Bootcamp Course Outline

1. Introduction

The purpose of FLO Bootcamp is to support BC post-secondary educators to review and tweak an existing online course.  

The approach is meant to be “surgical”, i.e., specific, applied, and practical. Bootcamp does not cover everything, nor even everything that is important about online course design and facilitation.  But it WILL help you get in front of the problems we have heard about MOST often, particularly lately. Bootcamp was created as a response to COVID, but it’s ultimately about good online course design and facilitation practice generally.  

Bootcamp is designed to provide a variety of supports within a very flexible structure on a few specific course design issues. Central is the idea of completing individual challenges that are to be applied immediately to your course. We also aim to sneak in a variety of tools and ways to do things in case you want to pick any of those up along the way. 

There are scheduled, synchronous events each day for those who like to gather to ask and answer questions and discuss issues with other smart colleagues. 

Besides a brief daily check-out post, nothing is required, per se, but we assume you are here to work - it's a Bootcamp, after all! 

2. Outcomes

By the end of Bootcamp, participants will have:

• conducted a critical review of the learning design of a course of their choice
• considered underlying strategies for assessing learning and made improvements where possible
• explored pedagogically sound alternatives for lecturing live online
• reflected on ways course design can be more or less inclusive of diverse student needs 
• considered the role of technology and how it is used in a course
• hopefully, had some fun!
  

3. Bootcamp Overview

Bootcamp is organized around 4 main themes and work (1 per day):

1. Scan (your course, fearlessly, through a few key lenses) and Plan (your Bootcamp work) 
2. Lectures (& alternatives)
3. Assessments - assignments, exams, etc.
4. Online Presence & Engagement

And each day more or less includes these activities:

• Daily Bugle a message, posted to the Announcements forum (which also emails you). This includes a reminder of "what's on" today, and usually a funny tidbit or two.
• Daily Warm-up - this is a short, fun individual activity designed to get you going and give you exposure to some new ideas and tools to try in your course
• Challenges - each day has 1 or more challenges that correspond to the theme. The idea is you will work individually on your own challenge and apply it to your course.
• Morning session - 10:00am Pacific. Depending on the day, this will be more or less structured - one day it will be a live demo or presentation, and another day it will be drop-in time office hours for anyone who wants to connect and get help. BYO Coffee!
• Daily Debrief - 4:00pm Pacific. This is another drop-in time to get help and connect with others. BYO Beverage
• Daily Check out - This is a brief individual activity to be posted any time your Bootcamp day ends.