Considering FINC 853 International Finance OnLine? Here are some sample teaching materials and experiences.

Note from Professor

Thanks for considering my course. To give you a flavor for the experience, some sample teaching and presentation materials are linked below. I also encourage you to look around in the Teaching Materials Grid linked to the main page, to be sure this is right for you. If you have questions, feel free to contact me.

When you check the course description, you will see that there are a number of OnLine Live Meetings for case discussions in this course. The Meetings will take place from 8 until 11 on seven Saturday mornings. The first of these is an initial (and important!) 'shakedown' meeting, to get all our connections straight. The other meetings are mostly to solve cases together. Registered students will receive details at their UD email address---check it! The TA will be trying to get in touch also, to help you get set up.

For Spring 2010, the dates of the seven Saturday morning OnLine Live Meetings are as follows: Feb 13 (Shakedown Session and Intro), March 6, April 17, April 24, May 1, May 8, May 15.

I expect students to "attend" all OnLine Live Meeting sessions. There is a makeup procedure available if one is missed; beyond that there will be a grade impact. In a case discussion course, attendance and active contribution are a central part of your learning and your contribution to your colleagues' learning.

To take this course, it is absolutely required that you obtain 1. a fast internet connection to which you are connected with a wire (not wireless) and 2. a microphone headset. The headset need not be fancy---you can grab one at Best Buy for about $25, for example. These requirements are so that you do not cause static or interference in our conference calls.

Sample Materials

• Course Description. This is the core plan and contract for the course, with all the rules of the road, topics, and activities listed. This does not include the access password for full course materials---this will be provided to registered students. 
• For weeks without OnLine Live Meetings, course materials are presented in online recorded form. Here are some examples materials, so you can get a feel for what these are like.
  • An OnLine Lecture. Some lectures are pre-recorded in this audio-slideshow format.        
  • An OnLine Whiteboard problem solving session. Pre-recorded in a format the combines slides and whiteboard text with commentary.  
  • An OnLine Whiteboard to extend a case discussion. Some more spontaneous presentations and discussions are presented in this way.
• What are the OnLine Live case discussion meetings like? Here is a recording of an example.
  • An archived audio-video recording of an OnLine Live case discussion. The actual discussion was handled live by conference call with desktop meeting software for visuals.

Student Opinions

• Here is a summary of teacher evaluation responses from Spring 2009 students for this course and my other courses.
• There was no on-campus section of this course available during the semester for which these evaluations apply, only the online section. This helps me to understand why students overall that the course went well and was valuable (i.e., rankings above the norm as compared to the Finance Department and the College), but that they were not as excited when asked about the distance-learning process. There were folks in the course who would have preferred to take the course in a physical classroom setting.
  • Please be sure you are ok with the idea of an online course if you register for my section.
  • UD has asked me to provide this as a distance course, so that's the way it is. I think I have made it just about as interactive as possible within that limit, but it is a limit.
  • We all get the additional learning that comes from working as a distance team, something that is increasingly the 'way of the world.;

Paul Laux, laux@udel.edu