Designing an asynchronous PhD course

[flerfmcgerf]

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Does anyone have experience taking or teaching an asynchronous doctoral-level course in a clinical PhD program? Classes are shifting around in my program and I have the option of teaching a content survey course asynchronously (think developmental, social, cognitive) or a more applied, in-person class, both capped at around 20 (they draw from multiple programs). Content-wise, I'm more interested in teaching the survey course because it's just inherently more interesting and kind of different relative to the applied one.

I've never taught asynchronous at all, but have heard some people say they like it. When I think about setting up discussion boards though, I just shudder. AI's influence is part of what's driving my reaction and I did have some discussion board assignments in my own program and hated those.

Some of the in-person survey courses I took really focused on leading class discussions and writing one big paper, which as a research oriented PhD student, I found to actually be useful training in writing, literature review, and (eventually) publishing. I'm wondering if I could have a major paper, a brief recorded presentation or two, and some weekly quizzes make up their class assignments. Too light? On my end I'd upload 2-3 brief lecture videos a week and grade.

Excuse the ramble.

TLDR I guess I'm mainly interested in hearing people's tips/opinions on what would make for a meaningful content/survey course for PhD students, that isn't overly burdensome on me (as a pre-tenure person) in terms of setup and grading.

 

[futureapppsy2]

So, I wouldn't do discussion boards--do weekly quizzes mixed in with some other assignments.

 

[ForensicPsychFightClub]

I did quite a few classes asynchronously due to COVID. I agree that discussion board posts are mere checkbox assignments, and it sounds like you have a solid plan for the other assignments. Here’s what I would suggest:

- Since the class is asynchronous, there’s inevitably less class interaction. I get that this is what discussion boards are supposed to simulate, but when it is a graded weekly assignment, it is very phony. Instead you could consider giving more rope and leeway to the students to do interesting presentations. Then you could have an assignment where people post comments on one presentation, whichever one they found the most interesting. Not weekly, and only once for the whole course - so they can choose which ones are actually interesting to talk about.

- For all that is holy, please make sure you are recording your lectures on something that can be sped up. A lecture at 1.25 or sometimes even 1.5 speed is just quick enough to be interesting. If you lecture at base speed it can be straight up soporific to stare at a screen that long.

- Try to tentpole important sections in your lectures. Students have the benefit of being able to repeat your videos, to be sure, but they lose the dedicated time and space for lecture content and the ability to effortlessly ask you questions in real time. So, don’t hide the quiz question answer at, say, 56:10 in your lecture in a point that doesn’t even make it into a bullet point on your slideshow. I am neurotic so I would watch lectures multiple times to find poorly advertised central concepts; I know cohort mates who would instead just say “**** it” and guess on questions poorly integrated into the materials.

- Speaking of slideshows - they are both a necessary evil, and very boring. If you have an alternative, use it - since you are on your own time there is more wiggle room for incorporating materials into your video presentations that would be unwieldy to use otherwise. For example I once co-taught a course and replaced about 30 minutes of content with some drawings I doodled on my phone to liven up the video a bit and got a good response.

- Finally this is not at all specific to asynchronous courses but perhaps is more meaningful in them - students don’t get to know you as well. Advertise a bit about yourself, but also try as best as you are able to get a sense of their research interests and experience to be able to integrate it into your examples and assignments. The burgeoning DBT clinician is going to find survey content on suicide risk much more interesting than some other example material you can pull from.

 

[flerfmcgerf]

Thank you for the feedback!