Source of the activity:
Action Learning Workshop, Weber University, Utah (May 2019)

Brief description of the activity:
At the start of a face-to-face course, I like to start with an exercise, not the course outline. Supply chain courses are a mystery to most students so my goal is to provide a fun and interesting introduction to me and the course. I aim to explore the course topics and introduce concepts to the students. I also try to encourage students to meet and interact with each other and start to get to know me. The exercise varies by course.

How this activity will fit with my teaching practice:
Since I am not engaged in online course development it will be difficult to actually create and do one of these exercises in my online courses. After reading about social presence and understanding that I want try to engage with students to help them engage in my courses I’ve decided I can try to create small lessons to support their learning in the course. I can also set up an all about me reference for the students.

Helpful resources or links:
I have exercises already and can contact my colleague for some of his exercises that I may want to modify.

Specific ‘next steps’ for how I intend to use this activity:
I can try to make some mini-exercises to provide to students at the start of the course to introduce the topic similar to those I use in face-to-face classes. I’ll make the all about me reference first.