Keeping Classes Going

Keeping class going encompasses three main areas: communication with students, delivering content or replacing missed classes, collecting assignments and distributing grades. In addition, some may consider class participation and maintaining some level of student engagement as another important component to ensure students are keeping up. There are a variety of things to consider as you develop your approach and prepare for how you will keep classes going, but in a different delivery mode. Faculty are urged to keep things simple when first getting started online and stick to a few tools until more comfortable in the systems. Also, strive to keep the course asynchronous as much as possible to avoid schedule conflicts that could arise during periods of emergency.

As you work to prepare for how you will transition your courses, there are a couple things to keep in mind. First, don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough. If you are new to this online thing, this will be stressful, no doubt, but if you give yourself a break and realize that we aren't striving for perfection rather we just need to get through this, then it changes your mindset about how to view this whole process. In some cases, good enough truly is good enough and this is one of those times. Second, there is no perfect solution for every situation so let's not get caught up on trying to find one to the point that we don't move forward. Let's focus on what works well and what challenges we can solve and let the rest go. There will be plenty of time for debriefing and lessons learned after the crisis or emergency has passed.

NEW: Here's a great article with strategy suggestions for different types of classes, such a large lecture and seminar style.

Online communication

Do you have a plan for how you will communicate with your students in the event of an immediate campus closure? Do you require your students to check their Wilkes email?

• Course announcements - an easy way to communicate with your students about time-sensitive course info, new or updated course materials, changes in the schedule, etc.

• In-course email allows you to communicate directly with students about the course without having to open another email tool.

• Appointment slots is a simple calendar tool where you can select blocks of time and create appointment slots for which students can sign up to meet with you. Appointment slots can be set to whatever length you choose. A great solution for office hours and course consultations.

• Q&A discussion forums - Setting these up helps to organize questions that students might have that pertain to everyone. Saves you from having to respond to multiple students with the same information - just post it on the Q&A and encourage students to do the same. Q&A topics are usually less time-sensitive than Course Announcements but are helpful to students nonetheless.

Decide on the tools you will use and then inform your students of how you will communicate with them during an emergency and where you will post new information. You should suggest to your students to check their notification settings in D2L to be sure they get notifications of new information in their course.

Substituting class meetings

There are a variety of ways to replace missed classes and deliver content even if you can’t meet in-person.

• Think about how you will provide content to students in the absence of face-to-face meetings. Read through this article as you contemplate the various options and their impact on students.

• You might record your lectures using Panopto and then share in your D2L/LIVE course shell. Be sure to import the auto-captions to your recordings and review/edit them before sharing them with your class.

• Maybe you want to meet virtually to hold class in real-time using the Virtual Classroom tool in D2L/LIVE. Keep in mind this is the most difficult to organize and get compliance from students in a crisis situation like we are in now.

• Upload content - this can include PP slide decks, digitized materials you might have handed out in class, or any other type of resource you want students to review.

• Embed other content either in the form of external videos, web links to external sites or library research articles, the list goes on.'

What if you had student presentations scheduled for part of the time the campus will be closed? You can still accomplish these presentation sessions with a little planning and preparation. Contact OTTL for assistance on how to select the right tool for the job and technical set up.

Collecting assignments and grading student work

Being able to collect student assignments is a key component to keeping things going, but for students, knowing where they stand is critical, especially when they can’t just chat with you about their grade after class.

• Set up assignments to collect students’ work. D2L accepts a variety of files formats to accommodate many discipline-specific tools and assignment types

• Associated grade items allow faculty to grade assignments and provide feedback to students

• Online quizzes or exams - set up a quiz/exam to assess your students’ progress

• Secure your online quizzes and exams using Respondus Lockdown Browser and Monitor to maintain academic integrity.

Student Engagement

Figuring out how to keep your students engaged and participating in class during a brief period of closure may be challenging. Set your expectations early and be clear about what you expect them to do regarding participation and not do in terms of how you want them to behave in the online world (think netiquette here).

• Use Discussion Forums to create opportunities for students to discuss questions from the readings or other content to simulate class participation. Helps you monitor how well students are understanding the material. Set up a Q&A forum where students can pose questions that anyone in class can answer. Visit the Best Practices page for more information about how to use discussions effectively.

• The Class Progress Tool allows you to monitor your students' activity within the course and see if anyone is falling behind.