Read on Twitter
As I see friends and colleagues in the US scrambling to adapt for a Fall online — this is the right call, do your prep now! — and Groot is busying himself for a moment, I thought I might share some tips and thoughts for doing this working efficiently, mindfully, and with care.
First and most importantly, now is the time to strip your courses back to key elements. Don’t overassess your students right now. Don’t assess what you won’t teach. Think less about how you’ve always done it, and more about what learners need to take away.
Second, think about how you will build community and connection with your students. There are lots of ways to do this — I like a discussion board that’s just for pet photos and chats about weather; I like weekly video blog updates. Remember to use students’ names and pronouns.
Third, there is so much value in offering choice and flexibility in expectations right now. Can students skip an assignment? Can they decide which assignment takes the most weight? Can they set their own deadlines within parameters?
(This can sound like more work for you at first, but I’ve actually always found this is a good way to balance out my own marking load, too.)
Hm, Groot is no longer busying himself. I’ll add more later!
Ok so we had some very important business to attend to, obviously.
Where was I. Choice! Choice should also extend to format, where you can — especially those of you who are really wedded to video. Please caption your videos. Post lecture notes or slides separately for lower-bandwidth access (and screen reader compliance, so watch your PDFs).
And when it comes to expectations, are you involved in many successful online communities where expectations are set top-down? Build the course norms together. Ask students how they want to be treated — by each other, and by you.
This is a good time to rethink all your course policies or rules, honestly. On a basic level: do they reflect the needs of this moment? No medical notes, please. Rethink punitive late penalties. Maybe this is a moment for you to explore the rewrite. Your students are stressed.
For the benefit of you and your students, think seriously now about what your contact will look like. How often will you check email, check forums, post content, hold office hours? It’s really easy to feel overwhelmed by the expectation of presence.
But! Good news. In my experience your students don’t actually expect you to be online all the time. The issue here is usually that they don’t know when to expect to find you — that’s when they panic and send forty emails.
So figure out what will work for you — and err on the side of being conservative, or promising less — and then communicate it clearly and be religious about keeping to that schedule. Consistency is more important than being at your computer 24/7.
Okay the boss says I’m late for storytime, so more soon.
(PS I’m not really here to share more yet, we are very busy working on letters, but did you know @Linkletter and I are giving this session on Monday? You might like it if you like this thread.) https://twitter.com/bccampus/status/1286394458536386561?s=21 https://twitter.com/bccampus/status/1286394458536386561
