Dr. Steven L. Berg--Home Page

Film (ENG 200)
Spring 2007

My favorite part of the course was:

Watching the movies that we had to analyze.
Learning about the different aspects and different types of movies. I found a new appreciation for all the inner workings of movies and even a new found pleasure in watching international films.
I really liked being able to choose the films that I wanted to evaluate. I felt like that was my way of puting my own spin on the class. I also really liked that the instructor made an obvious effort to make himself available to us all day long.... not just during office hours. I could email him anytime during the day and he would respond quickly. Thank you!!
Getting timely feedback from the instructor. I have experienced online classes when the teacher did not give any informational instruction, but Professor Berg went out of his way to give feedback wholly as a class and individually.
evaluating movies
Getting a new perspective on movies and the parts that make up the movie.
learning to appreciate films and learning the significance of almost everything that goes into them.
My favorite part of the class was watching the movies in enjoy and doing projects related off of them.

If I were going to recommend a modification in the course before Dr. Berg teaches it again, it would be:

don't change the due dates
Everything was pretty self explanitory. It just took some getting used to for me because it was my first online class. I think there were plenty of resources made available for us to use (ie - hyperlinks, reading material etc) and it was always very clear what we had to get done because the module assignments were the same every week... there were no dramatic changes in homework assignments. That made it easy to improve my grade each week because I got to see what needed to be improved from the week before.
clarification on 2 part modules.
Less strict grading for the discussion board. Make it more of a free assignment by giving the students more freedom of how what they post. Give more options of what kinds of posts they should give than actaully needed, then they can present their posts in any creative way they see fit.
Don't really have one. For a 7 week class, he did a great job, especially with the amount of material.
To be a little more clear on what he's asking from the students. I would like him to be a little more precise on what he expects from us.
It was sometimes difficult to be able to locate certain information in the postings like information on assignments when it was need. Having a seperate discussion board for final projects issues, and general issues helped. Often, people were asking the same questions over again. If somehow, the discussion board could be a little more focused on particular assignments it might make it a little easier.

Other comments I have about Dr. Berg or the course are:

I think that you should meet your class every semester like you did for us to watch "Freaks." It was nice to meet you and discuss the movie so I could get a feel for what this class would be like.
He had a very structured online display that included learning modules which were extremely helpful.
Great course, very understanding professor.
Great 8 weeks.
None really. Thank you for the entertaining class. take care of yourself.
Overall I enjoyed the class
I personally am not a "movie" person. I expected this class to be very boring for me for that reason. The truth is I have learned to appreciate films because I have learned that in addition to top line entertainment, there is a lot going on; in fact I have learned that there is a lot that I am able to learn from movies.