The Toolbox | Vol. 18, No. 5

VOLUME 18

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ISSUE 5

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APRIL 2020

THE TOOLBOX

A Teaching and Learning Resource for Instructors

MOVING ONLINE: 10 WAYS TO PACK AND UNPACK YOUR COURSES F

rom time to time, colleges and universities close Brad Garner their physical campuses and move temporarily Director of Faculty Enrichment, National & Global Campus to online instruction. These situations are rare Indiana Wesleyan University (e.g., an approaching hurricane or winter storm), brad.garner@indwes.edu and decisions about closures are made to ensure the health and safety of students and campus personnel.

The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified these challenges as the sudden move to online learning has been extended to weeks or months. For many instructors, this shift has created new and unique challenges. In this issue of The Toolbox, we will examine strategies for making the transition to online course delivery in a way that preserves your sanity and promotes learning on the part of your students.

1. Stay Calm and Move Forward Teaching and learning fully online is likely to be a new experience for you and your students. As a starting point, it is important for instructors to communicate a sense of calm in the midst of this process. Calm takes the form of reassuring students with the message, “we can get through this together.” Part of this communication could include some comments about the personal and professional challenges you are facing during the transition to working from home and interacting with students only through digital channels. Transparency about your own challenges may also be reassuring for students.

Key Learning Principle: Consider this as a learning experience that may contribute to your course design practices in the future.

2. Support Your Students Students will undoubtedly have a variety of reactions to this situation. Some will see the move online as an extension of spring break, while others will be totally obsessed by missed learning opportunities, the possibility of an adverse impact on their GPA, or a general sense of discomfort about moving to an online venue. Instructors, unfortunately, may become the target of negative comments and blame for these circumstances. It is important for instructors to resist becoming defensive, listen carefully to student concerns, and keep the channels of communication open for ongoing dialogue.

National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience® and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina

Change. Adapt. Bend so as not to be broken.

Let opportunity guide your actions.

— Wayne Gerard Trotman, Trinidadian-British author

https://sc.edu/fye/toolbox

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Key Learning Principle: Be a source of encouragement and support as your students also adapt to unexpected changes in their routines.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

3. Remain Faithful to Your Course Learning Outcomes Whether a course is offered onsite or online, the learning outcomes remain constant.

These should be reviewed before making any alterations in course content or assessment strategies. In the final analysis, the amended version of your course should provide students with ample opportunities to accomplish these outcomes just as an onsite course would.

TOOLBOX WEBINAR: MOVING ONLINE

Key Learning Principle: Onsite or online, course learning outcomes define the destination that you will pursue with your students.

A Conversation with Brad Garner about Planning for and Embracing the New Normal in Higher Education

4. Make Connections Despite being digitally savvy and highly connected via social media, students may feel somewhat disconnected from learning. As students settle in away from campus, it is important for instructors to make learning a part of their new daily routines. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways:

11 a.m. (EDT) Tuesday, April 28 4 p.m. (EDT) Thursday, April 30

ONLINE COURSES Supporting Students of Color within Predominately White Institutions Instructor: Taléa R. Drummer-Ferrell May 4-29, 2020

» Establish a pattern for communication with your students. Quite often, email is a primary way of communicating. Consider the possibility of issuing a weekly update that alerts students to activities for the week and upcoming deadlines.

Proving and Improving: Foundations of First-Year Assessment

» If student mobile phone numbers are available to you as an instructor, send out daily encouragements related to learning and the need to have a strong finish to the semester.

Academic Recovery: Supporting Students on Academic Probation

» Help students engage with course content through the creation of discussion forums in the campus learning management system (LMS). » As a twist, use free tools like FlipGrid (https://info.flipgrid.com) that provide students with the opportunity to create video responses to discussion prompts and engage with their classmates. » Create videos (with you as the “star”) covering key elements of course content. Remember to make these videos short and to the point; a series of small videos is always better that one long video. Allowing students to see your face, hear your voice, and sense your passion for the subject you are teaching is a great way to promote engagement. » Use campus-based or free versions of web conferencing tools like Zoom (https://zoom.us) to continue your online class sessions on the same schedule as your campus-based class. These tools provide an opportunity for instructors to share content and engage students in real-time discussions.

Instructor: Jennifer R. Keup June 8-July 3, 2020

Instructor: Mike Dial

Aug. 17-Sept. 11, 2020

Infusing Growth Mindset into Your First-Year Experience Instructor: Amy Baldwin Nov. 9-Dec. 4, 2020

CONFERENCES National Conference on Students in Transition Atlanta, Georgia

Oct. 16-18, 2020

» Adopt a success strategy from full-time online faculty and offer virtual office hours. These are voluntary drop-in times when students can engage with instructors in a web-conference format. Those who need help will typically take advantage of this time to get extra assistance, clarification on assignments, and emotional support.

HTTPS://SC.EDU/FYE/EVENTS National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience® and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina

https://sc.edu/fye/toolbox

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Key Learning Principle: There are powerful, easy-to-use tools available to help you connect with your students.

5. Reconsider Your Strategies for Assessing Student Learning At the beginning of the semester, instructors provide students with a syllabus that includes the ways student performance will be assessed. A review of scheduled assessment activities (e.g., quizzes, exams, assignment submissions, attendance/participation) will reveal what might need to be dropped, modified, or replaced. Once this review is complete, it is critical to advise students of any changes.

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A NEW RESOURCE ON THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Key Learning Principle: Review the assessments that you have chosen for your course and those that you are considering for revision as you move online. Make sure that your new assortment of assessments provides evidence of student learning in relation to course outcomes.

6. Publish a Revised Schedule of Activities and Due Dates Once the activities for the remainder of the semester have been determined, publish a schedule for your students. It is also important to be available for any questions they may have about this new schedule. As an additional thought, remember that some of your students may not have consistent Internet access and find it difficult to engage with class activities. Encourage these students to alert you to those challenges, and consider alternatives for them to access course material or demonstrate achievement of course learning outcomes.

Key Learning Principle: Help your student adjust to this new venue by knowing what will be expected and the timeframes for those expectations.

7. Confirm the Availability of Original Course Resources At the beginning of each semester, instructors will typically load a variety of resources into the LMS. In the online world, making sure that all of those resources are available becomes much more critical. Once you have verified their availability, tell students about any new or replacement items that may have been added to the course shell. Consider that residential students may have left campus in a hurry without securing their textbooks and other learning resources. As an instructor, you may need to serve as an advocate for your students to assist them in obtaining resources from publishers or other sources.

Promoting Belonging, Growth Mindset, and Resilience to Foster Student Success

By Amy Baldwin, Bryce Bunting, Doug Daugherty, Latoya Lewis, and Tim Steenbergh

Paperback ISBN 978-1-942072-37-9 (2020) $30.00 Ebook ISBN 978-1-942072-38-6 (2019) $23.99 Library Ebook ISBN 978-1-942072-39-3 (2019) $95.00

WWW.NRCPUBS.COM

Key Learning Principle: The availability of the resources in your LMS becomes critically important in an online venue. Check all of the documents and web links to make sure they are fully operational.

8. Leverage Additional Online Resources As part of the course restructuring process, it may be necessary to add content as a supplement for lost time in the classroom. Students may also need additional support mastering concepts when in-person tutoring resources are not available. Some possible resources include: » TED Talks

A semiannual refereed journal providing current research and scholarship on significant student transitions. The primary purpose of the Journal is to disseminate empirical research findings on student transition issues, including:

» Khan Academy

• Explorations into the academic, personal, and social experiences;

» Teacher Tube

• Transition issues unique to specific populations; and

» MIT OpenCourseWare In some cases, these resources can be accessed by providing students with a link. In others, they can be embedded directly into your LMS. National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience® and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina

• Explorations of faculty development, curriculum, and pedagogical innovations.

To submit or subscribe, please visit https://sc.edu/fye/journal https://sc.edu/fye/toolbox

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Key Learning Principle: In the absence of the content and engagement that occurs in your classroom, it may be necessary to supplement course content with rich digital resources available on the Internet.

9. Take Regular Test Drives

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Submission Guidelines for The Toolbox For complete guidelines and issue dates, see https://.sc.edu/fye/toolbox/

A common refrain of online instructors is, “technology is great when it works.” As your students move into online learning, make sure all of the links and tools work effectively.

You will need to be resourceful in creating backup plans and designating alternative resources if that technology is not working at full capacity.

Audience: Toolbox readers include full-time and adjunct faculty; academic advisors; and administrators focused on faculty development, teaching and learning, academic success, and the first college year.

Key Learning Principle: You can never be too careful or vigilant with online resources. Do regular checks to make sure everything is working as designed. Part of these check-ups can include a determination that students are submitting their assignments in a timely manner.

Style: Articles, tables, figures, and references should adhere to standard set forth in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).

10. Do a Postmortem This will be a new experience for many instructors. It is also an opportunity to learn and grow and check out the capability of online learning. The other important reality to consider is the probability that you may be asked, at some time in the future and for a variety of reasons, to move your courses online. You will now be prepared when that happens!

When the dust has settled, and the semester is over, evaluate what you have accomplished during this process, what went well, and what you would do differently the next time around. These are questions we all should be asking ourselves each time we offer a course.

Key Learning Principle: Learn from what you have done: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This part of your learning may have a dramatic impact on how you design your future courses.

Also, pat yourself on the back for putting your students first during this challenging time.

AN ELECTRONIC PUBLICATION FROM THE NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER

Call For Submissions The global outbreak of COVID-19 is causing widespread disruption in higher education, and the editors of E-Source for College Transitions, a companion publication of The Toolbox, want to collect stories of how institutions are adapting to this unprecedented crisis.

How can our response reshape our understanding of teaching, learning, and student success initiatives? How will these experiences change our delivery of educational services moving forward, and how might they help us manage future disruptions?

Length: Original articles should be no longer than 1,500 words. The editor reserves the right to edit submissions for length.

Submit your article online by using our submission form.

Please address all questions to: Brad Garner, Toolbox Editor Indiana Wesleyan University 1900 West 50th Street Marion, IN 46953 Email: brad.garner@indwes.edu Phone: 765-677-3341

About The Toolbox The Toolbox is an online professional development newsletter offering innovative, learner-centered strategies for empowering college students to achieve greater success. The newsletter is published six times a year by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina.

The online subscription is free. To register for newsletter alerts and access back issues, please visit https://sc.edu/fye/toolbox.

Publication Staff Founding Editor: Brad Garner Editor: Kevin F. Langston Graphic Designer: Krista Larson Assistant Director for Publications: Tracy L. Skipper

Next Submission Deadline

The October 2020 issue will feature a special collection of short narratives.

Please join us by submitting a brief description of your campus’s response to the pandemic at bit.ly/ESForm20. The deadline is Friday, May 1.

National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience® and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina

https://sc.edu/fye/toolbox

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