How can we improve our classes?

[Comrade Blade]

Having recently joined waffles, the first thing i noticed was that the Pandemic Legion forums has an app across the top of the forum with a list of the next ops (as links to the forum post), a countdown timer, and the date and time IN THE LOCAL TIME AS PER YOUR FORUM REGISTRATION.

EG:
WAFFLE Op: 'Wolves' starting in 0days 6hrs 48mins at 23/10/2014 6:00 local time

Apparently it parses the events forum thread titles and puts them in as long as people don't mess up the formatting.

I have no idea how hard this would be to code, but it would be awesome (especially for people like me who always messed up the conversions because the international date line sucks... and so does turning up for an op 24hrs early/late...)

[Gideon Highmourn]

I have to say, so far I absolutely love the information given in the classes hosted by E-Uni. I haven't attended many, and so far no "advanced" classes. However, as an educator myself, I know holding an audience's attention can be quite a task at times. Audience "participation" can really help keep your classes/lectures more than "just listen" and really utilize the groups knowledge as a whole. For instance, during classes that could be boiled down to the "basics" or "just relaying recorded/documented information", you could call on certain people not muted in mumble to "read" from selected areas of the lecture or ask questions based on previous information given.

Some "testing" can also be done to help keep people interested or alert. Asking "has anyone flown ship X here? If so, what's your biggest discovery while flying it?" during a Ship 101 class could keep it more upbeat and fresh by having a different person give their opinion on something.

Personal testimony can also "spice" a lecture up, and give additional insight to the group that might not otherwise be present on a "basic" overview of information. Especially with longer classes and lectures that only go over "basics", this can really put a twist on an otherwise "run of the mill" speech.

This is only a suggestion, of course. And only my opinion. The classes so far have relayed tons of information, but I think a little bit of "conversation" could be added in order to increase information retainment and attention. I really hope this helps, and also look forward to more E-Uni classes!

[Spanky Ikkala]

Audience "participation" can really help keep your classes/lectures more than "just listen" and really utilize the groups knowledge as a whole!

Gideon that's a great point, thank you. If you have sat in any of my classes you will find that they are more of a facilitated discussion wherever possible, but I have been teaching on and off for 20 years and obviously many of our teachers and volunteers have never done anything like that.

I currently run a semi-regular 'Teaching 101' class for new and prospective teachers and I'll be developing that into an advanced teaching lesson at some point over the next few months to help pass the skills that you are talking about on to our teachers and FCs etc. So please feel free to come along to those sessions and pass on your knowledge.

Spanky

[Ailise Thellere]

Hi all,

I listened to some of the pre-recorded lectures when I had just joined, keen to really understand this new world that seemed so large and dangerous and the thing that stood out for me about how engaging a lecture either was or wasn't would be dependent on planning. An engaging lecture would have very little 'dead air', links would be produced at the time as they were clearly ready to go. The times when lectures would stutter would be when something would be mentioned and there would be up to 45 seconds of 'sourcing the example/information/link' to demonstrate the point.

I get that, as volunteers, time to prep may be valuable and RL will get in the way, but having all the links and scenarios lined up ready to go makes the difference between a 60 minute and a 90 minute lecture as that time really does add up.

In RL I work as a learning & development consultant and have been teaching & coaching people for..well, quite a while so this feedback comes from that experience (and yes, at some point I have no doubt that I'll be volunteering to do some lectures soon!)

I haven't done it but if you took a couple of the recorded lectures and cut out all of the 'dead air' time, I think you'd be surprised at how much shorter and smoother the lecture would be.

By the way, the quality of the knowledge is amazing and the passion of the Uni is also at a very high standard but as you know, being able to teach knowledge effectively is a skill in itself.

AT

[Telinchei]

So, what's this about Class Tiers and frequency? Is this actually a thing? Does the Teaching Department have any plans to teach classes at the frequency listed?

[Jindo Lee]

So, what's this about Class Tiers and frequency? Is this actually a thing? Does the Teaching Department have any plans to teach classes at the frequency listed?

Everyone who teaches for the university is a volunteer, and we are all lucky that they are teaching anything at all. So it's not really possible for us to dictate exactly what will be taught or how often.

My understanding is that the tier system was always intended as a guide, when teachers are trying to decide what classes are needed, when making their plans for the month. But the tier system is a bit of a relic (circa 2010?) and I'm not sure how much it's ever really been followed. It's a good idea, but not something we can really "enforce" on a volunteer staff.

We are currently trying to bring things up to date a bit more, and sort through what classes we actually need taught regularly, what classes we currently have people teaching, as well as reworking the naming and tier system for our classes to come up with a system to "encourage" our teachers to focus on what is actually needed most by our students. My guess is that the tier system will soon be redesigned into something a bit more practical.

[Telinchei]

Ah, great. Thanks for following this up Jindo, even after the chat in Mumble in the morning.

[little nemo]

Just a thought, currently most of our lecturers are not guest lecturers but players that could be considered eve-uni faculty. Has there been any consideration to compensating faculty members who regularly put togther lectures ae an incentive to take time away from game to improve lecture content?

I would gladly pay a higher corp tax rate if that meant getting more lectures and higher quality lectures.

[Marius Labo]

Well if the Uni were to start paying teaching staff/faculty, then other staff would want or have to be paid, and that can get very complex, and it would most likely send the wrong message and attract people who are looking to get paid as opposed to actually volunteering. Not to crush your idea but it has been both suggested and discussed in the past, but your intent is definitely a good one. A long time ago (five years or more) the recruiters had a lottery system where each ticket in the lottery was earned with each recruiting interview completed (and this was a very different process/monster compared to how Personnel works and does interviews today). The prizes weren't all that much but they did find it skewed the motivation of the ROs and the lottery was dropped (just before I became an RO, now PO).

Besides, if you have a compensation in this fashion then you create an employer/employee situation and this cuts into really how a player-volunteer starts to be required to spend their time, and you no longer have a volunteer.

Teachers are volunteers just like any other staff. Volunteers give the most precious thing, and that's their time. The best way to get more out of such volunteers is to simply allow them to teach when they can and in the fashion they're most comfortable with. If there are barriers, technical requirements, administrative or bureaucratic processes and such in the way of a person wishing to simply step-up and start teaching organized/scheduled classes then you're naturally going to get less people to volunteer. And those that do volunteer will simply do less. Many of us who love to share and teach, guest lecturers included, will be put-off if there is much more burden in having to deal with barriers and (bureaucratic) requirements to doing so and either we won't start or we will just stop. And we'll just go ahead and teach anyway, just not in a formalized context.

Personally, in my opinion, just let those who want to teach do so. Make sure it's simple and that they're allowed access to whatever resources can be offered. The only real requirement should be that the person has a good working knowledge of their subject(s) they want to teach on. Keep the administration side to a minimum. After all, the actual teaching is far more important than anything else.

[little nemo]

A lot of very good points. And I don't mind if you crush my idea if there's a good argument against it, which in this instance there is.

Have you considered using a MOOC such as Moodle as an extension to the e-uni site or would this simply complicate matters?

https://moodle.org/

[Jorj Onzo]

One thing the students could do is start tipping teachers if they get something out of the class. An informal tradition, say. There's bound to be a % of the newbro base who have enough money to do stuff like this. Might not be a large percentage, but some who see the current isk conversion rate for example, and load up. If those students throw 10, 20, 50m in tips when they can, it could be positive as a minor, informal feedback mechanism. Although I can see the points Marius makes.

[Praetoris Domitian]

I get more out of teaching, being able to answer people's specific questions, and often getting to see them perform the jobs they learned in class, in a fleet, than the isk would be worth.

If people can't teach for the joy of it, they probably won't make good teachers.

[Jorj Onzo]

Excellent point. Ok the only other noob idea I have is make the students take on more of the work load, and in that way help the teachers. But that's probably already being done in some form and has security risks that the present title system prevents.

[Jindo Lee]

If people can't teach for the joy of it, they probably won't make good teachers.

This.

[Paledan Safemal]

Excellent point.

Teaching a one-hour class takes me about twice as long. Moving a toon to highsec when there's a practical involved (long), looking at the calendar to see what classes haven't been taught recently (medium), scheduling/AARing (short), answering questions post-class (depends, can take a while). That's not counting time spent doing / revamping my class notes, as these can be used for more than one class.

And I draw the line at making slides, cause I don't like them and they take too long.

I live in a C5, so if I were to count the opportunity cost in lost ISKies, I don't think the E-Uni donations, or student tips, could compensate for lost bearing. Even in our 0.0 space empire where the isk-making opportunities are OK though not spectacular (by C5 wh standards), we're still looking at 200-300m for a couple of hours.

I'm not in the Uni, so the management can't give me fancy titles or medals in lieu of payment (not that they would do it: one guy pointed out I'm not even on the guest lecturer list! ).

Neither do I use classes as a recruiting tool, both because the average student attending classes is a bit too low-SP for us (though that might change in the future, we're not there yet), and - mostly! - because that would be unethical.

Bottom line: people teach because they want to. It yields no tangible benefit, in terms of ISK, kills, or e-reputation. I don't think we can really change that, nor should we.

Ok the only other noob idea I have is make the students take on more of the work load, and in that way help the teachers. But that's probably already being done in some form and has security risks that the present title system prevents.

The best way students can help the E-Uni teaching staff, in my opinion, is to step up and start teaching classes on those topics that they know something about.

Even very basic stuff, like "how to make a little ISK in highsec by mining, without getting mobbed by CODE. and WTs". Or "how to not get scammed". Doesn't have to be "the definitive treatise on [insert broad topic here]"

Classes being taught helps the Uni as a whole, so the rest of the faculty can teach a broader range of classes.