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The Benefits of Using OER For Remote Teaching
Open Educational Resources (OER) have experienced a growing popularity at the U of S during the past six years, with more than 6,500 students using open textbooks and other OER instead of commercial textbooks. They’re free to use, easy to access, and allow for adaptation to improve student engagement and learning, as well as instructor academic freedom (no commercial publisher telling you what you should teach). With the move of all U of S courses to being offered remotely for at least the spring and summer terms, the use of OER makes a lot of sense, especially with the Bookstore being closed. OER materials are easily accessible for instructors and…
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Tips From Veterans of Remote / Online Teaching
As you prepare to create and teach courses remotely this spring and summer terms, we asked some U of S instructors experienced with this type of teaching to share some quick words of wisdom based on what they learned from their own experiences. Below are their tips related to design, teaching, and assessment for remote / online. Thank you to Jorden Cummings (Psychology), Allison Fairbairn (Music), Hayley Hesseln (Agriculture and Bio Resources), and Karla Panchuk (Geology) for sharing your experiences teaching remote / online courses. Design Keep it as simple as possible. Online learning difficult for many students for diverse reasons, and we cannot assume our students have access to…
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Creating Your Syllabus in The Context of COVID-19
As instructors prepare to teach during the spring and summer terms, one consideration is how to prepare their syllabi in the context of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U of S considers course syllabi to be contracts between instructors and students. As such, there are normally significant restrictions on what can be changed in a syllabus once it’s been distributed to students, but as you prepare to teach in the upcoming terms some greater flexibility is needed from all of us. With that in mind, the Office of the University Secretary and Chief Governance Office issued a briefing note stating: University Council, as approved by the Coordinating Committee: “Grants…
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How to Support Students Who Have Multiple Final Exams In 24 Hours
Giving students 24 hours to complete a final assessment might make a lot of sense in a time of emergency, but it can also cause anxiety for students if they are unclear on expectations. You can help by clarifying expectations and stating clear limits in advance. To assist all of your students, but particularly students facing this additional challenge, please include the following in your exam information to students: Put all instructions about the exam into the introduction of the exam to ensure that your students have easy and clear access to any instructions, including logistics and what they should do if they have trouble submitting the exam. If you…
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Using Reflections on Learning As Assessments
As instructors look for alternative ways to assess student learning while teaching remotely, Professor Hayley Hesseln in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources has a method that she’s used for students in her Agricultural Economics course, delivered both online and face-to-face. Hesseln, a USask Master Teacher, assigns students to write a reflective paper about their learning for the final exam. She’s remarked that it can be quite surprising how such an activity can show evidence of student learning. She usually has students read an article about what learning means and has used the article “What Did You Learn Today” by Alan Samuel, but notes that there are other articles that…
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Online Presentations and Poster Sessions Within Canadian Copyright Guidelines
We’ve had several instructors approach us about how to move their poster sessions and student presentations to a remote (online) environment. After extensive conversations with the Copyright Coordinator, Undergraduate Research Initiative Coordinator, and our Distance Education Unit, we felt it was a good idea to develop some support resources around this topic. An earlier post addressed choosing appropriate technology, while this one will provide guidance on staying within appropriate copyright parameters. If the work does not contain any copyrighted materials then you have the option of having the students share their posters openly. Give them the option of what license they wish to put on their own work. This could…
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Online Homework Systems: How to Protect Student Privacy and Keep Materials Costs Down
Online homework systems (OHS) are online tools that can grade questions asked to students as homework, track formative practice, or assess examinations. Students can receive immediate feedback on the activities they complete using an OHS, providing students with a clear picture of how they are progressing and where they may need to do some additional work. OHS are used extensively through the STEM disciplines, but are also used in other fields including Psychology and business. While they have benefits for both instructors and students, there are concerns that both should be aware of. Concerns The Cost of OHS for Students In about half of the courses using OHS purchased through…
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What’s a Z-Course and How Do I Do That?
[social_share/] [social-bio] As costs for commercial textbooks continue to rise, there has been growing interest at the U of S in open educational resources (OER). OER is not only free to students, but adaptable to make the learning materials appropriate for a particular course. But OER is not the only way to reduce costs and move away from commercial textbooks. Z-courses, as defined at the U of S, are courses where students have zero or minimal ($35 of less) direct costs for learning materials. This can be achieved through the use of an open textbook or other OER, resources from the Library, instructor notes, or other such materials in place…
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An Opportunity to Request Open Textbooks You Need
[social_share/] [social-bio] Many of the open textbooks being used at the U of S were found through the BCcampus open textbook repository. If you are interested in switching to an open textbook, but haven’t been able to find one for your course, this call for suggestions from BCcampus may be of interest to you: In an ongoing effort to sustain and build the BC Open Textbook Collection, BCcampus asks for your help to identify subject areas within this collection that are missing open textbooks either entirely or in specific categories and/or course levels. As an overview, there are currently 180 textbooks in this collection covering eight main subject areas (Sciences,…
- General, Indigenization, Decolonization, Reconciliation, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies, Open
Taking a Fresh Approach to the Course Design Institute
[social_share/] [social-bio] For more than a decade, the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL) has offered the Course Design Institute (CDI). Throughout the CDI, facilitators from the GMCTL work with instructors on developing or redeveloping a course. We go through learning about your students, writing learning outcomes, choosing teaching strategies, developing assessments, and putting it all together through constructive alignment and the blueprinting of your course. While the CDI had been an intensive four full-day experience within one week, a few years ago we revamped it to offer it in a “flipped” mode, with participants meeting face-to-face three half days over three weeks, plus completing activities and posting…