Denise Cruz

Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature; Office of the Provost Spring 2020 Innovative Course Design awardee

Professor Denise Cruz shares how she transformed the online lectures in her Asian American Literature course to maximize student engagement. 

In Fall of 2020, I taught a lecture course in Asian American literature to over 100 students in a (mostly) synchronous online format.*

At first I wondered how I would replicate an in person lecture. But then I began to ask myself, “What if the goal weren’t replication?” What if lecture could instead be more engaging, more student-centered, more dynamic? 

*About 20 percent of my students had to attend class asynchronously because of time zone or other issues.