Morning tea with the Subject Coordinator

How to do this 

1. Use your UTS email to access Zoom
2. Create a Zoom session and copy the link to the session to add to your Canvas course.
3. Create a new page and provide students with details about the purpose of the activity, for example:
   • Preparation for assessment tasks, such as demonstration of solving problems;
   • Q and A session related to an assessment task;
   • Review module topic and help make connections between all the learning activities within a module;
   • Focus on a topic that students find challenging or difficult to understand.

The activity can also be created within an existing page, like a Module Summary page.

If you have a teaching team, you could ask all tutors to join the Morning Tea session to ask questions, share examples of student work or monitor the chatbox.

What tools can you use? 

You can use the following technologies in this activity that are supported by UTS:

• Zoom
• Discussions on Canvas

When and where to use 

This activity is suitable before or after assessment tasks or at the end of each module for the following classes:

• Online learning
• Any cohort size

How long will it take? 

What research tells us 

Morning Tea with the Subject Coordinator is adopted from the work of Melrose, et al. (2013) on online teaching for health professionals. This learning activity can be undertaken in several ways within an online course for a variety of educational purposes. For example, students can access a pre-scheduled webinar session and take a role in asking questions or responding to an activity.

In another variation of this activity, the subject coordinator can invite students to join a ‘morning tea with the subject coordinator’ introductory forum. This can help encourage conversation and socialisation at the beginning of a session. On this forum, they post a brief profile describing themselves, their interests and why they are taking that particular course. Students are invited to comment on their peers’ postings.

References

• Melrose, S., Park, C., & Perry, B. (2013). Teaching health professionals online: frameworks and strategies. Athabasca University Press.