Finding Your Topic

In the other track of the Institute, you have been working through how to design and build out a Learning Module. If you have identified the portion of your course that you are making into a learning module then finding a topic for your 3-5 minute lesson screencast will be straightforward. Our overall mission for the institute is to help you design and build out a module within your course so that it can serve as a model for building out the rest of your course.

If you haven’t gotten that far in the other track but want to keep on moving in this track, then we can help you identify a topic for a 3-5 minute lesson. Presuming you are taking an existing face-to-face class and either making it a hybrid or online course:

  1. A course is usually broken down into major chunks that either end with an exam or major project.  Most courses have 3-5 major chunks depending on discipline and instructor.  In your course, pick one of these major chunks. 
  2. Each major chunk is made up of several topics or units [there is no universal terms which always makes it fun].  Identify a unit within your course that students struggle with understanding [threshold concept] OR a favorite unit of yours OR the first unit you deal with in your course.
  3. Once you have selected a unit, find a lesson within that unit.  If you teach a MWF, then pick a lesson from one of those days. 
  4. Below is an image that we designed to describe the Blended/Flipped Classroom structure, but the essence of that model is universal for we all design classes by thinking about what do students need to do BEFORE class, what happens DURNG class, and what additional opportunities do students need AFTER class to further their understanding and to practice.  

    flippedflowmodel.png

  5. Using your existing lesson for a class day, select a single topic from the content you would cover either before or during class.  There are many ways to present content in an online context and figuring out how best to do that takes practice. For this Institute, simply find a small piece that makes the most sense to present as a screencast.  Remember you can always break a topic into smaller chunks to ease a learner's cognitive load.

Mike's Example

At Morehead State, I taught a General Education Physical Science Course for non-science majors. We covered Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Meteorology, and Astronomy. Within the Physics unit, I did Electricity and Magnetism module. We spent part of week on circuits [closed/open/short/parallel and series] where we figured it all out using simple materials. Taking my face-to-face course and making it hybrid, I would look to create a 3-5 minute lesson wrapping up closed/short/open circuits. A screencast reviewing what they learned about series and parallel circuits and where you see them in life. Imagine in class, we use materials to figure out how everything works and placing labels on each type of circuit and afterwards students watch videos and experience more practice with the ideas. The possibilities within a Hybrid/Blended structure are many.