It is good practice to ask the students what they hope for the module. This will improve their SoB through a sense of ownership and indicates your interest in them. Of course, asking about their hopes then ignoring these will lead to alienation. If any hopes are inappropriate, it is wise to tell them immediately that this is not within the scope of the course. However, there are many ways you can take this information forward, even if your module is set to open all materials from day. You may respond by adding brief supplementary material for this group or that student, (naturally within the constraints of the module outcomes).

Hopefully declared hopes do align in the main to the outcomes and modalities of the module. If they don’t, you might want to revisit the information you give to students pre-registration.  Some may be beyond the scope of the module. Be honest. Some may be in the students’ individual scope, but may need your support. Some points may benefit from sharing with your team. You may want to revisit learners’ hopes at the end of the module, and ask them to reflect on if (and how) they have attained those hopes, where they haven’t, whether any unfulfilled hopes remain, and if so what they’ll do now.

Example: Rebecca asks the students to share their hopes and fears using Padlet[1] She invites them students to post hopes and fears for the module at the start of the module. She themes the comments, and records a short video with another member of the team to discuss these themes and how and if they will be addressed. She decides to leave the board open for people to add, amend or remove postings throughout the module. Her students commented they had found it particularly helpful to express their fears and to know that others had the same fears. Often these related to the technology, in response to which Rebecca was able to point to further resources available online.