About the Event:

Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) MicroCourses are short, single-topic, hands-on, practical, and free. Over the course of a week, you will have the opportunity to dip into the FLO experience and leave with something practical and useful for your teaching practice.

Are your discussion forums stale or overwhelming for you and your students? In asynchronous courses, there are as many ways to launch a discussion as there are topics to discuss. Even if the activity is anchored in carefully selected reading and resources, the words and media you use to invite learners to engage can make your course active and memorable. Think about a collaborative discussion on any topic. Consider the nature of the interactions between discussion participants, select a format for the discussion and a suitable app, and write a compelling discussion prompt. Then invite others — your peers in this course — to comment on their willingness to engage based on your springboard tactics.

While the focus of this course is on writing discussion prompts, we will introduce a few apps to spruce up discussion forums. This course includes mostly asynchronous activities, which means you can spread your 6–13 hours of participation over the whole week. One optional synchronous session will be recorded for participants who cannot attend. Save the date and time: February 26, 2024, 9:30–10:30 a.m.

Register now!

About the Facilitator:

Your lead FLO facilitator will be Annie Prud’homme-Généreux. Annie (she/her) was one of the founding faculty of Quest University Canada, where she developed innovative curricula and experimented with diverse pedagogies and assignments. After several years working in administration and leadership in and out of academia, she returned to her roots and passion: designing curricula and teaching undergraduate science courses at the University of British Columbia. She’s engaged in several faculty development initiatives that promote the use evidence-based teaching and learning practices, such as how to create inclusive and equitable classrooms, using generative AI, and using case studies. She is in the final stage of a Master of Open, Digital, and Distance Education at Athabasca University and has completed two graduate degrees online (in addition to many Massive Open Online and continuing education courses), giving her a unique lens to the use of online discussions as a learner and educator. She is the author of the Faculty Focus article series 21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion.