The Maricopa Center for Learning and Innovation (MCLI) is offering the following concise resources to assist faculty with the design of instruction during this emergency transition to remote teaching. In addition to the resources below, we are providing:
- Content resources for remote teaching
- including OER materials
- Resources from our webinars
- Support for using WebEx
- Remote teaching webinars
- Virtual Service Learning Opportunities
- ACUE Effective Online Instruction Webinar Series
Strategies for an Inclusive Response to the Emergency Transition to Remote Teaching
As faculty respond to this unique situation, it will be important to design a remote teaching strategy that does not exclude some or most of your students. One of the first things that faculty should do is to reach out to their students and assess the level of technology that is consistently available to them. Use the following steps to guide this work:
- Connect with your students and assess what level of technology they have available. Ask the following questions:
- Do you have access to a computer at home?
- Do you have reliable internet service at home?
- Do you have access to a smartphone?
- Can your computer or smartphone handle video streaming or video conferencing?
- Determine how quickly you need your students to respond to you.
- Explore Videoconferencing Alternatives: How Low-Bandwidth Teaching Will Save Us All to identify technology options using the Bandwidth - Immediacy Matrix
- Select the appropriate tool that allows each student to have access (Bandwidth) and meets your need for students to respond (Immediacy).
Quick Suggestions for Remote Teaching During an Emergency
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Establish a Canvas course presence. Every Maricopa course has an instance within Canvas, our district’s learning management system. Familiarizing yourself with Canvas is an important first step. You can set up a discussion board in Canvas to offer an avenue for general discussions with your students.
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Assess immediate activities and prioritize what needs to go online.
- What would you be teaching in-person in the coming weeks?
- What parts of that easily transfer to a digital space?
- What parts require more technology to accomplish?
- What seems daunting?
- Consider these in terms of available technology resources.
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Communicate with your students. On the first day, send an email and post a course announcement. Identify the manner in which you will primarily communicate (Webex, email, Canvas, etc.), and begin a conversation about course plans and expectations.
- Be transparent, stay supportive and in contact with your students.
- Regular and authentic communication is the key element in successful emergency-based instruction!
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Establish a Videoconferencing option. Every faculty member has access to Webex, a videoconferencing software that allows for real-time conversation and integrates with Canvas. Other tools may be available on your campus, such as Zoom or Google Hangout.
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Remember that everyone is stressed! Please be kind to everyone you interact with.
Additional Resources Related to Remote Teaching
- ACUE has released an online toolkit and supporting documents for making quick and effective transitions to online learning. The Online Toolkit is available to everyone (even non-ACUE course takers).
- ACUE is offering a webinar series on Effective Online Instruction. Join nationally recognized experts in online teaching and learning for a virtual discussion on best-practices in key areas to ensure quality online instruction for student success.
- Quality Matters offers an Emergency Remote Instruction Checklist for faculty to enact during an institutional move to temporary remote instruction of classroom-based courses.
- The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) has Resources about making a quick transition to teaching online. This includes many ideas and pedagogies are applicable to any discipline.
- The Association for Career and Technical Education maintains a list of Distance Learning Resources specifically for CTE teachers.
- Inside Higher Ed has some practical advice for faculty who need to teach remotely due to an emergency.
- Keep Teaching: Resources for Higher Ed is an online community for higher education professionals needing academic continuity resources and support.
- NYU offers these Best Practices for Teaching with Web Conferencing for faculty who will be using videoconferencing as part of their remote teaching design.