Sarah Dillard and Edie Abraham-Macht
A Kaleidoscope alum once told us that “In other online classes it’s like you’re an audience member, but in [ours] you’re a participant.” It would be easy to assume that online classes are doomed to provide an “audience member” experience. We’re separated from each other and from the instructor by screens and all their potential distractions, making it easy to listen passively or tune out entirely.
But we’ve found that although it takes work to create rigorous, engaging, community-building classes online, it’s entirely possible if you intentionally design for it. Here are the three holy grail components we include in our classes to make the most of class time:
Collaborative critique: We review student work live in class (generally sans names). We ask students to point out what works well and what can be improved. This isn’t just a great learning technique: it also shows we take student work seriously, makes ideas concrete, and builds a culture of discussing work, of giving and receiving feedback.
Conversation: We advance as a society by the conversations we have. If we don’t talk about it, we don’t act on it. So what we learn to talk about directly impacts what we do. By conversing, we also learn to navigate ambiguity, disagree politely, and work through the implications of complex ideas. All of our classes have opportunities for rigorous conversation.
Community: We don’t leave community to chance—we work to build it into our classes. Our launch activities combine the content of the class with opportunities for students to get to know each other: not their favorite colors or breakfast foods, but their quirks, passions, and goals. We include well-designed breakout rooms. We assign peer groups to meet outside of class. Our goal is that our students will get to know each other on intellectual and personal levels, maximizing their experience as a community of learners.
By centering these three principles in our design process, we are able to consistently deliver classes where students are our co-producers, actors, and critics.
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Read related pieces:
How We 10x the Learning in our Workshops: How we turn a single workshop into half a dozen learning opportunities.
So You Say You’re Good at Online Learning: Questions to ask to determine if a provider is good at online learning—and answers to watch out for.