Lessons Learned Webinar Series: Re-imagining courses for online
Professor Marianne Touchie shares her plans and experiences transforming a building science course for online delivery.
About Professor Touchie
Professor Marianne Touchie is a assistant professor jointly-appointed to the departments of CIVMIN and MIE. Serving as the director of the Building Energy and Indoor Environment (BEIE) lab, her research focuses on energy efficiencies and indoor environments to improve the designs of buildings. Currently, she is also the president of Buildling Science Specialist Board of Canada.
She teaches CIV375, a primarily undergraduate course on building science.
Watch the Recording
If you were unable to attend the live session, you can watch a recording of Re-imagining courses for online delivery: Building Science (note: you will need to login to your Utoronto.ca Office365 account to watch the video as it is only available to the U of T community). In this session, she goes over her experience transforming the building science curriculum online, lessons learned from the March 2020 online transition, and her gameplan for the upcoming semester.
Building Science Video Project: What did we learn?
In 2018, Professor Touchie, along with Professor Kim Pressnail, secured a grant from eCampus for a video project composing of seven buildling science modules. Through transforming the buildling science into a series of videos for asynchronous consumption, the goal is to be a resource for self-study opportunities or to support existing curriculums. You can check out the finished product here!
Steps to Video Project Production:
- Course mapping and module planning
- Development of detailed learning outcomes
- Script development
- Selection of ideal teaching/video methods (light board, tablet, green screen, motion graphics, interactive activity)
- Preparation of graphics and props
- Development of "Knowledge Check" quizzes
Things to Remember for Recording!
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Leave pauses in the beginning, end, and when you make mistakes. This is very helpful when editing because it leaves a clean break for trimming! See also: Strategies to make editing your videos easier. -
Plan ahead the layout of your notes canvas if you're tablet capturing.
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Write big and use colour!
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Consider pre-writing (then annotating) or speed up the writing of your notes to shorten the length of video. This strategy eliminates "dead air" and keeps up the pace of your video.
Lessons Learned - What happened in March?
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Live webinars through bbCollaborate; continued annotated PPT-style lectures
- Smooth operation
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Final exam administered online (time limit of 3 hours completed within 24 hours window)
- Need a better alternative
Gameplan for September 2020
To come up with an online alternative plan, we must first examine the desired learning outcomes of the course. Try incorporating contents and assessments that will acheive the same learning goals! The 3 lecture hours allotted to her course will compose of asynchronous course content, synchronous weekly summary and Q&As and self-studying. She also plans to have small-group synchronous tutorial sessions with group activities and practice problems. Course assessments plans have shifted towards an emphasis on teamwork and class participation.
Her worries for the upcoming semester surround the question of how to create and maintain a community with her students online.
Missed the Session?
You can watch the recording here. Don't forget to check out the other sessions from our Lessons Learned Webinar Series!
