First peer-review

Over the past week, my partner and I provided peer feedback to each other about our online teaching module.  The purpose of this task was to have someone else review the module before it went live to students in order to provide a second lens for critical feedback.  I found this process to be very useful and enlightening; it provided me with an opportunity to see how someone else sets up a course in a different discipline and allowed me to gain new ideas as to how to improve my own course.

When I received my feedback from my partner, most of the changes suggested were reasonable and were implemented to improve my course.  I was pleased to see some really positive comments about my module.  One such comment that really caught my attention was the fact that I included a question regarding preferred pronouns in my About Me survey for students.  This is a practice that I have been doing for the past year with any class, regardless of whether it is face-to-face or online) so it is nice to have it recognized.  A simple question such as this one really helps my students feel valued and included and this, in turn, promotes a safe and inclusive learning environment.

Here are some of the changes that I made based on the peer feedback that I received:

1.  Syllabus/Introductory Material

I added in an instructions slide into my Androidify intro activity as per suggested.  I also deleted the word "topics" for each module on my course topics page but then also included links to each module from this page based on the feedback that I gave my partner.  I also decided to include information on the approximate timing of each module here. Finally, I changed the wording of the late submissions section as per my partner's second suggestion.  All of these changes helped to improve the clarity of my course and helped to provide further detailed instructions to my students.

2.  Course Navigation/Technical Requirements

I decided to remove the link to Google hangouts for now since it only works within my domain anyway based on the Google account that I use.  Also, it seemed to be a bit redundant with the Q&A discussion board too.  I also added in my preferred contact via email for personal questions.  I think that these changes will help to streamline my communications with my students.

To provide opportunities for student self-assessment, I added a Module 1 and Module 2 checklist with links to the various activities.  In my checklists, I also included a link to the next module so that students knew what they should work on next.  This really helps students identify gaps in their learning and provides a means to assist with organization.

3.  Learning Activities

For my learning activities, I added more instructions about what to explore under the "Who is IUPAC?" activity to guide students in what they should focus on.  For the "Reviewing Chemistrian" page, I added in time references for each type of nomenclature in the video in brackets as suggested.  I also included a nomenclature rules summary PDF for my students so that they can reference each nomenclature type quickly.

For my assignment in this module, I included a link to a Google search for mindmap examples but I chose to not add in instructions for each of the suggested tools since it is student choice as to which tool they chose to use.