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Capturing the Good Work We Did During Remote Teaching
Three photo sequence. The first photo is two students walking on campus, the second is a view of the Jordan Student Success Building and the third is two students studying together.
Whether it happens this summer, next fall, or beyond, nearly all MSU Denver instructors will be going back to in-person classes after an extended period of remote teaching. Perhaps you were already experienced with online teaching and learning, or maybe you were thrown into a whole new teaching format. Regardless, everyone dug in to do the work of making sure our students got what they needed during a tough time.
Now, as you think about returning to a physical classroom, there is an opportunity to salvage, retain, and even treasure some of the work the pandemic forced us to take on.
Below the CTLD has laid out three areas we think are worth considering as you plan your return from remote teaching. The central question we hope you will think on is “How can I capture the good, useful work that took place?”
- First, you may want to examine and reflect on your own teaching experiences during this unusual time, and we have some prompts that may help with that.
- Second, we have a list of habits that all courses should probably include regardless of course format.
- Third, are the opportunities instructors may have created for themselves when they did the work to translate classes into a remote format. While that work was hard, it can now be leveraged into powerful opportunities to change our in-person courses for the better!
Returning from remote resources discussion from The Center for Teaching, Learning and Design.
1. Reflecting on your experiences:
- How did your weekly schedule and daily habits change (both good and bad)?
- What did you learn about your students’ needs (both good and bad)?
- What aspects of Canvas (and other tools) can be useful to help you maximize the effectiveness of your in-person time?
- What aspects of Canvas (and other tools) can help to support your students?
- Were there ways that you found yourself acting more as a facilitator, resource provider, and manager, rather than the “sage on the stage”? Or were there other more student-centered learning methods that became available?
Below are common aspects of online courses that are, in fact, best practices for courses of any format. Unless a department or program has discussed compelling reasons to do otherwise, these features should be part of all MSU Denver courses:
2. Digital habits that are good no matter the course modality:
- Documents and other media can be made accessible in ways that physical paper, or one-time videos shown in class can never be. Text can change size, screen readers can be used, videos have captions that help all viewers, etc. Make it a habit to distribute documents and media to students online by default and, if needed, offer to print hard copies for any student who asks.
- Ask students to submit work via Canvas to improve organization, reduce paper use and create consistent feedback mechanisms.
- Use the Canvas Syllabus tool.
- Post policies, schedules, and other important information in Canvas.
- Make sure students have multiple ways to reach you.
- Post grades on course components regularly
- Explain how students can understand their “in-progress” grades so they are less likely to be blindsided later in the term.
- Offer virtual office hours to reach students with complicated schedules without disrupting your working hours as much.
Many of the most effective research-based instructional strategies require that instructors invest in up-front work that is often difficult to prioritize in the midst of all the pressures instructors face. However, the work done during the pandemic may have created opportunities to change our in-person courses for the better!
3. Opportunities created by the work you did to move to remote teaching:
- Additional content resources can be used to give alternative discussions of the topics at hand, catching up on pre-requisite materials (remedial work), diving deeper on a given topic, etc.
- If you created videos or screencasts or connected students to media created by others, keep those in place as part of your course. Maybe you will want those to become a secondary resource, but they can still offer immense value to learners.
- If you recorded the lecture for a given class, use it as a make-up method for students who miss an in-person session. This can be an up-front offer to all students or can be used only when students have a good reason for missing the (important) in-person sessions.
- If you created any computer-graded activities (such as formative assessments, practice work, knowledge checks, summative assessments, etc.) those can be used to provide quick, on-demand, feedback to students, which is crucial in effective teaching and learning. They also help keep the instructor informed about student understanding.
- In the shift to remote teaching, you may have taken an in-person activity and translated it into an asynchronous activity that students can do on their own time. This presents an opportunity to keep that activity online and asynchronous, allowing class time to be used for discussion, application, or extension of the concept. This is related to the concept of the Flipped Classroom, but it can be done in any desired increment.
- Did you find an especially useful way to use Discussions in Canvas? Consider using online discussions for student Q&A, to promote the development of writing skills, or to facilitate student collaboration on homework. Online discussions can also encourage participation from students who do not often contribute in F2F discussions.
Other resources and reading:
- 5 Tips for a More Efficient Transition From Virtual to In-Person Teaching
https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-tips-more-efficient-transition-virtual-person-teaching - How does Canvas work as a supplement to face-to-face courses?
https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-does-Canvas-work-as-a-supplement-to-face-to-face-courses/ta-p/651 - Boston University, C. (2020, April 3). A Quick Guide to Converting your Face-to-Face Pedagogical Approaches to the Online Environment. Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://www.bu.edu/ctl/converting-face-to-face-pedagogical-approaches-online/
- Giarla, A. (2020, June 17). The benefits of blended Learning. Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://www.teachthought.com/technology/the-benefits-of-blended-learning/
- Hertz, M. (2015, December 22). The flipped classroom: Pro and con. Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/flipped-classroom-pro-and-con-mary-beth-hertz
- Maxwell, C. (2016, March 04). What blended learning is – and isn’t. Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://www.blendedlearning.org/what-blended-learning-is-and-isnt/
- Trach, E. (2020, November 2). The Flipped Classroom Infographic. Retrieved July 7, 2022 from https://assignmentbro.com/blog/flipped-classroom-infographics
- Cooper, Sarah. “Distance Learning Strategies to Bring Back to the Classroom.” Edutopia. May 22, 2020. https://www.edutopia.org/article/distance-learning-strategies-bring-back-classroom
- Gonzalez, Jennifer. “9 Ways Online Teaching Should be Different from Face-to-Face.” Cult of Pedagogy. July 5, 2020. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/9-ways-online-teaching/
- Kemp, Nenagh and Rachel Grieve. “Face-to-face or face-to-screen? Undergraduates’ opinions and test performance in classroom vs. online learning.” Frontiers in Psychology. 12 November 2014.
- Design and Delivery Principles, from Blended Learning Project at UCF. https://blended.online.ucf.edu/2011/06/07/design-delivery-principles/