Last night I attended my first online meeting for EER500: Introduction to Educational Research. Instead of module content, the instructor, Dr James Deehan, has set up a weekly reading list schedule accompanied by weekly online meetings. While I do miss the guidance and summarising of key ideas found in a module, I loved the online meeting. Full disclosure: I did not pay complete attention throughout the meeting as some of it was a review of the reading material that I felt fairly confident about. However, it gave me a chance to ask questions or make comments and receive real-time interaction with the instructor. That has happened in my other subjects – but only a handful of times throughout the session.
What excites me about this subject is knowing that he plans to do this on a regular basis – weekly, in fact! Having a predictable, regular and frequent time and space for this type of interaction is something that I profoundly missed in my subjects last session (and suspect that I will continue to miss in the majority of the ones to come). I’d better enjoy it while it lasts!
P.S. It doesn’t hurt that he is a funny and engaging speaker who is passionate about his subject!
References
GIPHY. (n.d.). I’m so excited GIF [GIF}. Retrieved from https://giphy.com/gifs/im-so-excited-rFyZaxsIWaHx6.