Extended deadline for Spring offer decisions to March 30

This message was originally sent to employees by Catherine Newell-Kelly, Registrar. It was thoroughly vetted and endorsed by:

• Associate Vice-President, Academic 
• Associate Vice-President, Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs 
• Faculty Associate Deans, Undergraduate 
• Faculty Associate Deans, Graduate 

• We have extended the date any changes to Spring course offerings due to the RO to Monday, March 30, 2020

As we move into the Spring Term and many of you adapt to new ways of delivering courses, I want to give some guidance and information to instructors based on my 21 years spent supporting the delivery of courses to distant learners. In two decades, the technologies that support these approaches continue to change quickly – and there are terrific experts on campus to support you.

Observations on best practice

Thinking about learning delivered online means we need to think differently about schedules. Teaching remotely and, most importantly, asynchronously gives students far more agency over use of their time on a day to day, even week to week basis.

The biggest change from the normal way of thinking about course schedules is a move away from big chunks of time spent together in class. Mainly, it means we need to abandon familiar ideas around three hours per week, 12 weeks per term, culminating in a high-stakes final exam.

Instructors should focus on:

• what the key outcomes of the course are,
• how students can achieve and demonstrate those outcomes, and
• how to deliver in consumable – short, flexible – chunks.

Teaching in this environment often means milestones are typically assessment due dates. These assessments may be weekly low-stakes quizzes, or monthly assignment submissions. Bear in mind that assessment milestones should never be as frequent as daily. This is even more important in our current climate where life is full of unanticipated twists and turns for everyone.

Like many of you, some students are dealing with a learning environment that may now include young siblings running around or a sick family member. And internationally, the time zones are different and internet connectivity may be sporadic. Even domestically, internet connections can be a challenge.

To reassure you: no one expects that you will be delivering a high-production value online course in seven weeks. That type of project takes months, a team, and several hundred hours of effort.

Our collective focus needs to remain on delivering a high-quality learning experience for our students. Many campus partners are available to help you develop these experiences.

There are great resources available to assist you. We are fortunate at the University of Waterloo in that we have significant depth of experience and expertise in teaching at a distance and teaching with technology. CTE, CEL, IST-ITMS, and the Library are realigning and coordinating their efforts to support instructors. For the past two weeks, these supports have focused on helping Winter term instructors make ad hoc plans to complete the current term. They are now pivoting to provide support—pedagogical, technical, practical—to help instructors plan for the Spring term.

There are many openly available materials and applications that you may also be able to leverage, which have the advantage of being well designed packages that are typically free of charge and easy to grab. The Keep Learning website has lots of information and resources to help you. We will update this site regularly in the coming days with Spring-specific advice.

Deadlines

• *NEW* Monday, March 30 – extended date for any changes to Spring course offerings due to the RO; consideration should also be given to course limits and whether these need to change
• Monday, May 11 – classes begin; requests for proctored exam due to the RO

Changes to the Schedule of Classes

• We will not have a traditional schedule for courses for Spring 2020 with the possible exception of some CLIN and PRA courses. With students living around the world and coping with different life circumstances, the concept of a schedule does not make much sense. Time zone differences alone make a schedule untenable.
• The RO will be removing all time slots and room bookings from our student Schedule of Classes and adding “online” to all but some CLIN and PRA courses.

Course delivery

• Your entire class will very likely not be able to be present – or tune in – at a specific day and time. We strongly encourage asynchronous delivery.
• If you are committed to providing ‘live stream’ learning for your course, you must use a technology and approach that allows you to record this for later viewing by those who were not able to participate because of timing, technology limitations, or other responsibilities. Communicate your plans to your class as you go.

Final Assessment Week

• The normal two-week ‘exam period’ has been reduced to one week, August 7 - 15.
• Final grades will be due August 7 - 25
• You are strongly encouraged to consider assessments that do not require proctoring or having every student take the exam at the same time (which would be nearly impossible for many courses). Consider multiple, lower-stakes assessments throughout the term.
• Please note that the only mechanism we have available for a proctored exam is to use online remote proctoring. This is a third-party service where proctors watch individual students via webcam—several at a time—supported by AI to detect anomalous actions or keystrokes. This is a very expensive service. Please check the Keep Learning website for more information and guidance on alternatives to proctored exams.

I am extremely proud to be part of the University of Waterloo community where we all want the same thing: success for our students. We’re all in this together and will support one another to the best of our abilities. The RO and all our campus partners are here to help—please let us know how, and we’ll try.