This semester has been a wonderful lesson in developing asynchronous content for my students. My previous experiences as a UTA for various subjects centered entirely around in-person instruction, helping people in class or in office hours. This time, my project forced me to think about how to teach concepts through the page.
I have always preferred teaching with examples and working through the solution process with students, not just showing them how to do things. But with this fellowship, the unfortunate reality is that my published content is, as a standalone piece, already a fully worked solution. With this in mind, I have had to find a manner in which to motivate and inspire the entirety of every lesson so that no parts of them are left unexplained while still eventually reaching the problem conclusion.
In addition to creating lesson plans, I also got to think about developing short practice exercises. In each case, I learned about defining a problem with clear instructions and enough detail to solve step-by-step, but making sure not to give away the solution in the instructions.
The most valuable part of this fellowship has been opening the door to how awesome this supplemental content can be. I’ve worked very hard on everything I published this semester, but I also recognize that there is so much room for improvement and I plan to dedicate plenty of time to revamping the entire repository before the class runs again next fall.