Put Yourself in the Learner’s Seat

Instructors can better understand the student experience in a Brightspace course if they can see it for themselves. To provide this experience in an efficient and effective way, we created a series of three-week online courses, focusing on student-teacher engagement, student-Content engagement and efficient facilitation of learning using a variety of Brightspace tools. Instructors enrolled in the courses of their choice and each week we focused on a specific tool/topic that included examples, best practices and an assignment for the instructors to complete (just as a student would).

The assignments were real-life scenarios that were based on using what was learned that week in a practical application in the instructors’ own real-life courses. We were glad that we capped each course at 20 participants, as it proved to be quite popular and the courses filled quickly. We are re-offering them for spring semester. 1. Teachers get to see and experience a course from the student perspective. 2. They see meaningful examples and learn the ins and outs of a tool/feature. 3. They immediately use what they’ve learned in a real course of their own, so their time learning a skill is well-spent.