Here are some resources for instructors looking to adapt their Winter 2022 courses to be online until Jan 24 (and robust in terms of when we actually do return to in-person.)
Course delivery in first three weeks:
- In Math you *are* allowed to have synchronous lectures at the scheduled class times
- For live meetings, use interactive tools (ask questions for students to answer in chat, use polls, Kahoot, etc) to engage students. If all you are doing is lecturing with no interaction, it might as well be a video.
- If available, could use videos from previous terms as an additional resource
- If you are worried about students missing key knowledge or skills from a pre-requisite course, consider providing review material or a self-graded review quiz to make your expectations clear about what they should alread know
Course delivery once back in person:
- Great idea to continue using past videos for content delivery and doing active learning in class (see blog post "Will It Blend")
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You are NOT required to teach both online and in person once in person classes resume. Options for students who cannot make classes (due to circumstances beyond their control) could include:
- encouraging them to get notes from a classmate, ask questions during office hours, post on discussion board
- providing videos from a previous term
- providing livestreams or recordings of this term's lectures (only if you want to, it is not required)
Contingency plans if we can’t go back on Jan 24:
- You can have multiple options for how much assessments are worth as well as what the assessments are, based on whether you are online or in person
- One idea for the weighting of assessments is to have points that each assessment is worth (could be different if the assessment is online vs in person) and then the total mark will be divided by the total number of possible points. That way you don't have to enumerate all possible return dates.
- The Resilient Course Design CTE page has some great ideas
Assessments:
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We've learned a lot about different ways to assess students - use some of those tools (authentic tasks, reflections on learning, diagnostic and formative assessments, etc) regardless of the mode of delivery
- link to video with suggestions
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In Math you *are* allowed to have synchronous tests during scheduled class times (LEC or TUT or TST)
- It is a good idea to provide extra time (more time than you think they will need) for students to scan and upload their responses. E.g. if the test is 50 minutes, provide 15 minutes to upload (and then an additional 5 minutes of grace where you won’t mark it late – that will cut down on emails!)
- It also might be useful to have a live meeting during the test that students can jump into if they have technical problems.
- To cut down on technology issues, make the test something that can be worked on even if the students' internet goes down (e.g. something all on one page, or that they can save the questions, rather than needing constant internet.) Have a suggested course of action in case of technical issues, e.g. continue working, take a photo of the completed work when the test ends (photos have timestamps that can be checked) and then send the files to a designated person when they are able.
- My personal opinion (not representing UW) is that proctoring software is just another thing that can go wrong and causes unnecessary stress for students while still not being fool-proof.
- Oral exams can be a great way to get a good sense of the depth of students' knowledge and can work very well in small classes
Other resources:
- Lots of great advice at the Keep Learning website
- CEL Agile Support Teams can help too
- Please feel free to reach out to me at any time if you would like any help or ideas! Best of luck!
