Structured Course-Sites: Supporting Student Learning

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As a graduate student in Computer Engineering at NYU, I’ve had the privilege of learning from professors who do far more than just deliver lectures. I was lucky enough to be a student of professors whose teaching approaches reflected the will to teach and the efforts to ensure every student in class learns from the course. Having worked as a course assistant during my undergraduate studies also helped me to understand and appreciate the efforts taken by my professors at NYU. In this blog, I want to talk about one specific educational practice: a learner-centered course site. 

During my first semester at NYU, I took a Big Data class by Prof. Amit Patel. I remember how well he had organized all the content on the NYU Learning Management System, Brightspace from syllabus to class slides and project details. Personally, I like things when they are well organized. It makes it easier to access them and save time looking for them. The professor set clear expectations on what is expected from us during the course by adding every detail in the syllabus document and communicating his style of teaching. This helped to set the tone for the entire semester and we students never had any surprises. The course  felt structured, planned and specially curated for us. 

Since this course had assignments, a midterm exam and a final project, the professor made sure everything was timed correctly giving us ample time to prepare and work towards each coursework. After every task was released, the professor posted an announcement and emailed us the instructions of the task and the deadline to help us stay on track. The professor created discussion forums to stay connected over the week and addressed every issue we had. There were also separate discussion forums created for different topics such for ice-breaking, assignment discussions and one for the project. 

I particularly remember when the final project was released. We were supposed to work in a team. Since we only met once a week in-person, it was difficult to connect and discuss the project with team members via email. The professor and the TAs used a discussion forum to help us discuss and appeal for teammates with similar project ideas. It became really easy to find teammates and network with fellow classmates.

Brightspace is a great LMS tool for keeping all study materials organized in one place. During this course, I realized organization of the course content is a key aspect while learning. It took my mind off worrying whether the professor had shared a particular resource, where to find it, or how to access it. All the class slides, assignments, reference materials, and even discussion forums were neatly linked under the “Content” tab. The consistency and clarity maintained by the professor and TAs throughout the semester allowed me to focus more on learning and performing well, rather than on managing logistics.