The multi-lesson "Best Class/Worst Class" project provides a way for students and professor to set expectations for course performance collaboratively, while simultaneously modeling productive online interaction strategies. Students become more aware of their own learning process and the processes of those with whom they will be working, creating necessary bridges to successful collaboration. In addition, students are able to develop practical skills in navigating the online environment before being tasked with heavily-weighted course components.This project is designed to be implemented alongside discipline-specific course content. 

"Comedy, that most elastic literary and performance mode, skewers artifact, topples authority, and reverses expectations, not with the fatal outcomes of tragedy but with laughter and festivity. This class examines both deep roots and current forms of comedy, with a particular focus on comic insubordination. And food.

We will revel in Greek, Roman, and Shakespearean drama; explore Aphra Behn's eighteenth-century feminist rakes and sexual adventurers in "The Rover," investigate social satire in Jane Austen, Herman Melville, and Oscar Wilde; peek under the covers of small-town family life in Alison Bechdel's "Fun Home"; and probe the uneasy relationship between farce and romantic love, violence and redemptive humor, satire and festivity in comic art. Discussion will draw on examples of popular and contemporary forms, including film and sketch comedy.

A guide for online instructors and instructional designers on best practices for using simulations in online courses.