Onsite sharing
Students in this course are from 4-5 refugee camps. Each week there's an activity called "Onsite Sharing." Here's an example for week 1:
Form pairs—and share important information about your life and experiences (Only share what you are comfortable sharing). Each partner should take notes during the sharing—then each partner will introduce his or her classmate to the whole group at your location.
Carefully read the Syllabus for this course. Then share your expectations for this course in small groups. Expectations are knowledge and skills you would like to learn during this course. Challenges are the difficulties that you will need to overcome to succeed in this course. Make a list of expectations and challenges.
Using the Assignment tab on the left, post to the Assignment titled Week 1: Onsite Participation by Tuesday.
Each week, there's a synchronous component built into the course. Students from the same camp will get together for a fixed amount of time (I don't know for how long) and have a f2f discussion guided by the onsite facilitator. In the above example, students will form pairs and have an in-depth conversation with each other. Each student only needs to submit a list of expectations and challenges online to get points for this activity.
This is the type of activity we can adopt in our online courses. Not all discussions need to happen as written text in the online course. We should encourage students to have "real" conversations via a variety of communication methods such as phone call, zoom, and f2f meetings. I see this old fashioned way of communicating with each other as a very effective method to create a close-knit learning community in online courses.
The other idea is to encourage students to engage onsite sharing with family members, friends, and colleagues. It's an excellent way of doing reflections. Simply articulating what they have learned to people around them strengthens learning.
Form pairs—and share important information about your life and experiences (Only share what you are comfortable sharing). Each partner should take notes during the sharing—then each partner will introduce his or her classmate to the whole group at your location.
Carefully read the Syllabus for this course. Then share your expectations for this course in small groups. Expectations are knowledge and skills you would like to learn during this course. Challenges are the difficulties that you will need to overcome to succeed in this course. Make a list of expectations and challenges.
Using the Assignment tab on the left, post to the Assignment titled Week 1: Onsite Participation by Tuesday.
Each week, there's a synchronous component built into the course. Students from the same camp will get together for a fixed amount of time (I don't know for how long) and have a f2f discussion guided by the onsite facilitator. In the above example, students will form pairs and have an in-depth conversation with each other. Each student only needs to submit a list of expectations and challenges online to get points for this activity.
This is the type of activity we can adopt in our online courses. Not all discussions need to happen as written text in the online course. We should encourage students to have "real" conversations via a variety of communication methods such as phone call, zoom, and f2f meetings. I see this old fashioned way of communicating with each other as a very effective method to create a close-knit learning community in online courses.
The other idea is to encourage students to engage onsite sharing with family members, friends, and colleagues. It's an excellent way of doing reflections. Simply articulating what they have learned to people around them strengthens learning.
