Packback exists to awaken the fearless curiosity in your students because we believe that great innovation is born out of great questions therefore, curiosity and exploring the application and extension of the current topics is a good thing!
Feature a student post
A great way to guide a topic of conversation in your community is to highlight student work that is highly representative of the current course topic by featuring their post or simply bringing it up in your class! This is a great way for other students to see what you’re expecting from them as far as the topical focus of their discussions. You can find instructions on how to go about featuring a students’ post in this article: How to Feature a Post
Pin your own post
Although professors do not have to post their own questions every week, we understand that sometimes instructors may want to guide their community discussions so students won’t stray away from the current topics. So, as an optional choice professors are encouraged to pin a “question "of their own. This would be beneficial in many ways such as:
- Setting the tone for or leading the week’s discussion.
- An opportunity to provide an exemplar question so students have something to respond to OR so students understand “quality” through the lens of that course.
- An opportunity to share an article, video, or chunk of information to students if they run out of time in a lecture or class
- Simply just to set expectations/and or instructions.
You can find instructions on how to go about pinning a students’ post in this article: How to Pin a Post
Guide topics by keeping your topic heading broad. (ex. Chapters 1 and 2.) If you get too specific students won’t know what questions to ask and will repeat each other. (see professor examples below)
Set the tone for or lead the week’s discussion:
Simply provide an exemplar question so students have something to respond to OR so students understand what is expected from them in terms of “quality”.
Share an article, video, or chunk of information to students if they ran out of time in lecture or class:
Set expectations (instructions):