I have some similar thoughts brewing, and what I hope flows into a possible article for Hybrid Pedagogy about the mix of what a course has as structure and what you allow to have flexibility/improv and especially the power of having a narrative or metaphor in a course.

I had a great experience a few weeks ago teaching audio editing to a small group. I had a specific series of things I wanted to demonstrate, like an outline of 5-8 things I felt are important. But when the participants started asking questions, that were not what was in my list, I did not keep to the list as gospel; the session was maybe 80% made or done on the spot w/o knowing in advance what I was going to do. This is what musicians do often, there are the notes and there are things the fill in in the moment because it… fells right.

The last two times I taught ds106 and continuing into the You Show I’ve had a “theme” that plays out each week or unit. In 204 for an online course with students who were full time consultants, it was a “go to work” theme. The thing is that I end up spending a few hours each week producing these videos that are not course content. If students do not watch them, they are not coming up short.

Nearly all the course video I see is either lecture video or talking head trailers- it is nearly always driven by content, content, content.

Why would I spend time producing things that are not in the syllabus? Because in doing so I reflect and think about each week/unit in a different way then if I was “covering content”. I am thinking about a metaphor for the course, an arc of a story.

But it need not be performative, or showpersonship, there are the topical theme flavors Jim Groom uses for ds106 (The Wire last semester, Noir literature this time). It’s not so different from your typical Service Learning approach; a comp sci teacher at the university I am spending time now, where a capstone course is students producing a real software product or application for a client. Kevin says something like “if the software does not work, they don’t pass”.

I’m thinking like the games and simulations you have done, there are ways to create an overall course thread that is not just content.

Oops, I just rambled all over your blog. I’m just juggling a pile of ideas.