Welcome Back, Professor! Here is a quick list of technical reminders to help you set-up your classes again in course site.
General Principles As you think about your online course, bear in mind the “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” (Chickering and Gamson) - Encourage contact between faculty and students
- Develop reciprocity and cooperation among students
- Use active learning techniques
- Give prompt feedback Emphasize time on task
- Communicate high expectations
- Respect diverse talents and ways of learning
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Syllabus You may find it helpful to read “Syllabus Planning: 10 Questions,” which discusses general principles of good syllabus development. |
Course Design - Develop course objectives
- Identify the key things students will be doing (and when) and you will be doing (and when)
- Develop appropriate assignments, activities, and assessments
- Design a schedule that optimizes student time on task and student flexibility, while promoting time for discussion, collaboration, and feedback from you
- Write a description of what quality work looks like so you can set expectations and guide students
- Give instructions for everything—make explicit things you might take for granted in a face-to-face class
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Course Site Specifics - Use Announcements rather than email for group communications
- Place “First time here? Visit [name of your introductory session]” label just under Announcements
- Place your Syllabus just under that
- Place key activities under that, then the week-by-week, session-by-session instructions
- Create space in the center of the page by minimizing or removing blocks on the left- or right-hand sides
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Personalizing - Plan for a welcome video, midpoint video, closing video
- Plan for a photo upload and personalized introductions by you and students
- Be responsive to student requests for help
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Content 1. The course material (books, texts, textbooks, articles, films, websites) - Use digitized texts where possible
- If students must purchase texts, give them advance notice (2 weeks)
- Verify that any PDFs used are optical character recognition (OCR) compatible for accessibility
- If you are planning to stream video (a documentary, a film, submit a Streaming Video Request Form at least 3 weeks prior to the date needed.
2. Your explanation/elaboration/interpretation of that material If you are using video: - Use Panopto for video of you/ your voice over documents, presentations, websites, drawings, etc.
- Use Zoom to create video of interactions or collaboratively created presentations, etc.
- Use DIY Studio
- Use the Digital Media Studio for any high production quality videos you wish to create
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Student Engagement with material and course ideas - Have students do something with course content every course session (discussion, quiz, wiki, blog...)
- Encourage students to react and respond to one another; create opportunities for students to collaborate, review drafts, co-present, etc.
- Encourage students to revisit and revise their own views and show how their understanding has developed over the semester (‘initial thoughts’ posts, followed by guided responses; papers that build on discussion boards or journals; papers that critique or build on classmates’ work; reflective prompts to synthesize earlier points of understanding)
- Design activities that both help students learn and help you gauge their understanding etc.
- For synchronous interaction, use Zoom (in Course Site) or Google Hangouts
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Feedback
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Assessment |
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For more information or additional consultation using these tools, contact the instructional technology team! |
Already taught an online course?
Here is a checklist full or technical details to help you get started on how to copy over content, add TAs and more.
Course Site - Start of the Semester Checklist