Remote Teaching
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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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Ways To Limit Concerns About Non-permitted Collaboration
Are you worried about non-permitted collaboration? It’s true, students can seek each other out for help, examples, interpretations, translations, feedback, and peer teaching when unsupervised. In fact, we often encourage students to do so as part of the learning process. Blatant “copying” is a real problem because then the submitted work does not represent what that individual student knows or can do “without the support of resources or colleagues.” Most students want assessment to be fair and are likely to appreciate your effort to have everyone play by the same rules. Below are two options you may want to consider for addressing concerns about students collaborating. Option 1: Limit collusion…
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First, Take Inventory
You might feel like the first thing to do for creating an online course is to understand the technology. Before, you dive into that first assess what you’ve currently got going for you in your course as you have been teaching it. Remember, the expectation is not for a fully developed on line experience, our circumstances really don’t allow for that. And, our higher tech solutions may not stay reliable. Some of the advice given when we first shifted to remote teaching is helpful: 3 steps for an inventory: What is the course catalogue description of this course? The course should reflect this description. What is essential for students to…
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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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Academic Integrity and Remote Teaching
The commitment of the University of Saskatchewan to academic integrity and fair assessment remains in place during this time of remote and online learning. As instructors, here are key points for academic integrity: You should explain your rules again, or any shift in your rules, for assessments. Clear understanding by students improves students’ academic integrity. You should explain the reason for the rules and how the rules improve learning and/or make the assessment more fair. Transparency about purpose and decisions improves students’ academic integrity. You should avoid statements focused exclusively on penalties – these are ineffective at deterring dishonesty. Instead, commit to following up on academic misconduct concerns as…
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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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Panopto or Narrated PowerPoint
With regards to the use of Panopto for instructional videos, a frequently asked question is, “why one would use Panopto instead of a narrated PowerPoint file or video?” Instructors who are comfortable with using the “Record Slide Show” feature in PowerPoint are encouraged to continue to use it. However, someone who is new to recording slideshows or who is interested in learning a new way of recording instructional videos should consider using Panopto. Reasons to consider Panopto over PowerPoint: One of the benefits of using Panopto is that it creates streaming video files. This means they can easily be viewed on any web-enabled device. In order to view a narrated…
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Virtual Poster Presentations – Recommended Tools
Note: This list assumes student work is already coming in the likely poster formats (PDF, image as JPG or PNG, PPT, DOC) as opposed to being presented using some unique platform (e.g., Prezi, Sway). Please investigate the help pages linked below first. If you require additional help with one of these tools, email itsupport@usask.ca. Tool Strengths and Challenges Canvas Discussions · Asynchronous (students can access at any time ahead of a given deadline) · Students attach their poster to a thread which classmates can view · Classmates can add comments / feedback to the thread · Simplest tool that enables student interaction! Panopto assignment · Asynchronous · Students produce…
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It’s Okay to Keep it Simple
As we all rapidly transition to remote instruction this week due to COVID-19, it is actually better to keep it simple. When a friend sent me a blog post called Please do a bad job of putting your course online, I was initially offended. As I read the post, I realized it offered some really good advice. We aren’t trying to make awesome online courses (that takes too much effort at this stage), and faculty and students are dealing with lots of complications in their lives. We are trying to protect ourselves and others with social distancing while ensuring students don’t lose the credits they are working for. With that…