P2PU Course Designer's Orientation

Schedule

• March 21- April 13: Course Design Orientation + simultaneous community review 
• March 31  - April 13: Organizers review, accept, deny applicants
• 13 April: Sign-ups close 
• 20 April: Courses start

Join the orientation: p2pu.org/general/course-design-orientation

Overview

The P2PU Course Organizers' Orientation aims to introduce new organizers to the practice of online facilitation for open social groups and to provide support while they build a new course. 

The orientation usually runs for 3-4 weeks before courses begin. P2PU has created a Course Design Handbook as the primary source of guidance. Each week of the orientation includes seminars with online learning experts, Q&A sessions with previous course facilitators, and active discussions. 

Outcomes

The goal of the orientation is to let P2PU future course facilitators ... 

• experience open social learning (like a P2PU course) first-hand to know what it feels like for participants in your course. 
• develop the ability to differentiate P2PU from formal online teaching
• become acquainted with the different features of the P2PU website 
• design their own course on a topic of their choice and upload their session content to the website
• experience the use of different synchronous/asynchronous platforms and how to use them in their own sessions
• provide review and feedback for each other to revise and refine the syllabi for their P2PU sessions

Learn more: p2pu.org/general/course-design-orientation

[archived]

Aug-Sept 2010 P2PU Orientation Schedule

Building Your Course

(1st week: August 16th to August 20th)

Course organizers should create one page on the wiki for their course, and start building an outline there. Why not on the main site? P2PU.org is undergoing some construction and will be ready soon. For the time being, copy our blank course template into your wiki page. Please out a link to your course on the new courses page. You will transfer your outline from the wiki into a course page on P2PU.org during the orientation.

☞ Blank Course Template
☞ New Courses List

Consult the course design handbook for our recommendations. Use this resource throughout the design process.
☞ Course Design Handbook

We will hold an initial voice/video conference on Tokbox for introductions and questions about getting started. It will be recorded for those that miss it. (You will need to sign-up for Tokbox in advance.) Chat sessions will be available to anyone with slower bandwidth during office hours.

Office hours are open to discuss anything about course design.

 Office hours: 9 am PDT / 12 pm EST Sun - Thu

Course Development

(2nd week:  August 23rd to August 27th)

This week you'll be asked to load your course descriptions and syllabus into p2pu.org. Make sure to get some basic information about your course on the site because course announcements are made on Weds August 25th!

Even more exciting - we'll be speaking with researchers from the UC Berkeley iSchool about peer engagement. You won't want to miss this informative session!

☞ Some ideas for promoting your course

Continue to refer to the handbook as you fill out your course outline.  
☞ Course Design Handbook

As always, office hours are open to discuss anything about course design.

Office hours: 9 am PDT / 12 pm EST Sun - Thu

Facilitating and Moderating

3rd week: August 30th to September 3rd

This week we will focus on the crucial topics of facilitating/moderating a course w/ expert Tony Carr. Tony has provided facilitation dilemmas for everyone to think about and discuss before the seminar on Thursday.  

Continue to refer to the handbook as you polish course outline and finish creating your course!
☞ Course Design Handbook

As always, office hours are open to discuss anything about course design.

Office hours: 9 am PDT / 12 pm EST everyday!

Sharing & Polishing / Post-Orientation Peer Review

September 3rd through course cycle

Courses begin next week! Now is the time to notify all applicants and polish your syllabus. We'll also be holding a Q&A session with previous organizers at your request!

Post-Course Reflection

27 OCT 2010

Once courses finish, all organizers must participate in a post-course meeting with all organizers. This is a worthwhile event, as it allows everyone to share the highlights and weak spots. Think of it as crowd sourcing for course improvements!  We will hold this on 27 OCT, the last day of courses.

Interested in our older orientation process? We started with a very basic handbook and a minimal approach. However, we recognized new designers need more support and a stronger community. We'd love your feedback on the changes we've made. You can leave them in the comments section on any related page.