Moving teaching online - pro-tips from a colleague
The prospect of moving teaching wholly online can seem daunting but it is a growing reality for many academics around the world. There are no current plans for this at Monash but, as you’re well aware, many events are currently beyond our control and it can be good to be prepared for anything.
Bill Harder (@wlharder) is an academic and Qual/Survey Methodologist at American University with a PhD in Pol Sci. He recently tweeted the following suggestions for moving online.
Some are perhaps less applicable in our context than others but there are some solid ideas worth considering over all.
My university just announced that we are shifting all courses #online for several weeks due to #coronavirus. I spent the last month on jury duty & as a result had to unexpectedly move my class online with no notice. I've got some thoughts (thread): #AcademicTwitter #CovidCampus
Before you do anything else, take a minute & look at your syllabus & course schedule. opics may make more sense in a different order than in the face-to-face scenario
Whatever your course topic is, at some point, you are going to stare into that webcam & think about lecturing for an hour. Don't do it. If you do decide to record a video lecture keep it short. Like under 10 minutes - although the research says they should be even shorter.
Many of you might not need to record any video lectures, because you will be able to meet with your students live in real-time in a virtual classroom...don't talk at them for an hour straight in this space either.
Anything you can do in a face-to-face class (discussions, small group conversations, think-pair-share, #activelearning exercises, etc) you can do a version of in a virtual space. And, frankly I sometimes prefer doing these things virtually because of the different dynamic.
The 'breakout room' feature in most platforms allows me to instantly & randomly put my students into their own rooms for small group discussions. Often I drop a link to a google doc in the breakout room's chat book with some discussion questions on it.
In groups I have them collaboratively fill out the sheet as a way to guide their conversation. While they do this, I can jump between breakout rooms, the same way I would between groups in a physical space. Then, we come back together & they report out to the entire class.
Ultimately, you are likely going to make changes to your course. Be intentional about letting your students in on those changes. This is a weird time from both a faculty and student perspective & getting buy-in from your students is important.
I'm a big proponent of "showing my work" to my students. If I change an assignment, schedule, etc. I am explicit about letting my students in on my logic. These are moments to be honest & transparent in both our struggles adapting & in hearing our students' struggles.
In this light, we also all need to take a moment and think about how the changes we make are going to impact our students' #access to our courses. Already there are some amazing #accessibility in virtual spaces resources being shared with the #CovidCampus hashtag
As always, MEI, MEA and your faculty teams are here to help you. If you haven’t already, take a look at the new Take Week 1 Online unit in Moodle.