This is the first week I am in the Academic Technology Scholar (ATS) Program. The ATS program has been developed to train selected PhD students as scholars in digital teaching and course design. As an AT scholar, I am responsible for helping faculties build their courses on Canvas (an online course platform that is replacing Blackboard at Northeastern) and implement solutions for managing their courses digitally.

In Module 1 of the program, we learned 1) how to work with Canvas 2) techniques that can be used to teach more effectively during online courses.

Regarding Canvas, the Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning through Research (CATLR) at Northeastern has put together many great materials to walk us through each feature of Canvas. One of the features that I like about Canvas is how we can organize the materials into pages. Creating pages helps us use images, banners, external websites, files, and etc. all in one place and in an adjustable order. After creating pages, we can use modules to organize the pages into weekly and chapter sections. This is really helpful because this way students spend less time figuring out the format of the course and where to find the materials. Another feature that I find helpful for both students and instructors is having a global calendar. The calendar has the deadlines and schedules of all courses in one place. This helps individuals to be aware of their deadlines or meetings without putting forth much effort.

We are also learning techniques for teaching effectively from a book called Small Teaching Online. The book is very practical. The first chapter of the book covers the concept called backward design. Backward design is basically thinking backward. In order to do so, first faculties need to determine the objectives of their courses. After determining these goals, they need to understand how they can help students achieve them. Basically all the materials, assignments, quizzes, projects, and etc. should be in line with the objectives. After reading more about how to implement the backward design, the following is one of my takeaways that I would share with faculties.

Since usually on the first day of classes instructors go over the syllabus, I believe it is really important to clarify the main goals of the course for students. These goals should be discussed regularly throughout the semester by showing how each assignment, quiz or any other type of assessment is helping them achieve those goals. Otherwise, the objectives might be forgotten and students might find it hard to make connections between the materials and what they are supposed to achieve throughout the course.

I am looking forward to next week’s module.