Reaction to McClusky Presentation

I learned some interesting ideas from James' presentation on hybrid structure and organization, some that I will think about further, including his ideas about group work and mini-reports. One thing I noticed was how much communication he sets up between him and the students. I would be curious to know if other courses do equally well with somewhat less direction from the instructor. I have no objection to sending news notes often and thoroughly detailing assignments, but too much emailing, etc. as reminders would seem to me somewhat like nagging.

I would like to avoid the email connection altogether, as Pat suggests. I know from past experience with D2L that doing email seems like going outside of the framework of the course, at the same time breaking away from their need to stay connected and aware of what's going on. I mean by that the students need to accept the responsibility to check and to keep in touch.

I also wondered about the frequency of his office hours - same idea as above, especially if you want them to email you. On the other hand, if you set up certain regular hours to work on the course, you could easily be checking the Burning Questions discussion, or whatever else you have established for D2L communication.