The
wider the range of courses offered by the university
and the more fields of study offered, the more diverse
the student make-up will often be for a new and/or experimental
interdisciplinary course. Therefore, this leaves instructors
with a quandary—should they teach to a simple
level that all students will be able to understand,
or move ahead quickly into advanced work that may well
leave many of the students behind when it diverges from
their prior academic training and experience?
As someone who is continually
experimenting with my course designs and with my approaches
toward teaching about emerging media technologies and
theories, I face these questions
anew at the start of every new academic year. The
key to successful instruction in these kind of courses
is to find a common element that not only joins the
many disciplines under review and in class use, but
that also supports the expertise of the instructor and
is something with which most of the students will be
familiar.
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