In the leadup to the commencement of semester, most of my time was spent setting up teaching materials in Canvas, the new QUT learning management system. This was frustrating,
as there was
RR
quite a steep learning curve in getting to know the new system,
and I really
AF
hadn’t created a plan at the start
which might help
AR
guide me through the process.
I attended workshops that
EP
the university ran for staff, but
mostly I found them to be
NR
focused on the
EP
new interface, which didn’t really address my main problem:
how to transform
AR
my materials into a format compatible with the new faculty Canvas template. A considerable amount of time was spent
trying to get
AF
a
handle on the
EP
huge amount of content that was copied from blackboard. To help staff, this copy
of previous content was done
RR
automatically, and while this probably helped with units
that were mostly powerpoint
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slides and lecture and tutorial materials, this was not helpful for me as much of my content resided in Jupyter notebooks. At the time, I did
not realise that
EP
I was focusing on
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structural issues rather
than on the
EP
main unit content. This
is something that I can
NR
change for the same process next semester.
I should be able to
AF
make this process easier by separating the content from the structural form of the unit, and plan sub-tasks for both.
I intend to try
AR
this for next semester.
Another significant frustration was
the need to
EP
adapt my previous assessment to
fit nicely with the
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Canvas way
of doing
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things. I wasn’t expecting to have
to change
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my assessment at all, but in the end, I made quite a few
changes to help
AR
the assessment fit into the new style. This was time consuming and annoying at the time, but ultimately I’m glad that I commited to doing it
rather that putting
EP
it off. A downside of this is that the changes
meant that quite a
EP
lot of previous video material was now subtly different, and really needed re-recording during the unit – something that I was hoping to avoid. This cascade of changes nearly
drove me crazy in
RR
the early part of the unit,
but now that
EP
I
’m
EP
aware of it, I can
plan to
AR
minimise it next semester. I also
plan to
AR
do this by focusing on unifying the main aspects of the unit and drawing heavily
on what I
NR
I have done
RR
this semester. Keeping the consistency not only makes it easy for me in making the changes, it
should also make the
EP
units easier for tutors and also for students – particularly those moving from undergrad to post grad.
Despite being a very frustrating period, I can certainly treat these challenges as learning experiences. This won’t be the last
time that significant
EP
change is forced upon me, so I need
to take advantage
NR
of what I have
learnt in future
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. In particular, it will
probably help to spend
AR
time at the beginning of a challenge to identify the difference between structural and content tasks, and plan processes for dealing with both effectively.