The Lark: Vol 4, Issue 5, August 2024

In July, the LLC Curriculum Committee conducted a survey of members who had coordinated courses over the past three sessions (fall 2023 through spring 2024). The intention of the survey was to provide new information for LLC coordinator training sessions.

About half of those surveyed responded, and the results were very helpful to the Curriculum Committee trainers.

Here is a summary of the results.

What Went Well/Less Well

When we asked coordinators what went well in their classes, the open-ended comments focused on the class’s enthusiastic participation, the quality of the conversations and discussions, and the degree of engagement.

When we asked them what went less well, the comments reflected concern about presentation quality (could be disappointing or uneven), participants skipping a lot of classes (enrolling for a class knowing they would miss a lot of classes), reluctant participants (forcing the coordinator to fill in those slots), and balancing class time between presentation and discussion.

When we asked them what one thing they would change if they were to offer the course again, there was a huge variety of comments. But the topic that came up most frequently was that they would work more on the quality of participant presentations—especially before classes start and at the beginning of class. This means being clear in the catalog description, stressing it more in written materials (including providing specifics guidelines) and in the first class, and working with presenters during the semester.

Technology

There didn’t seem to be any big issues here. Of the 35 respondents, only 11 had any kind of problems, and all but one were in the “a few problems but I could handle it” category.

Coordinating By Themselves or With Others

About a third of the respondents had coordinated their course by themselves (as a solo coordinator), and the rest with one or more coordinators. Of the solo coordinators, a little less than half liked coordinating alone and did not want to have a co-coordinator. About a quarter of the solo coordinators definitely would have liked a co-coordinator, and an equal amount thought they might want one—depending on the person. The biggest reasons for wanting a co-coordinator were for time management (whether Zoom or in-person), technology, backup (for vacations and unexpected issues), someone to just share the load, or someone to provide different feedback for participants (e.g. in painting or writing classes). So there are opportunities out there for those of you who aren’t ready to take on a course yourself, but would be willing to participate with a more experienced coordinator!

So how do co-coordinators divide up the tasks in a course?  While many people think of a main coordinator and a second person who primarily handles technology or class communication, this is not the most common model. 57% of the respondents who worked with a co-coordinator said that they all worked on the course together: sharing the responsibilities for content, communications, and technology as it made sense throughout the course.  The remaining respondents divided up the tasks with one person handling technology, or class activities, or managing Zoom participation, or class communication, or student feedback, or handouts/visuals.

In Conclusion

We also asked coordinators to respond to questions about our syllabus and coordinator kickoff workshops, but those results were of primary interest to the LLC Curriculum Committee training team, so they are not summarized here.