As more colleges and universities suspend in person classes or make plans to, faculty are left with the overwhelming prospect of continuing to teach in a new modality, while many of these faculty have limited or no experience teaching in distance education. Join 3 experienced instructional designers who have supported the transition to distance learners for hundreds of faculty in the University of Maine System as we share some practical and uplifting advice for how to make decisions about what to do with your course. Our hope is that you will leave this session with a clear understanding of what your next steps should be, a sense of calm and confidence, and some practical strategies for how to make the transition and where to find the resources you need.
First,
take a deep breath. With all of the anxiety surrounding the spread of COVID-19,
it’s easy to get overwhelmed and panic about how you will make it through the
semester. Remember what your goal is: to share your passion about your subject
with learners and help them meet your course objectives. You can still do this
even with disruptions to your schedule and meeting format and I will share some
suggestions with you here to do just that. It all begins with your goals.
Goals
Look back at your course objectives and student learning outcomes in your syllabus. What have your students already met? What remains to be addressed? Is there any flexibility with how these are met? Try not to get too hung up on following what you had planned for activities and assignments, as these are means to an end. You want to reach the same end but adjusting to distance learning will require perhaps rethinking the means. For each of those course objectives, you developed a strategy in your syllabus for meeting them by planning instructional activities, assignments, and assessments. Let’s look at how we can tweak that strategy.
In the table below, I have listed some common instructional purposes
with traditional activities for meeting these goals in class, as well as some
options for meeting these same objectives at a distance. This is not an
exhaustive list but is meant to get your creative instructional juices flowing.
As you will see, you likely are already doing some of the activities in the
distance option columns, so no need to worry about entering a foreign land.
Just begin where you are comfortable, and maybe try one or two new things.
Comparing In-Person and Remote Learning Activities
Instructional Need
In
Class Activities
Synchronous
Distance Options in Zoom
Asynchronous
Distance Options
Assessing and/or activating prior knowledge
Entrance tickets: Ask students to write down what they already know about the topic
Have a conversation about what students may know
Review earlier content/connections
Screen share a prompt or question while you wait for students to log in
Ask about previous knowledge in chat, for students to respond to
Create a guiding question or prompt before the content to help student contextualize
Create a checklist or a short video or text reminder of what was previously covered
Introduce students to content
Lecture
Presentation
Demonstration or whiteboard work
Reading
Lecture via Zoom
Screen share to present your PowerPoint
Use white boarding in Zoom or a document camera, and pen & paper
Read a passage over Zoom
Record an audio recording in 5-10 minute increments
Post written lecture notes
Create a presentation video
Add worksheets, or create a short video demonstrating a process
Assign Reading
Formative assessments and checking for understanding
Check faces for understanding
Clickers/Student response systems
Pop quizzes or quick-writes
Live survey
Use gallery view see student faces
Open “Manage Participants” to allow thumbs up/down for understanding
Use the poll tool in Zoom
Create a quiz in Google Forms for live results
Ask students to submit at least 2 questions they still have
Create a quiz in the LMS or in Google Forms
Student ability to engage with instructor and ask clarifying questions
Students raise hands
Students enter a question in the Chat panel
Open “Manage Participants” to allow the Raise Hand feature
Create a Q&A discussion forum in the LMS
Create a norm for students to reach out via email or messaging tool with questions
Give students a # to text with questions
Students exchange ideas with peers, engage in collaboration, reflect on content, and make connections with personal experience
Large or small group discussion
Pair and Share
Collaborative group assignment
Written responses or short projects
Large group discussion (be sure to review communication norms)Breakout rooms in Zoom
Links to collaborative Google docs/slides
Assignments submitted online
Discussion forum in the LMS
Small groups in LMS
Collaborative projects with Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets
Video-based discussion
Assignments submitted online
Students practice skills, with guidance
Worksheets
Graphic Organizers
Drafting
Hand-over-hand coaching and feedback
Worksheets and graphic organizers, shared in advance
Verbal guidance in large or small groups
Screen sharing drafts or collaborative Google Docs
Instructor coaching and feedback in breakout rooms
Digital worksheets and graphic organizers
Students share drafts, images, or recordings in LMS Groups or collaborative Google documents for feedback
Rubrics and detailed feedback is used, with multiple submissions enabled for revisions
Assessing student understanding and grading (summative assessments)
Papers
Presentations
Projects
Reflections
Exams
Breakout groups can work on Google projects and share out to large groups
Presentations
Individual projects and exams submitted online
Assignments, journals and exams submitted online
Group or individual projects and presentations submitted in Discussion forums
Modality Matrix developed by Anne Fensie and Heather Nunez-Olmstead.
Teaching online can initially feel like herding cats if you haven’t planned carefully and accounted for some unique aspects of distance learning. Important things to consider include the digital divide, communicating expectations, tools, logistics, and videoconference etiquette. Let me share some advice as an experienced cat herder.
Technology Accessibility
Technology can be both a bridge and a barrier to access for
people, and this is an important concern when providing instruction at a
distance. Not only do you want to ensure that you are not creating additional
barriers to your course content, but this is now an opportunity to create
additional access that might not have been available before. Electronic text is
a fairly universal medium that can be read on a screen, printed out, or read
aloud via a screen reader. It can be accessed on a computer, on a mobile
device, through Wi-Fi, or SMS. Whenever possible, provide electronic text
equivalents of your course content and try to ensure that everything can be
downloaded at one go for students who have limited access to Wi-Fi.
Make the Implicit Explicit
Teaching online requires explicit communication. People new
to distance education often do not realize how much is implied in our everyday
interactions that can easily get lost in the translation online. Be specific
about what you want your students to do each week. Include activities that are
graded and those that you expect them to do even though they are not graded.
Many students really appreciate checklists to follow so they know they are
meeting your expectations. If you want them to submit something, be sure to
tell them where to send it and when it is due, including the date and time.
Start Small
You don’t need to learn a lot of new technologies to make
this temporary transition to distance learning. Faculty who have been teaching
online for years and have a toolkit full of resources have spent years learning
and compiling those resources. Be realistic about what you can accomplish in a
week. If you only know how to use email, begin there by sending out course
materials and asking students to email you assignments. If you are comfortable
with your school’s LMS, post your materials there, create assignment drop
boxes, and places for students to interact and ask questions.
Don’t make too much work for yourself. When you ask a
question in class, only a small percentage of your students respond. When you
ask a question online, every single one of your students will respond which
will vastly increase your workload. Plan carefully for what you want students
to submit to you so you can make the time to review it and provide feedback. Prompt
feedback is especially important for students at a distance as they can feel
disconnected and concerned about their performance.
Web Conference Etiquette
One new technology you might be interested in experimenting with is Zoom, or another web conferencing platform like Skype or Google Hangouts. If you plan to conduct your class synchronously, this will be a must. If you plan to conduct your class asynchronously, this can be helpful for office hours, study groups, and providing one-on-one support to students. Here are a couple of quick tips for participating in a web conference that you can share with your students:
Test your equipment and connection in advance.
Make sure your microphone (and video, if desired) is working.
Use a headset or earbuds if possible. This will
reduce the amount of audio feedback.
Practice using the app before the first meeting.
Find out where the mute button and chat are.
Stay muted unless you are speaking. The software
will automatically switch to your video feed if you make a noise, like cough or
if your dog barks.
If you are on camera, remember that you are on
camera. Please turn off your camera if you are eating, blowing your nose, or
walking around the house. This can be very distracting.
Follow a protocol for joining the conversation.
For example, use the Raise Hand tool in the Participants window, unmute and
wait for people to stop talking, or type, “Next, please” in the chat. There may
be a time delay so you can interrupt someone without realizing it if you just
start talking.
Be present. Try not to be distracted by other windows,
applications, or your surroundings.
Let others in your environment know that you are
joining a web conference, so they do not interrupt, keep noise to a minimum,
and stay off camera.
The Bottom Line
You can do this! What is the experience you want your learners to have? How do you want them to feel about your course content? How do you want them to think about it? What do you want them to be able to do? Maintaining academic continuity requires us to go back to the essential purpose of our instruction. You can lead your students to the same destination, but you will take a different path to get there. Reach out to the knowledgeable guides on your campus to help you plan the journey and be flexible about this expedition. Keep your focus on the destination—the learning outcomes. It may take longer to get there, some students might stumble along the way, and the experience will be different. Just keep calm and go online!
I care about each one of my learners, and I tell them that, but how do I show them I care? Most of my students are nontraditional so they often face significant barriers to success in higher education. I want them to know that it is possible for them to succeed and I understand their challenges and want to help them. Many of them don’t believe they are “college material”, so I want to help them develop this identity and make them feel like they belong. To achieve all of these aims, I have to build a relationship with each learner. How can you develop a relationship with a student you only see once a week in person, or never if it is an online class?
My strategy developed by accident when I was trying to help my students develop their self-regulation. I recognized the importance of self-regulated learning in distance education and came across Paul Pintrich’s (1995) theory of self-regulated learning (SRL). He suggests that students regulate their actions, feelings, and thinking as learners and that the better they are at regulating these domains, the more successful they will be as students. To help students improve SRL in these areas, he suggests the following:
Students need to have greater awareness of their own behavior, motivation, and cognition.
Students need to have positive motivational beliefs.
Faculty can be models of self-regulated learning.
Students need to practice self-regulatory learning strategies.
Classroom tasks can be and should be opportunities for student self-regulation
(Pintrich, 1995, p. 9-11)
In his later work, Pintrich (2004) identified four phases of learning where students self-regulate: planning, monitoring, controlling, and reflection and added an additional domain of context. The table below from his article describes each of the areas and phases of self-regulation.
Table I. Phases and Areas for Self-Regulated Learning
Areas for regulation
Phases and relevant scales
Cognition
Motivation/Affect
Behavior
Context
Phase 1 Forethought, planning, and activation
Target goal setting
Prior content knowledge activation
Metacognitive knowledge activation
Goal orientation adoption
Efficacy judgments Perceptions of task difficulty
Task value activation
Interest activation
Time and effort planning
Planning for self-observations of behavior
Perceptions of task
Perceptions of context
Phase
2 Monitoring
Metacognitive awareness and monitoring of cognition
Awareness and monitoring of motivation and affect
Awareness and monitoring of effort, time use, need for help
Self-observation of behavior
Monitoring changing task and context conditions
Phase
3 Control
Selection and adaptation of cognitive strategies for learning, thinking
Selection and adaptation of strategies for managing, motivation, and affect
Increase/decrease effort
Change or renegotiate task
Phase
4 Reaction
and Reflection
Cognitive judgments
Attributions
Affective reactions
Attributions
Choice behavior
Evaluation of task
Evaluation of context
(Pintrich, 2004, p. 390)
I decided to take this table and add questions that students could ask themselves to regulate their learning and came up with this:
I share this file with my students each semester and tell them that I am going to help them with self-regulation to help them be more successful. Each week, they complete an exit ticket where they answer the questions from the last row “Reaction and Reflection”. I created a template in a Google Doc that I copy for each student and share with them privately. This way, only the student and I can see what they write and they can feel free to be candid. I can then read and comment on these, and they can comment back. The same file is used each week, so we have a running conversation that goes on the whole semester. Here is what the document looks like:
It takes about 2-5 minutes to read and comment on each one, so with a class of 20 students, I set aside an hour a week to do this. This is probably the most valuable hour in my whole week. I’ve shared this with faculty who have large classes, and they have their TAs help them read through the exit tickets.
The students really share a lot with me that I wouldn’t know otherwise. They tell me what they are learning, what questions they have, how they are feeling, lessons they’ve learned, and even suggest things about the course that I could change to make it better. I’ve implemented lots of changes in my courses on the fly based on comments students make in their exit tickets. I get weekly updates on the things that are posing a challenge to their success and I get to offer suggestions and encouragement. I really feel connected to each learner, and they feel connected to me. I tell them I care about their experience and their success in higher ed, and now they know I do.
If you do something similar, share it below! If you try this with your classes, please let me know how it goes.
References
Pintrich, P. R. (1995). Understanding Self-Regulated Learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 1995(63), 3–12.
Pintrich, P. R. (2004). A conceptual framework for assessing motivation and self-regulated learning in college students. Educational Psychology Review, 16(4), 385–407. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-004-0006-x