Zero Week

Since this is the first entry in this new blog on instructional design, I figure we should start with what Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt call "zero week".

Anyone that has taken any class anywhere has probably had this experience: on the first day of class, the instructor tells everyone to take turns standing up and telling the rest of the class their name, goal for the class, and favorite food. The name part is easy. For the goal, you want the instructor to think you actually care about the subject and aren't in the class just because it is a required course so rather than giving the truthful "I just want to pass" you tell everyone how you wish to learn all about <insert boring subject here>. Finally, for your favorite food, even though you know the instructor just threw this one in there as a fun ice-breaker, you end up over-thinking it. You want to say pizza, because really that is every red-blooded American's favorite food, but you don't want the rest of the class thinking your idea of fine dining is Pizza Hut, so you frantically try to think of something fancier. You can't say lobster or caviar, because you don't want the class thinking you're a rich snob, so you start thinking of some article you may have recently read and remember that quinoa is popular right now. So you say that your favorite food is quinoa, but you end up mispronouncing it and the class is laughing at you anyways. Time to go over the syllabus.

After that embarrassment, you enroll in an online course thinking that you are safe, but you didn't know about zero week. Zero week is a term to describe the first week of class (realistically it is week 1) in an online course. Like the first day of class in a traditional face-to-face class, zero week is all about introductions, getting to know each other, setting goals, and going over expectations for the course. This process is as important in an online course as it is in a face-to-face one.

There are many activities that can be done during zero week. One that I found on this site involves having students use VoiceThread to share their fantasy superhero name and power. It is an activity that is fun, creative, and provides all the psychology majors something to over-analyze. Have an activity you like to do during zero week? Feel free to share.

Reference

Palloff, Rena M., and Keith Pratt. Building online learning communities: effective strategies for the virtual classroom. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007. Print.