This update is provided for archival purposes only.

Public Health guidance and University of Waterloo operations may have changed. For the most up-to-date information, please visit our COVID-19 frequently asked questions.

Notes on instruction during COVID-19 distance learning

Thursday, April 2, 2020

This message was originally sent to instructors by David DeVidi, associate vice-president, academic, and Jeff Casello, associate vice-president, graduate and postdoctoral affairs.


Following the Provost’s message earlier today, we wanted to tell you about some coordination of information and supports the University is providing to instructors who are learning to deal with remote instruction.

Firstly, as you prepare for your spring course delivery, we want to emphasize a few points.

By remote instruction, we do not mean that we expect all courses to include the advanced technical elements of the fully online courses developed with the support of the Centre for Extended Learning. Such courses take months to prepare even with expert support. Most instructors do not have the time, expertise, or CEL support to create such a course between now and the start of Spring Term.

That, however, does not mean that students cannot have learning experiences in your courses that rise to the high standards the University of Waterloo delivers. By focusing on what the key learning objectives of your course are and the mechanisms you have available to allow students to achieve them, you can ensure that your course contributes what it should to the education of your students.

We are launching a new teaching and learning support team

Due to increased demand for teaching and learning support, the University is taking steps to coordinate supports and provide a single point of contact. The Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE), Centre for Extended Learning (CEL), Instructional Technologies and Media Services (IST-ITMS), and the Library have formed a Teaching and Learning Support Team.

The team offers useful advice for instructors on the Keep Learning website. The site is regularly updated with resources about how to do remote teaching successfully. Here is what they sent in response to our request for their top three tips for remote teaching:

  1. Design courses that will work when you and all your students are in different locations and potentially different time zones and minimize reliance on synchronous activities that you are used to in face-to-face courses. High production standards (e.g., like CEL online courses) are not expected.
  2. Most assessments will be open book, so focus on enabling students to do more than demonstrate past learning and adopt assessments that encourage them to synthesize and extend their learning.
  3. Use educational technologies that are supported centrally or by your Faculty so you can get help and your students are exposed to fewer different technologies, which will help to maximize their success and reduce their cognitive load – remote courses will be a new experience for many students in the spring term.

Please also remember to rely upon one another for ideas, guidance and support during this period. Colleagues in academic departments will be a valuable resource during this period. In fact, we’d like to recommend a personal experience from James Skidmore that he shared in the Daily Bulletin this week.

A new help contact for course design, teaching and more is coming

Instructors will be able to request course design, teaching strategy, or course reserves assistance through a centralized help contact which will be up and running later this week.

Our goal is to forward questions directly to someone who can provide the support you need, whether it’s a CTE liaison, a CEL consultant, a Librarian, or someone in another support unit such as the Writing and Communication Centre, AccessAbility Services, or Retail Services. Details will be posted on the Keep Learning website.

Technical support questions should continue to be sent through learnhelp@uwaterloo.ca.

By combining the expertise of these units, instructors will have access to practical and timely support as they plan courses that provide a positive student learning experience during this challenging time.

Repository of Communications to Instructors

In recent weeks instructors have received many communications from: a variety of sources. To help you keep track of these communications and resources we have set up a repository on the COVID-19 website. You will find both the central communications to instructors as well as messages from the Faculty in which you are teaching.