The “Question of the Week”

Instructor Profile:
Barbara Murck and Monika Havelka are two award-winning instructors who have joined together to teach a large web-option cohort in the popular Introduction to Environment course offered by the Department of Geography at UTM.

Essential Idea:
This activity within the course community effectively engages students in authentic learning. In particular the “question of the week” has the potential to link course content to students’ prior experiences, needs, interests, and motives and thus motivate them to deepen their understanding of its application.  Students may post their questions related to course content, personal observation, prior experience, current events, etc. in the course discussion forum. During the week other students and/or the instructors may engage asynchronous exchange on the topic raised. At the end of the week the instructors choose a question they believe will be of interest and relevance to the greatest number of students and prepare a video clip response exploring and informing on the question raised. The video clip is posted to the shared course video content area and the student who originally introduced the question is rewarded with a bonus participation mark.

Benefits for Students:

• Gets students attention and engagement
• Demonstrates to the students how and why the course content is important and useful.

Tips and Tricks:

• UTM licences ePresence, but any faculty member can access Camtasia relay software to record their computer screen with voice over.
• Instructors can post video on the UTL MyMedia server for ease of access. Post a link from the online course shell discussion or other content area to the video capture file.