly, more student friendly Introduce myself to the

students through a ‘welcome’ video

Create links between different components of the course, areas of the website

Make it easier to negotiate the website, by providing an online tour taking them through all the various areas

 

 

Tasks cont’d

Pedagogy

Improve the pedagogical approach and learning experience (making learning more ‘experiential’) Rewrite instructions, course

objectives, learner objectives

Create assignments that would foster greater student engagement and participation

Create an online glossary to which students could contribute their own definitions of concepts, theories and terms used throughout the course –

Create a textbook specifically designed for this course, that would be interactive

Film 1701 Course Glossary

MaterialsIntroduction BookChapter 1: The Western

Tasks cont’d

Encourage students to be more independent, self-guided in their learning 

Create a greater sense of online community in the course itself and the individual tutorialsDiscussion Forum #3

1) What do you suppose is the significance of the MC character (played by Joel Grey), in Cabaret in relation to the performances, but also what's going on outside the club?

Tasks Design:

Redesigned the lectures, adding imagery to existing audio podcasts

Enhanced the sound quality of the podcasts

Made the website pretty and fun to use – for example using movie theatre marquees for the film links

 

How did we manage?

Some things went well, some things, not so well… We learned a lot for next time

Time constraints

Delegation of tasks

Less Discussion, more work

More awareness at of practical realities of university course management and teaching

More communication between faculty, department and course directors

Feedback ……Personally I really enjoyed Week 4, the Crime Films. The

Gangster Films we discussed were Gun Crazy and Bonnie and Clyde. I was never really interested in movies like that, but really enjoyed watching those two films

…..I found the discussion forum quite interesting because I was excited to read the different opinions….

….. I really enjoyed both films in Week 3, which were 42nd Street and Cabaret. I am a fan of musicals and had never seen either film before and they both left a good impression..

……This course has forced me to watch movies I wouldn't ordinarily have been drawn to. And that is a very good thing….

More Feedback …The lecture for Week 6 on Planet of the Apes was my

favourite because I found that it sparked a lot of critical thinking towards movies and the subtexts in which I never realized existed before. It has made me more conscious while watching movies to think about what is being implied or critiqued….

…I'm glad I took this course because honestly I wouldn't have watched any of these films otherwise. All in all I enjoyed most of the films and lectures…

…I felt that all the films we watched  complimented each other and built upon the theories and lectures to give me a better understanding of film in general and how it reflects the socio-political climate of the times…

Feedback cont’d …Such a fantastic selection of films we watched this

term…All  of these films left such an impression on me…

…What always interested me most was the background information Dr. Helfield did on the actors. I would always be on another tab reading up on the actors and how they were connected while listening to those parts of the lecture…

….It has been an amazing course!....

AND NOW….

A brief demo of Film 1701!