You are part of a new course team developing a course to be delivered online at the start of the next academic year. Due to student feedback and high online attrition at other universities, your Programme Board are particularly keen to support online courses that students becoming active participants of the University of Edinburgh community. You have to prepare an action plan for your Programme Board. The action plan will outline how teaching staff will ensure that students on the new online course feel part of the University of Edinburgh community and a part of their course and programme cohort.

Your plan should touch of several of the following:

1. a (brief) summary of the cohort demographics and geographical locations of the cohort as you understand them to be. This needn’t be precise, just a sketch.
2. a (brief) overview of community specific activity that you will design into this new course, and the virtual spaces where this activity will take place. You can focus on the community (University of Edinburgh), the cohort (the fellow students within this specific course or more broadly on your programme) or both.
3. a (brief) overview of how you might know the activity was working in was fostering a sense of community. Again, no need to be elaborate here but rather just a few metrics you might be looking for.
4. an indication of how your plan caters for inclusivity and accessibility.

The plan should be no more than 400 words and we encourage you to use a range of multimedia if you prefer. If it works better not using text at all, that is fine. If you want to use Teams to demonstrate how the activity would be designed, that is fine. Really the question becomes how you might submit it. Any of the following are perfectly acceptable:

1. Consider adding the action plan to your blog so your tutors can feed into it.
2. Consider adding your tutor to the OneDrive document you created so they can then comment on it.
3. Invite us into Teams and host it there.

Action Plan

1. Summary of the cohort demographics + geographical location

First year course in the LLC. Cohort mostly UK nationals, a few Europeans and a small number of international students, typically   between 17-20 years old. Students are studying European languages.

2. Overview of community specific activity in the course and virtual spaces

FORMAL:

Targeted group work built into course and assessment design, limited, to max. 3 group activities per semester.  Group work takes place in discussion forums. Discussion topics are set in lectures/ tutorials. Students are given clear timelines and discussion is supervised by tutors.

Type of group work could be a collaborative task or a group project. Students report on group work to a Discussion Board/Blog/ presentation/ podcast / ..

INFORMAL:

• Padlet (beginning of course): map of the world. Students introduce themselves, ianswer 3 questions. Students to comment on  each other´s   Students create avatars (photo, cartoon, etc)   https://padlet.com/charlottebosseaux/5vh56ev882bykymf
• pub quiz (synchronous end of course/semester)
• Student meeting hub/ virtual pub

Extra-curricular activities :

• generate sense of community between different year groups:  buddy system/
• a film/TV series club, asynchronous with live discussion forum. Students watch the film/TV series in their own time, then discuss using either discussion boards (asynchronous) or a live discussion forum/meeting at a specific time (synchronous). Resources: Box of Broadcasts and Mediahopper for older films. For newer films, investigate platforms such as MUB, foreign-language media-hubs with live- streaming, LLC Resource Centre)
• Virtual play/ scene reading sessions using Collaborate/Teams as replacement for language plays, with optional follow-on discussion
• DELC Student creative writing magazine BABBLE : https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/delc/delc-creative/babble/issue-five
• Community engagement: students to take virtual play, BABBLE into local schools
• Students propose their own extra-curricular activities

3. Overview of how to assess whether the activity is fostering a sense of community.

Poll mid-semester: what kind of questions?

Build this into course design / assessment structures:

participation mark  replying to posts, contribution to discussions presentation, podcasts ) Could be set as a language exercise in target language or reflective exercise about  how group interaction boosted their academic and graduate skills, using reflective grid https://uoe-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/r/personal/agotzkes_ed_ac_uk/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc=%7BD06ACB5B-1EFC-4DFF-9442-C544D22C6654%7D&file=Skills_selfassessment_DELC.docx&action=default&mobileredirect=true, ask students to suggest ideas for how to foster a sense of community.

4. How does this plan cater for inclusivity and accessibility 

‘Full accessibility is an elusive goal’: Michael Gallagher.

• Important to ensure balance between asynchronous and synchronous options. So if we had virtual play readings, we could then use discussion boards for a film/TV group.
• Give students options of synchronous sessions via audio only to mitigate problems with internet connection
• Recording synchronous sessions to allow others to participate asynchronously
• Provide alternatives to small group work for students with learning adjustments
• Make sure there is a balance of types of activities (reading, listening, watching) as a basis for students’ interaction.
• For BABBLE, increase flexibility to encourage participation from ab initio students i.e.: comic/ caption writing, cartoons.
• Allowing audio as well as text contributions for online versions

Module 3, task on Teams / Charlotte Bosseaux / An Edinburgh Model for Online Teaching by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0