Updates

teach_online/intro.md

@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ Source Code: [`teach_online/intro.md`](https://github.com/niemasd/How-to-Teach-O
 ```
 
 Welcome to *How to Teach Online*!
-This is an online training module to provide instructors guidance in developing and offering fully-online and hybrid courses.
+This is an online training module that aims to provide instructors guidance in developing and offering fully-online and hybrid courses.
 Even instructors of in-person courses with online components
 (e.g. discussion board, online assessments, etc.)
 might find some useful information!

teach_online/modalities.md

@@ -22,11 +22,11 @@ and we will dive into specific components in later chapters.
 While it might seem strange for a resource titled *How to Teach Online* to begin with a discussion about fully in-person instruction,
 we wanted to start things off with what is typically the most "traditional" modality of instruction that readers might be most familiar with.
 In a fully in-person class,
-all core instruction occurs in physically within the classroom.
+all core instruction occurs physically within the classroom.
 By definition, fully in-person instruction is synchronous:
 the instructor and the students physically meet at a lecture hall or classroom,
 and the core instruction occurs synchronously during this in-person meeting time.
-Of course, instructors of a fully in-person course can choose to include some component of asynchronous learning,
+Of course, instructors of a fully in-person course can choose to include some amount of asynchronous learning,
 such as having students read/watch materials and solve problems asynchronously before class in a
 {term}`Flipped Classroom` framework {cite:p}`bishop_flipped_2013,akcayir_flipped_2018,compeau_establishing_2019`,
 but the core instructor-to-student interactions still occur synchronously in-person during class time.
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ it relies on an entire class of students to physically come to the classroom at
 A myriad of issues can prevent students from physically coming to class:
 illness, family/work obligations, social/personal life issues, commute challenges, etc.
 {cite:p}`gersten_barriers_2023,salguero_understanding_2021`.
-Even factors as small as not wanting to wake up early can be a non-trivial barrier to coming to class
+Even factors as small as not wanting to wake up early can be non-trivial barriers to physically coming to class
 (and a student's definition of "early" might differ dramatically from an instructor's!).
 
 Another key limitation of fully in-person instruction is that it does not scale well:
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ but these methods typically require significant staff resources at scale.
 In contrast to fully in-person instruction,
 a class can be structured in a fully online modality.
 Specifically, in a fully online class,
-all interactions occur online:
+*all* interactions occur online:
 there are no in-person interactions whatsoever.
 Unlike with fully in-person instruction,
 in which all core instruction is by definition synchronous,
@@ -110,13 +110,13 @@ For example, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic,
 due to travel restrictions placed by various countries' governments,
 my classes had students from literally all over the world.
 This made synchronous online learning somewhat tricky,
-but by having my instructional team provide Office Hours all day
+but by having my instructional team provide Office Hours all throughout the day
 (this was a benefit of my massive class sizes:
-massive classes = massive instructional team = plenty of Office Hours to spread across the day),
+massive enrollment = massive instructional team = plenty of Office Hours to spread throughout the day),
 meaning any student had at least some Office Hours during reasonable waking hours of their day.
 Less extreme than the global shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic,
 as described earlier,
-students may have a difficult time making it to a physical classroom on campus due to many reasons,
+students may have difficulties coming to a physical classroom on campus due to many reasons,
 and online instruction (even synchronous) reduces the barrier to entry for these students.
 
 Even beyond the flexibility with regard to physical location that is enjoyed by online instruction in general,
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ students can interact with the course in a way that fits into their own unique s
 This can be critical for engaging students with other significant time constraints
 (e.g. family/work obligations).
 It can also enable flexibility with regard to class scheduling
-(e.g. being able to enroll in classes that have conflicting synchronous times if asynchronous options are available for one),
+(e.g. being able to enroll in classes that have conflicting synchronous times if asynchronous options are available),
 which could prevent delays in coursework and reduce time-to-degree.
 
 (modalities-of-instruction-fully-online-the-bad)=

teach_online/preface.md

@@ -7,15 +7,15 @@ Source Code: [`teach_online/preface.md`](https://github.com/niemasd/How-to-Teach
 
 Thank you for reading *How to Teach Online*!
 Whether you are a seasoned instructor or new to teaching,
-we hope you will learn some useful information that you will be able to incorporate into your own teaching!
+we hope you will learn some useful information that you will be able to incorporate into your classes!
 This resource will be broken down into individual sections focused on specific aspects of online teaching.
 We will try to provide multiple examples for each topic,
 and we will try to comment on feasibility and usefulness in the context of different disciplines,
 as some techniques and tools may lend themselves better to some types of courses than to others.
 
 (preface-about)=
 ## About
-My name is [Niema Moshiri](https://github.com),
+My name is [Niema Moshiri](https://niema.net),
 and I am an Associate Teaching Professor in the [Computer Science & Engineering Department](https://cse.ucsd.edu)
 at the [University of California, San Diego (UCSD)](https://ucsd.edu).
 I work on computational biology,
@@ -30,19 +30,18 @@ awarded to me (PI) and Karen Flammer (co-PI) by the
 [University of California Office of the President (UCOP)](https://www.ucop.edu/):
 *An Online Training Module to Provide Instructors Guidance in Developing and Offering Fully Online and Hybrid Courses*.
 
-This is an open source Jupyter Book {cite:p}`executable_books_community_jupyter_2020`
-project that has been released under the
-[GNU General Public License (GPL) v3.0](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html) license.
+This is an open source [Jupyter Book](https://jupyterbook.org/) {cite:p}`executable_books_community_jupyter_2020` project
+that has been released under the [GNU General Public License (GPL) v3.0](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html).
 
 (preface-disclaimer)=
 ## Disclaimer
 
 This resource was written by a single person,
 and while I strived to gain insights from as many folks across disciplines as possible,
-everything written in this module has my own biases and should be taken with a grain of salt.
+everything written in this resource has my own biases and should be taken with a grain of salt.
 Further, the technologies and techniques I describe may go out-of-date in the future,
 so please keep in mind current evidence-based best practices as well as modern tooling.
-Rather than treating this module as a *de facto* set of instructions for online teaching,
+Rather than treating this resource as a *de facto* set of instructions for online teaching,
 think of it more as a repository of many (hopefully) useful tips that you can pull pieces of to incorporate into your own teaching.
 
 (preface-contribute)=

teach_online/spicy_takes.md

@@ -115,8 +115,8 @@ and then sharing them all in a central organized repository.
 (niemas-spicy-takes-automate-everything)=
 ## Automate EVERYTHING!
 
-I was torn between this should be a [Spicy Take](#niemas-spicy-takes) or a [General Tip](#general-tips),
-but I think just spicy enough to leave here.
+I was torn between whether this should be a [Spicy Take](#niemas-spicy-takes) or a [General Tip](#general-tips),
+but I think this take is just spicy enough to leave here.
 In general,
 I am strongly of the opinion that,
 when running a course,
@@ -129,7 +129,45 @@ if there are any points that you have to manually enter throughout the course,
 try to write a program to help automate the process
 (e.g. I have written [programs to help me migrate points](https://github.com/niemasd/teaching)
 from [Ed](https://edstem.org) to my [Canvas](https://canvas.instructure.com) gradebook).
-TODO
+
+My rationale is that,
+beyond the obvious benefit of reducing the potential for human error,
+human time of the instructional staff is critical to student learning.
+Even with impressive advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) such as [ChatGPT](https://chat.openai.com/),
+computers are (currently) unable to feel empathy.
+Members of a course's instructional staff are not just sources of information:
+if that were the case,
+all educational institutions would have become obsolete with the introduction of the textbook hundreds of years ago.
+Members of a course's instructional staff are useful *in part* due to the information they know,
+but their primary utility in learning is their ability to reflect on their past experiences as humans:
+they can connect with students struggling with concepts they too struggled with in the past,
+and they can teach advanced concepts in a way that draws on how they personally connect the concepts with the world.
+
+As such,
+my spicy take on this front is the following:
+any human time that is spent on tasks that can be performed by a computer in an automated fashion is a waste of time:
+*all* human time across the instructional staff (or at least as much as possible)
+should be allocated towards interacting with students in some way.
+In the courses that I teach,
+I hire undergraduate instructional assistants at 8 hour/week appointments that are broken down as follows:
+
+* 0.5 hours/week for a weekly staff meeting (e.g. discussing upcoming assignments, asking about common issues seen in office hours, etc.)
+* 1.5 hours/week to prepare for their office hours (e.g. review the upcoming assignment write-up and solution, review concepts, etc.)
+* 6 hours/week holding office hours (e.g. helping students debug their code, answering student questions, working on problems with students, etc.)
+
+Coupled with strict guidelines regarding how many members of the instructional staff can hold office hours at the same time
+(e.g. only 1 person at any given time when there are no upcoming deadlines,
+and up to 5 people at any given time the day before an assignment deadline),
+I am able to provide office hour coverage every single day of the week (including weekends!),
+with typical coverage spanning 9 AM through 9 PM.
+As a result, *any* student should be able to find *some* office hour time that fits into their schedule,
+regardless of work/family obligations, time zone (in the case of online classes), etc.
+Of course,
+many of these office hours go underutilized,
+but I think that's a very reasonable trade-off for the safety net that this structure provides all students
+(I also combat underutilized office hours by having my instructional staff members test my automated grading systems,
+respond to posts on the discussion board,
+and perform other helpful tasks when there are no students in their office hours).
 
 (niemas-spicy-takes-glossary)=
 ## Glossary