Here are some evaluation questions to consider during your digital course experience – feel free to suggest others. I’ll be providing some more pithy discussion questions a bit later in the semester for our use when we get together in person.
Thanks,
Jim
Enrollment/announcement:
Reactions to how the course describes itself? Is its intended audience clear? (and does its content match its apparent intended audience?)
Are its expected time commitments clear (and do they match reality?)
What level of clarity does the course give you about forms of assessment, opportunities for interaction with other students, and interaction with the professor/assistants?
Is there a syllabus? For the whole semester? In advance? Does it look like one you might produce? Why/why not?
First impressions:
Is this course designed for students like those at Trinity?
Does this course look like something we’d teach on this campus? Where else might you imagine seeing it?
How does the course “work?” (How does the professor teach? What types of visual aids are given? Is this predominantly “lecture capture” or are more complex production values and processes employed?)
Are alternative reading resources offered? What? How?
The course itself:
How much (what kind) of interaction did you have with other students?
What kinds of information seemed particularly well-transmitted through this course? What didn’t suit the medium (media) so well?
Did exams and quizzes take a single or multiple forms? How/where did studying happen?
Do you feel like you learn as much in a week of this course as you do in a week of a standard liberal arts course in your major/department?
How did this course format challenge you? What seemed novel, what pedestrian, what elegant, what trivial?
Did you experience particular components of the course that you would want to adapt for your use in a course at Trinity?
How do you react to the course as a student in it, and, for faculty reading this question, how do you react as a “faculty student?”
Forms of assessment:
How did the course assess your work? Anything novel or interesting to note or report?
How were you given a chance to assess the course? (Anything novel or interesting to note or report?)
Miscellaneous other questions/themes:
Should a course like this receive college credit at Trinity? (Is this question even relevant given your course’s objectives and audience?)
Should Trinity consider offering a course like the one you took? (why/why not?)
If yes, what resources might this require?