A Day in the Life of an Online CS Instructor

This page briefly describes activities to be engaged in as part of fulfilling both your responsibilities as an Instructor and enhancing your course. This document is adapted from the handout by the same name, by Ben Brewster.

Continuous Student Engagement

Instructor Presence has been shown to increase both student success and student satisfaction, and is vital to our success individually and as a Program.

Methods include:

  • Answering posted student questions in Ed.
  • Engaging with students on Teams - strike up a conversation in real time, in your course workspace or on the Hub.
  • Promptly answering student emails.
  • Sharing relevant personal stories - not just in response, but as a new thread of discussion.
  • Sharing relevant technology current events, also as a new thread.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the students are in a correspondence course or are engaging in a “self-directed tour” of your materials. The goal is not to just “clear the board” and leave Ed Discussions, but to create new engagements with your students, however you can.

Reflection: How can I show my students that I am here and that I care?

Correcting Obvious Flaws in Courses

Students will frequently report issues with your course. These range from typos and dead links to missing subtitles and references to deprecated course materials. These confuse and frustrate the students and make it seems like OSU and our instructors are unprofessional and don’t care. Fix obviously incorrect materials immediately, as soon as you are able.

Modifying and Adding New Material

The Course Owner will be in communication with you about writing new assignments and test questions. Normally, any major exams need to be updated at least in part every term. Often, assignments need to be updated so as to reduce the temptation for students to cheat. This is especially relevant with Portfolio assignments, which students are allowed to host publicly.

Over the course of a term, all faculty engaged with a course should be collecting information about what students struggle with, or topics which would benefit from expanded explorations. Any new course materials should be added before the students can access the module they’re associated with, so as to not violate the general rule: “do not modify a running course”. If they cannot be, they should be pushed to the next term.

Changes to Learning content between formal redevelopments may include the following (in consultation with the Course Owner):

  • Assignment changes or variations
  • Final Exam questions
  • How-To videos showing software installation/usage
  • Written content that demonstrates a piece of code or technique
  • Links to webpages that could be used as additional references
  • Links to articles discussing the course’s learning content in current media

Reflection: What concept are the students always struggling with in my course?

Preparing for Future Redevelopments

Spend time thinking about the next time your course will be redeveloped. Consider the following activities that could be done as you prepare:

  • Learn a new programming language or improve your knowledge of an existing one. Seek for opportunities to learn at relevant conferences that OSU may be able to send you to.
  • Develop a personal project relevant to your class and show it off to your students.
  • Develop a new visualization for your class.
  • Create a new simulator or simulation for a concept in your class, e.g. network traffic synchronization or memory access.

Reflection: What have I always wanted to do in this field, or in this class?

Course development (new and old)

If you are the course owner, your course will require redevelopment at least every three years. Depending on your workload, this formal, team-based process could replace one or more classes you would normally teach.

If you have an idea for an elective we could offer (Big Data, OOP, Graphics, programming language refresher courses, etc.), suggest it to the Program Director for consideration.

CE & PD

Your Supervisor and Program Director will help you find relevant and useful professional development and continuous education activities to engage in. These could take the form of conferences you attend, or even courses at OSU.

Keep track of all the things you do - you’ll need this when you write your list of accomplishments for your performance evaluation. Set your vision and goals and work towards them!

More information can be found at Continuing Education & Professional Development.

A Night in the Life of an Online CS Teacher

Because of the highly-connected experience of teaching online, be careful to keep a proper and healthy work/life balance. Carefully and clearly inform your students of to your availability, and stick to what you say. Consider these techniques:

  • Don’t work weekends or evenings - instead, utilize TAs to cover these contact times.
  • Be careful about answering late-night email, as it may create an expectation on the part of your students as to your availability.
  • Use your vacation time to fully disconnect. Arrange ahead-of-time to have TAs or others assist with student engagement while you are absent, and get away!
  • Weekend deadlines basically guarantee a need for weekend online presence (yours and your TAs’) for Q&A. Consider Weekday deadlines instead!
  • Consult with your fellow instructors for advice, and reach out to your supervisor if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Reflection: How can I maintain a healthy work/life balance?