Teaching without Walls at TRU: a practical guide with tools, tips, and techniques

Melissa Jakubec and Michelle Harrison

Brenna Gray and Marie Bartlett

Thompson Rivers University

Teaching without Walls at TRU: a practical guide with tools, tips, and techniques by Authors is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

This book was produced with Pressbooks.

Contents

- Welcome!

- Quick start overview and resource documents

- Part I. Chapter 1: Getting Started

- 1. Getting started

- 2. Learning outcomes at TRU

- 3. Design for the online environment

- Part II. Chapter 2: Building Learning Activities and Assessments

- 4. Learning activities

- 5. Creating and sharing content

- 6. Assessment: helping students develop and demonstrate knowledge and skills

- Part III. Chapter 3: Nurturing a Community, Without Walls

- 7. Helping students become effective online learners

- 8. Communication and facilitation in the course

- 9. Building community

- 10. A culture of care

- Part IV. Chapter 4: Using Technology

- 11. Using Moodle

- 12. Specific examples of video setups

- Where to find help and advice

- Acknowledgements

1

Welcome!

Territorial marker

Weyt-kp xwexweytep! We want to first acknowledge the Secwepemc Nation, upon whose traditional and unceded land Thompson Rivers University is located (ne Secwepemcúl’ecw). We are grateful for the Secwepemc Nation’s generosity and hospitality while we live, learn and work in their territory.

Thompson Rivers University humbly acknowledges the location of its campuses in the traditional and unceded territories of Indigenous peoples of the Secwépemc Nation. The Tk’emlúps territory is host to the TRU Kamloops campus; the T’exelcemc is host to the TRU Williams Lake Campus; Tsq’escenemc hosts the 100 Mile House regional centre; the Ashcroft First Nation of the Nlaka’pmx Nation hosts the Ashcroft regional centre; the Simpcw territory hosts the Barriere and Clearwater regional; and the St’át’imc Nation which includes Nxwisten, Ts’kw’aylacw, Sekw’el’was, Líl’wat, Tsal’álh, T’it’q’et, Xáxl’ip, N’quatqua, Xa’xtsa, Skatin and Samahquam hosts the Lillooet regional centre. Thompson Rivers University recognizes the need for research, teaching and service responsive to all Indigenous communities, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis learners.

This resource has been Adapted from Alison Flynn and Jeremy Kerr’s Remote teaching: a practical guide with tools, tips, and techniques and is designed to help you convert your face-to-face class to a remote course as simply as possible. We walk you through the process, at each step giving a suggestion for a specific tool/technology—the TRU-supported one and our preferred tool if it is different. We also give an example and sources of additional information. We also created a syllabus, course planning documents and other resources that you can modify to suit your own course, if desired. These resources are available in the section called Quick start overview and resource documents.

We have all shared the experience of an emergency translation of in-person teaching to remote teaching in spring, 2020. Each of us improvised a distinct set of tools and approaches that worked in the short term and enabled courses to be concluded in a reasonable way.

The purpose of this guide is to support efforts to plan courses to be offered using remote instruction, identifying a set of tools with supporting examples that can be customized for courses. We also recognize that this emergency involves profound changes to every part of the university experience. Many of us must work under challenging circumstances at home to deliver something that we may have never seen before, let alone created. To be blunt, this transition is stressful.

This guide is intended to take some of the sting out of the process of having to work under such strange and challenging conditions.

We value feedback. In adapting this book from the University of Ottawa, we dove into materials, tools, techniques, and research around best practices for teaching and tried to tailor it to the TRU experience. We have missed things that would make this guide more accessible to colleagues and the process of planning remote teaching less stressful. To this end, please contact us with questions, suggestions, and concerns.

Simple and familiar are ideal

We recommend keeping things simple and using tools and methods that you are already familiar with, to the extent possible. There are so many options that if the ones provided don’t seem like a good fit, please feel free to make changes or reach out (see the Chapter on “Where to find help and advice“).

The fact is that many of us have not seen examples of a “good” remote learning course. In a non-exclusive way, we will provide a number of examples of potentially successful courses and describe the strategy, approaches, and tools that were used to create those examples of success.

Consider how the pandemic may be affecting students

When designing a course for remote instruction, flexibility is important. In this pandemic situation, students have not CHOSEN to take a remote course. They are being required to take courses remotely and many have not even have encountered remote learning or an online course before.

Accessibility matters. Students may have limited access to essential materials for an online course or even to an environment that is suitable for concentration and learning. For example, students may: (i) have no printer, (ii) have poor or no wifi, (iii) not have a calm place to work, (iv) not have a suitable device.

It is vital to remember that we will be working through a global pandemic. Students, their family members, and/or their friends may experience risky health challenges related to COVID-19 as well as those that otherwise arise. Because of pandemic-related travel limitations, some students will be working in a different time zone. In addition to challenges that such time zone differences create that relate to delivery of live (synchronous) content, students also have other obligations associated with their presence in those remote locations (e.g. caring for family members or helping with a family business).

A little about remote instruction

This fall transition is an example of remote teaching and not (for most of us) a formal online course. There’s a full explanation of the differences here. Essentially, a remote course is a normally face-to-face course that is given a distance during time of an emergency (in this instance, the COVID-19 pandemic) to ensure teaching continuity. A remotely taught course is a digital translation of a course that was originally intended to be given in person.

During this pandemic period, neither students nor instructors have any choice about using remote learning/teaching approaches. Considerations and flexibility should be given to the fact that neither is optimally equipped for remote learning/teaching. In contrast, online courses are designed for their medium,. Their design usually involves the support of a team of online education experts, including instructional designers, graphic designers, and a production team. In a way, the distinction between remote teaching and a truly online course is one of degree, but the way content is delivered between the two approaches and indeed the content itself can vary significantly.

Up next

Through each of the chapters that follow, we walk you through the steps of converting to a remote course. Many course variations are possible and we encourage you to adapt these suggestions to best support the students in your course. Please feel free to contact us with suggestions, concerns, or questions by emailing LearningDesign.

2

Quick start overview and resource documents

The Quick Start Overview below can be used as a reference or to dive right in. In the main chapters of this book, we explain each of these steps in greater depth. We anticipate updates to this guide as the situation evolves. There are also video tutorials for how to do move to remote teaching throughout this ebook.

Other resource documents that we include as part of this overall guide:

- Course Outline Template – This is an expanded version of the course outline, including information on student supports, academic integrity and more. This is a comprehensive document and you are encouraged to adapt as needed for your course.

- Online conversations – This is a Powerpoint file with infographics promoting online conversation skills.

- Tip sheet for online learning for students for online learning

- Plan for online learning and work – This is a PowerPoint file with infographics illustrating a plan for online learning and work. One version provides an explanation, another, examples and a third, a blank document for students to complete themselves.

- Questionnaires to understand students’ experiences and solicit feedback, before, during, and after the course can be found in this Google drive. These are good resources that you can adapt to get information from students about their learning situations and how the course is going. You can copy and adapt the questionnaires for your own use.

These documents can be adapted to your context if you choose to do so. They were designed as Open Education Resources.

PDF version of the Quick start overview

I

Chapter 1: Getting Started

1

Getting started

To begin, gather information about the students in your course. Here are two main areas to consider before getting started with the design.

Who are the students?

Start by identifying what the students:

- Should already know (e.g., prior course knowledge)

- Have in terms of access to technological tools (e.g., do they have earphones, do they have a smartphone with a camera that works?), ideally by asking them

- Have experience with a university course (e.g., first year versus fourth year students), ideally by asking them

These will become considerations as you make decisions in the course. For most students, the answers to these questions will likely be as expected, but sometimes surprises arise. These include the students who would come and speak with you on the first day and ask you about particular accommodations. Remember that they cannot do this as easily under these new circumstances. Their voices may effectively be silenced by circumstances. Asking some questions at the outset will help you avoid pitfalls that could exclude some students, who may not communicate with you if there is a concern or a gap.

How could students help?

Students can be involved in many ways. For example:

1. Through questionnaires you can ask for their opinions and experiences before, during, and at the end of a course. There are examples here of Google Drive Forms that can be adapted; the examples provided can be copied and modified for your own purpose.

2. Students can help create course content (e.g., videos, problem-sets) as teacher assistants, volunteers, or in other roles.

To go deeper

Reflecting on your teaching

BCcampus has created resource materials for educators around a variety of topics of practice, including Open Education, Indigenization, Educational Technology and Learning + Teaching. They also offer relevant workshops and events. You can look at their calendar for current events, as well as watch archives of past events, many of which are related to the challenges of Covid-19.

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching offers many workshops. You can consult the calendar on their website to see current offerings.

The Learning Technology and Innovation Group is also offering Learning Technology Workshops. Learn more by consulting their calendar.

The Instructional Design Team is available for one on one consultations by emailing learningdesign@tru.ca

eCampusOntario developed a program called Ontario Extend, a professional learning program that “aims to empower educators to explore a range of emerging technologies and pedagogical practices for effective online and technology-enabled teaching and learning.”

Up next

In the next chapters, we will address how:

- To identify the course’s essential learning outcomes (or topics)

- To design for the online environment

- To develop learning activities

- To create and share content

- To assess students

- To communicate and facilitate learning

- To build community

- To foster a culture of care

- To help students become effective online learners

- To use Moodle

- To find help and advice

2

Learning outcomes at TRU

Courses at TRU have Senate approved course descriptions and learning outcomes.

Faculty members plan their classes with the same learning outcomes in mind, no matter how they choose to structure their sections or which textbooks they use.

The most up to date learning outcomes can be found in a database called CurricUNET, which is housed at OneTRU.

Here are the steps to access CurricUNET: TWW CurricUNET Steps

Use TRU Senate approved learning outcomes to plan your course as a whole.

You can further focus your course by creating learning outcomes for each course section (Week/Unit/Module/Lesson).  By providing learning outcomes often, you stay on track and you let your students know the purpose of each section.

The course’s learning outcomes and your intentions for the course (e.g., student experience) should guide each of the subsequent decisions you make, such as technology.

Identify the essential learning outcomes (LOs) for your course; course topics can be used here if you don’t have learning outcomes ready yet. Often, many less important LOs or topics need to be removed due to space and time limitations in the course.

Examples of learning outcomes:

- Justify the mechanism of the reactions in the course using experimental evidence to compare possible reaction pathways

- Demonstrate how evolutionary and ecological processes interact

- Determine whether a given drug candidate is expected to be orally bioavailable; justify your decision

- Use the definition of the derivative to find the derivative of a function and check your answer using the quotient rule

Divide the learning outcomes into modules

Dividing the LOs into modules, sections, or chapters will break up the course into manageable chunks. Students will need opportunities to hear/see the important information (e.g., short lectures), practice, and receive feedback (e.g., problem sets with answer keys, quizzes, assignments, exams).

To go deeper

If you choose to transform topics into LOs, here is a guide  from the University of Waterloo that can help.

Up next

3

Design for the online environment

Introduction

Designing for the online environment takes a different approach to what you might do in the face-to-face classroom. Decisions around assessments, activities and weekly tasks need to be made in advance, as it is much more challenging to change on the fly. Though ideal for any environment, explicitly outlining outcomes, expectations, timelines, assessment strategies are requirements for digital spaces, where time and space are experienced differently. In this chapter we will outline some suggested planning tools, and ways to think about time for both you and and your students as you then design your online space by selecting different strategies and tools to support them.

This section was inspired by a fantastic resource put together by Humber college – here is the link if you want to explore their 10-Step Design Process.

We will be breaking this chapter into 2 parts:

- Planning

- Design

Planning

There are a variety of steps in the planning phase, but first you need to gather the materials you will need. Starting with your course outline or syllabus, and as highlighted in the previous chapter, first evaluating your learning outcomes for the course. We often follow a backwards design approach for online where you start with outcomes, determine the assessments, and then build in the types of activities that will support your learners in being able to demonstrate how they have met those outcomes (through various formative and summative assessments). So in your first phase you will gather all the resources you typically use and then organize them into an overall planning document. The next three chapters provide more detail on how to create and curate resources and choose and build assessments, but the first step in planning is to bring these ideas together.

In Open Learning at TRU, as part of the online course development process we build what we term a blueprint. This blueprint contains our outcomes, assessments, assessment weightings, information about the students and target audience, and then a table where we outline the structure (by weeks, units, topics or modules) that links outcomes, activities and assessments.

Here are links to a few blueprint templates:

Blueprint-Template-Table Blueprint Template 1

Blueprint-template

Blueprint-Template-Table

Links to the Humber templates:

Online Course Design Tool – Fillable Form V5 (PDF)

Online Course Design Tool – ODF (Word)

Course Build Design Tool EXAMPLE – Fillable Form V1

Here are links to some exemplar blueprints for various online courses:

PSYC-3151_Blueprint_2Nov2012_JK BIOL-4141-Blueprint-_draft_shf_05Oct09_1

BIOL-4141-Blueprint-_draft_shf_05Oct09_1

Design

As you are putting your blueprint together you will be making decisions about activities, technologies and assessments. A few key areas that we will explore further in the sections below include:

1. Time and timing

- Schedule and organization (student time)

- Real-time vs anytime (synchronicity)

2. Developing and establishing community

- Building Community

- Maintaining connections

3. Aligning Assessment and Activities

Time and Timing

Schedule and Organization

Ideally, each course decision will be aligned with:

- The intended learning outcomes

- Your intentions for the course, such as the learning experience you hope students will have

- Abilities: both yours and the students’

The following graphic depicts how the various elements can play out in a course. Please feel free to adapt and share with students. PDF version Quick start overview_TRU.

There are a variety of ways to organize your course, but chunking your course into weeks is often an easy structure for students to follow. They determine what activities and assignments are due, and when they can work independently vs. tasks that they will work with others. Flexibility in timing is something to consider as students juggle their technology and time needs with family and other commitments. As highlighted in the PDF above, you will be scheduling a variety of tasks and activities, and each type has its pros and cons.

Time on task

Emphasize time on task over “contact hours”. Design opportunities to engage deeply with learning in authentic contexts, rather than superficial approaches. Here is a useful calculator for estimating course time. The University of Windsor’s Office of Open Learning recommends that students should spend 6 – 9 hours per week on learning activities in a course, including lectures, watching videos, readings, working on assignments, independent research etc. You may want to read their Fundamentals of Effective Online Teaching Practice for other useful information.

Real Time (Synchronous) versus Anytime (asynchronous)

Ideally, the remote course will have a mixture of real time or synchronous and anytime or asynchronous learning options.

A purely synchronous remote course would involve live streaming lectures without recording them. Such as format is hard on learners, teaching assistants (TAs), and professors for many reasons:

1. Technology limits access: students with poor/no wifi struggle to hear, see, and participate. Dropped connections mean missed information. Working in different time zones make attendance difficult.

2. Many students will have a poor experience if they can’t connect efficiently. Long, live lectures are difficult to engage in. These issues can lead to poor student experiences and they will understandably complain. These issues could lead to problems of recruitment and retention down the road if courses gain bad reputations.

3. A solely synchronous course creates obstacles to learning. Students’ cognitive loads can get too high with too many things to keep track of. You may find it helpful to review Vanderbilt University’s “Effective educational videos” guide. Problems with equity can grow larger. The online format imposes a fixed pace onto students, who may find it too fast or too slow.

Figure 1. Students may not have access to elements needed to succeed in the course

Often, explaining basic concepts works well asynchronously (e.g., recorded videos).

Synchronous time (e.g., videoconference) can be used for students to practice in groups and receive immediate feedback. Videoconferences can be very useful in courses, but require high bandwidth and immediacy.

You may want to check out the webinar From Real Time to Anytime Learning by Dr. Michelle Harrison and Marie Bartlett from the Learning Design team at TRU. This webinar addresses how to decide which elements of a course should be in real-time (synchronous) and which can be done anytime (asynchronous), as well as the importance of providing clear instructions, curating resources, course alignment and assessment, and leveraging communication tools.

Considering bandwidth and immediacy

Bandwidth limitations will cause students (or you!) to lose access to the livestream intermittently or for a long time. Bandwidth problems are likely to arise for any number of reasons. Students (or you) will be working from locations that may be subject to wireless interference, remote, or they may not have access to high speed connections. Bandwidth problems can interfere with every part of synchronous teaching, like posing questions for students to discuss in a breakout room (like in BigBlueButton). Students with bandwidth problems may need extra time to download materials before they can use them.

Challenges with immediacy can create or exacerbate equity issues. Immediacy refers to how quickly we expect responses from each other when interacting. For example, when present in person, we anticipate an immediate response when asking someone else a direct question (high immediacy); when we email, a delay is normal (low immediacy).

Immediacy requirements can present challenges. If students must work remotely, they may be working in an environment that is not particularly effective for studying at all times, or one in which there are many distractions or obligations; child care is one example. These issues apply both to students and professors.

We recommend against extensive use of high immediacy/synchronous approaches. Ideally, students will have choices in when to attend to course obligations so that they can also balance their current life obligations.

Figure 2. Examples of high/low bandwidth and immediacy teaching options.

We created a series of examples that suggest ways to find reasonable tradeoffs between immediacy and bandwidth. Our intent here is to take some of the pressure off both students, TAs, and professors.

Examples

Each example that follows is a learning outcome followed by teaching decisions that reflect a specific compromise between high and low immediacy, and between high and low bandwidth requirements.

Figure 3. Examples of activities designed to help students achieve the learning outcomes indicates, arranged according to bandwidth and immediacy requirements.

Developing and establishing community

Building a safe and welcoming space for your learners and developing relationships that will help support an active learning environment takes effort and intention. Building this community in an online space may take different approaches in an online environment. The following resources will help give you some ideas, but building and then maintaining a community of learners will take some careful planning. There is an entire chapter on community building later in this book, but here is a short introduction and links to resources.

Building community online

This resource from KPU “Building Online Commuinty” provides useful tips on questions and respectful communication in online spaces.

Melissa Jakubec, Carol Sparkes, and Michelle Harrison delivered the following webinar that provides some strategies for activities and approaches for setting a welcoming tone and making connections in “That Crucial First Week”.

Maintaining Connections

There are a variety of models for facilitation in online learning environments and promising practices for both synchronous and asynchronous modalities. From a design perspective thinking about everyone’s roles and clearly communicating (and negotiating) expectations for presence and levels of contribution is really important. Maintaining momentum and connection means ensuring respectful and open communication, and as will be discussed further in the learning activities section, there are a myriad of ways to organize the ways that everyone can interact and engage with different kinds of content within the course space.

One well-documented model is the Community of Inquiry Framework, as it highlights the interplay between the different ways everyone can interact within a course. It was designed to allow for deep engagement and interaction between students, instructors and knowledge.

The following chapter  “Step eight: communicate, communicate, communicate” in Tony Bates’ book “Teaching in a Digital Age” highlights ways to develop instructor presence, manage online discussions and set expectations.

Aligning Assessments and Activities

Though this is an essential part of the design process, designing activities and aligning these with assessments are chapters within themselves. One word you often hear from instructional designers is “scaffolding”, and here we are trying to describe a process to help students take their past experience and knowledge to continue to create meaningful connections to build their conceptual understanding and frameworks. Based on designing opportunities for learners to engage and interact it is hoped that they can build new knowledge and skills by the end of a learning experience. Ensuring that the activities included in a course build toward a final assessment is an important design strategy which is often termed “backwards design”.

If you would like further reading here is a chapter by Wiggins and McTighe called “Understanding by Design”.

Further Resources

The University of Ottawa’s Teaching and Learning Support Service has created tools to design a blended course that works well for a remote course, too, including how to further analyze the learning environment.

Up Next

The next chapter will focus on choosing and designing learning activities, as well as online learning strategies.

II

Chapter 2: Building Learning Activities and Assessments

4

Learning activities

Choosing Learning Activities

Learning activities are an important part of every lesson, as they allow students to engage with the material and apply their learning to various contexts. As we highlighted in the previous chapter, one of the strategies that designers use is to align learning activities directly with assessments using backwards design. Thinking about where you would like your students to be, and what types of activities might help them build the skills and knowledge they need to get there is an important design task.

A learning activity can take many forms, from reading a textbook, searching online for articles, watching a video interview, or participating in an interactive simulation.  The following are some examples of learning activities.

- Icebreaker

- Case Studies

- Debates

- Social Media

- Role play

- Problems

- Graphic Organizers

- Quizzes

- Games

- Think-Pair-Share

- Short-write

- Webquests

- Simulations

- Discussions

- Survey

- Interviews

- Field Trip

- Community

- Experiments

- Creation

Check out the TRU Open Learning Media page for activity ideas and see below about the Remix, Reuse, Reshare  – Learning Activities Repository.

Remix, Reuse, Reshare – An Open Resource of Learning Activities

Photo by Bruce Mars on Unsplash

The REMIX, REUSE, RESHARE website  is a collection or repository  of promising learning activity designs that may be used or adapted and reshared!

This resource is an extensive bank of activities  providing instructions that you can adapt to your own discipline and context.

It is searchable by field category, as well as tags. Activities are assigned fields according to the type of interaction in the activity, structure, discipline, learning taxonomy, activity type and creative commons license. Each comes with a brief description, as well as the full text of the activity.

You are invited to search the resource and use whatever you find most useful. Also, you can contribute your own successful learning activities and comment on those you reuse, adapt or explore! If you use or adapt a resource, please reshare your version.

We hope you  will find this online resource useful for your teaching and/or design practice!

Learning Activities

Kwantlen Polytechnic University has also created a resource  to support you with:

(1) identifying and reflecting on your course’s learning outcomes, (

2) connecting the learning outcomes to a diverse set of learning activities (formative assessment), and

(3) translating traditional face-to-face learning activities to alternative activities that may be delivered online.

The starting point for this process is Bloom’s Taxonomy, which identifies levels of learning goals, moving from basic competencies (remembering content) to more advance competencies (creating knowledge). Bloom’s Taxonomy can help you to reflect on your course learning outcomes and focus on what you would like your students to be able to do by the end of the course.

The next stage is to connect your learning outcomes to diverse learning activities that you can either demonstrate yourself or develop as participatory activities for you students. We identify some activities that instructors commonly use when teaching face-to-face, and how these might be translated for asynchronous online delivery.

Here is a great resource developed by KPU which provides a table of learning outcomes, corresponding activities for F2F and also online.

Learning activities

Online Learning Strategies

For a more applied view of how students develop online learning strategies, read Roper’s (2007) article How Students Develop Online Learning Skills. Roper highlights seven strategies of successful online learners. The Illinois Online Network has also developed a portrait of What Makes a Successful Online Student that you may find interesting.

For an examination of Kolb’s learning approach in relation to online learning, read Richmond and Cumming’s (2005) article Implementing Kolb’s Learning Styles into Online Distance Education.  This article investigates Kolb’s Experiential Learning theory, evaluates learning style research in online environments and how student learning styles can be considered in an online course.

Pedagogical Theories/Models

Various pedagogical theories/models have defined distance education curriculum development over the years.

Dr. Terry Anderson, in a 2010 CIDER session, “Three Generations of Distance Education Pedagogy,” talks about the challenges and opportunity afforded by the behavioral/cognitive, constructivist and connectivist models, with a focus on the development of connectivism! Click for SlideShare of presentation.

Collaborative Problem-Based Learning

In a problem-based approach, small groups work together to solve challenging, open-ended problems. This collaboration is facilitated by the instructor, whether online or face to face.

Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash

In Authentic Activity as a Model for Web-Based Learning  – Reeves, Herrington and Oliver (2002) identify the following ten characteristics of authentic activities:

1. Authentic activities have real-world relevance
Activities match as nearly as possible the real-world tasks of professionals in practice rather than decontextualized or classroom-based tasks.

2. Authentic activities are ill-defined, requiring students to define the tasks and sub-tasks needed to complete the activity
Problems inherent in the activities are ill-defined and open to multiple interpretations rather than easily solved by the application of existing algorithms. Learners must identify their own unique tasks and sub-tasks in order to complete the major task.

3. .Authentic activities comprise complex tasks to be investigated by students over a sustained period of time
Activities are completed in days, weeks and months rather than minutes or hours. They require significant investment of time and intellectual resources.

4. Authentic activities provide the opportunity for students to examine the task from different perspectives, using a variety of resourcesThe task affords learners the opportunity to examine the problem from a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives, rather than requiring a single perspective that learners must imitate to be successful. The use of a variety of resources rather than a limited number of preselected references requires students to detect relevant from irrelevant information.

5. Authentic activities provide the opportunity to collaborate
Collaboration is integral to the task, both within the course and the real world, rather than achievable by an individual learner.

6. .Authentic activities provide the opportunity to reflect and involve students’ beliefs and values
Activities require and enable learners to make choices and reflect on their learning both individually and socially.

7. Authentic activities can be integrated and applied across different subject areas and extend beyond domain-specific outcomes
Activities encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and enable learners to play diverse roles and build expertise that is applicable beyond a single well-defined field or domain.

8. . Authentic activities are seamlessly integrated with assessment
Assessment of learning is seamlessly integrated with the major activity in a manner that reflects real world assessment, rather than separate artificial assessment tasks that are removed from the nature of the tasks inherent in completing the activity.

9. Authentic activities create polished products valuable in their own right rather than as preparation for something else
Activities culminate in the creation of a whole product rather than an exercise or sub-step in preparation for something else.

10. Authentic activities allow competing solutions and diversity of outcomes Activities allow a range and diversity of outcomes open to multiple solutions of an original nature, rather than a single correct response obtained by the application of predefined rules and procedures (p.3).

Additional Information

An interesting articles about problem-based learning that you may find helpful:

Savery, J. (2006).  Overview of Problem-based Learning: Definitions and Distinctions. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning. Vol 1, Issue 1, Article 3.

You can also find a lot of additional resources about problem based learning on the Problem-Based Learning Initiative website.

Dr. Peter Hsu has also developed seven modules about collaborative problem-based learning for online course developers. You may want to take the time to view these modules in preparation for developing your online course!

Up Next

In the next chapter, you can use the learning outcomes to decide which aspects need to be achieved synchronously and asynchronously. We will provide specific suggestions as to which tools and strategies to use when sharing content.

5

Creating and sharing content

Curating and creating content

Curate before creating

First, gather all the material you already have available to re-use if possible. Curating will save you time! There are many sources of content:

1. Seek alternatives to copyrighted materials, including public domain, open access, creative commons, links, and insubstantial use.

A main source of resources are Open Education Resources (OERs), which are “teaching, learning, and research resources in any medium—digital or otherwise—that reside in the public domainor have been released under an open licensethat permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistributionby others with no low limited restrictions.” –UNESCO Some sources of OERs include:

- Ask a librarian. The TRU Library maintains an introduction and catalogue of Open Education Resources.

- BCcampus maintains a list of Open Educational Resources

- eCampusOntario has an Open Library plus other teaching/learning resources

- Discipline-specific repositories exist, including for laboratories (e.g., ChemEdCanada.com)

- Video sources such as Khan Academy and Crash Course

- Image sources, such as Pixabay, Flickr, and Flaticon

2. Copyrighted materials (video, text) may be desired sources. For these items, you could

- Send students directly to the source by sharing a link

- Request or require that students purchase the material (e.g., course textbook)

- Consult these Quick Copyright Tips for Digital Delivery, a guide adapted by TRU’s Intellectual Property Office to help you shift your teaching from in-person to online. As always, please contact the Copyright Office (copyright@tru.ca) with any questions you may have related to copyright concerns.

Writing text or preparing slides

For online courses, full sentences are preferable to bullet points. Bullets on slides can be explained in person but the meaning can often be unclear when seen out of context. That said, be a brief as possible an avoid being redundant–repeating key points is important face-to-face as students may have missed the message or not realized the importance. Online, you can emphasize the key messages and they can always return.

Creating videos

As needed, create new material. There are great explanations for creating instructional videos (e.g., Columbia, Edutopia, TechSmith). We also provide a series of examples in the Appendix. In short, videos should ideally:

- Be short (2 – 15 minutes, like TED talks). Ideally, videos will be centred on a single topic or sub-topic. Long video recordings (i.e., > 20 min) are difficult for many reasons, as they make it hard to: keep students engaged for that amount of time, find information later, update or clarify content (if there’s a mistake in an 80 minute video, it’s a lot harder to fix than a mistake in a 3-minute video), or point students to specific sections of relevance.

- Identify a key message (e.g., learning outcome, topic, or sub-topic in the course).

- Have accompanying visuals that can be annotated (e.g., slides). Share these with students so that they can annotate, too (e.g., post the slides on Moodle, use an editable format, like Powerpoint). More on creating videos and cognitive load from Vanderbilt University.

- Be engaging: use a conversational tone; making mistakes is okay!

- Let students see you in video recordings to increase engagement and impact.

Tools

Here are some set-ups you can use. However, there are many options out there, so you can always look into others. The Appendix has a few specific example videos of how each choice would turn out.

- Hardware – these are optional, aside from a computer to do the recording

- Webcam: your laptop/desktop’s built-in camera or a separate webcam, such as Logitech’s 960 or C615

- Tablet for digital handwriting: an iPad with pen or the Wacom pen tablet

- Microphone: the Snowball, Blue Yeti, MXL Tempo, or MXL conferencing; the built-in microphone on most computers is noticeably lower quality

- Headset: the Logitech wireless and wired versions are excellent value; a head-set is helpful if you plan to do lots of editing or doing more advanced recording

- Software

- TRU recommends and offers technical support on: Powerpoint slides recorded using BigBlueButton and uploaded to Kaltura. Other options include:

- YouTube Studio (simple editing), iMovie (Mac only), TinyTake (good for short videos), Camtasia (records screen, video, and audio; simple to advanced editing, but more expensive), or even Zoom (recording only). As usual, there are many other options if these don’t work for you.

- Notability (captures annotations on blank pages or a slide – can be run on a tablet or desktop)

- Powerpoint or Keynote, to make and share slides

To make the recording:

You may want to review the webinar by Instructional Designer Ken Monroe on Screencasting: Why’s and How’s.

If you are using a MacBook, the video “Screen Cap ur Mac” by TRU’s own Professor Tucker provides clear directions on a number of no-cost and low-cost ways to create screen capture videos.

You can find more information on Other Video Tools in the Moodle course “Support for Alternate Modes of Delivery,” including additional options for video editing.

- Key principles on creating educational videos from Edutopia (LINK) and TechSmith (LINK)

- Cognitive load theory guidelines, from Vanderbilt University. LINK

- Technology involved, from Shopify. LINK

To share the recording with students – Using Kaltura within Moodle

Kaltura is integrated within Moodle now so you can create recordings and add media directly into a media gallery in Moodle and then share the media within one or more of your courses.  You can even use it to allow students to submit video assignments.  Be aware that after you save your recording it could take up to an hour to show up in My Media. For best results use Chrome when recording.

Options:

- Media Upload (file already recorded and on your desktop)

- Express Capture (quick video capture from your webcam)

- Kaltura Capture (screen and webcam capture at same time)

- Video Quiz (select pre recorded video, then add multiple choice questions directly on the video. Can force the students to respond before moving on in the video)

Kaltura is for asynchronous broadcasting of lectures or other content. It’s basically YouTube – you go in, record a video, and it gets published to your course. If you are just pushing out content to your students and don’t want the interactive portion, this is the way to go as the service is geared towards this approach, and has more resources for publishing videos in a timely fashion.

In the video “What is Kaltura,” Jon Fulton provides a helpful overview.

You will find additional videos on using Kaltura in the “Support for Alternate Modes of Delivery” Moodle course, including the following:

NEW: Organizing Media GalleryKaltura Video Resource

NEW: Adding Images to a video with KalturaKaltura Video Resource

Two Ways to Access KalturaKaltura Video Resource

Add video media to MoodleKaltura Video Resource

How to Find Kaltura in MoodleKaltura Video Resource

Using Kaltura to allow students to submit video/audio assignmentsKaltura Video Resource

How students can upload video to a Forum (video)Kaltura Video Resource

How students can upload videos to a Forum (graphic)Page

Using Kaltura Capture to upload Audio OnlyKaltura Video Resource

Using Express Capture for quick video recordingsKaltura Video Resource

Using Powerpoint Within Kaltura CaptureKaltura Video Resource

Using the drawing tools in Kaltura CaptureKaltura Video Resource

Downloading Video Files From KalturaKaltura Video Resource

Transcripts or Closed Captions in Kaltura VideosKaltura Video Resource

Lecture Capture Microphones (Trent Tucker)URL

Accessibility

We recommend course content meet accessibility guidelines. For example, export Word and PPT documents to PDF in the format “Best for electronic printing and accessibility)”, tag images with descriptions or label as “decorative image”, and add captions to videos (Kaltura will caption videos roughly).

You will likely find this TRU Accessibility Quick Guide helpful, as well as these Basic-Online-Accessibility slides from a presentation given by Dr. Carol Sparkes and Ms. Carolyn Teare at TRU’s Teaching Practices Colloquium. To delve even deeper into this topic, you can explore BCcampus’ Accessibility Toolkit – 2nd Edition.

Inclusive Design

Related to accessibility, inclusive design “considers the full range of human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, age, and other forms of human difference” (OCAD University inclusive design research centre). You can learn more about this topic from these slides from a presentation given by Amanda Coolidge of BCcampus,

User Experience Design

The University of Waterloo’s Centre for Extended Learning’s User Experience Design for Learning website provides a valuable design framework that revolves around the student. Their UDXL Honeycomb provides practical advice on how to create valuable online learning experiences.

We recommend starting with the “useful” cell, which focuses on designing online content that works with how people learn.

Intellectual property

You may choose to follow a traditional copyright route for licensing the materials you create; however, there are other options that make the content more accessible while still retaining some rights.

Creative Commons (CC) licensing is a format that lets you decide how much flexibility to give for use of your work. For example, you may decide that your work may not be used for commercial use and that any adaptations of your work need to be shared forward in the same way. You may also decide to waive all your rights by using a CC0 or Copyleft license. An interactive tool to choose a license can be found here.

Figure 4. Creative Commons Licenses. JoKalliauer, 2015. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Creative_Commons_Licenses.png. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

To go deeper

The following book delves deeply into every facet of teaching online: Major, C. H. Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.

As another option, eCampusOntario’s “Ontario Extend is a professional learning program grounded in the belief that the impact of learning should be the primary motivator for creating technology-enabled and online learning experiences. It aims to empower educators to explore a range of emerging technologies and pedagogical practices for effective online and technology-enabled teaching and learning.”

Mayer’s Handbook of Multimedia Learning contains many principles for designing effective learning through multimedia.

The following article describes evidence-based best practices for creating videos, aligned with Mayer’s Handbook. See Table 2 in particular. Students’ satisfaction was higher with some video types than others, but learning outcomes did not differ; all videos were short (3 – 5 min). Choe, R. C.; Scuric, Z.; Eshkol, E.; Cruser, S.; Arndt, A.; Cox, R.; Toma, S. P.; Shapiro, C.; Levis-Fitzgerald, M.; Barnes, G.; et al. Student Satisfaction and Learning Outcomes in Asynchronous Online Lecture Videos. CBE—Life Sci. Educ.2019, 18 (4), ar55.

Content can become interactive by adding questions to videos using H5P using H5P or other methods, so that students can self-assess as they watch.

Minimizing bandwidth

If you wish to optimize further, this article by Kyle Mackie has suggestions for reducing bandwidth requirements for course materials, including how to optimize video streaming and reduce file sizes.

Synchronous activities

The chapter on Communicating with students offers more explanations about how to facilitate synchronous sessions.

Up next

In the next chapter, we address options for assessments, including quizzes, assignments, and exams.

6

Assessment: helping students develop and demonstrate knowledge and skills

There are many ways for assessment to work in order for learners to build knowledge, track their progress (formative assessment), and to assign grades (summative assessment).

Principles for assessment

The University of Calgary created a thoughtful explanation of key principles to consider for online assessments, including their reasons, how to enact the principle, and further reading. The main points are:

- Focus on learning (especially the most important aims of the course)

- Balance structure with flexibility (consider potential/known challenges students are facing during the pandemic)

- Provide clear instructions and quality, prompt feedback

- When possible, replace timed exams with other types of assessments

- Emphasize academic integrity (e.g., through conversations early and often, and an academic integrity statement in the syllabus)

Asynchronous assessment options

Here are some options for structuring assessments over the course of the semester. We suggest relying less on marks from midterm and final exams, and providing more marks from other sources:

- Moodle quizzes; posted weekly on, say, Thursdays and due the following Wednesday

- Complete a problem set (not evaluated, just for learning purposes); questions & answers posted as PDFs

Other alternatives include:

- Summarize weekly reading; submit as a Brightspace assignment

- Collaborative assignments; submit as a Brightspace assignment

Synchronous assessment options

- Answer a series of questions in class – the instructor can review and expand on the answers or move on if the concept is well-understood. For example LectureTools and Menti are classroom response systems that can be used to gauge students’ understanding of material in near real time—they work as an online version of a clicker. [BRENNA – do we have other tools we would want to add instead of these?]

- Submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a concept on Menti.

Exams

In short

A new situation requires new approaches, and one of the most challenging parts of moving to remote teaching is figuring out how to evaluate students’ learning.

To make a long story short, if you wish to give a fairly traditional exam under these non-traditional circumstances, we recommend:

- a collaborative, open-book exam*

- an individual, open-book exam*

- if open-book exams cannot work, an exam using an online proctoring system

Whatever the exam style, administering the exam will require significant changes relative to typical, in-person exams. It is worth remembering that relatively few students cheat on exams. Most students live up to requirements around academic integrity, although an open book exam is probably going to be collaborative whether you want it to be or not, at least for a few students. Honest students may themselves feel cheated if they know that others have not upheald academic integrity standards and that is also a consideration.

Honour codes can also be used to emphasize and teach students about academic integrity and ethics; students can sign a declaration at the start of their exam attesting that they agree to follow the exam’s guidelines.

Practical details

To give a collaborative, open-book exam, set a small, maximum group size (e.g., 3). Students should not self-organize the groups. Communicate clearly with students about how answers are to be submitted (e.g., there is one submission per group, submit as a Moodle “assignment”, answers will be checked using plagiarism software). You can require students to certify that they have participated equally in the preparation of answers.

Tips for using open book exams, from MacEwan University. To learn more, consult the following resources for: question types and a discussion of advantages/disadvantages.

Open Book Assessments

First of all, consider the learning outcomes for your course. Are there outcomes that students have not yet met that you need to assess? Make sure these are outcomes that you have already taught or be prepared to add learning activities and resources to prepare students for these assessments. Remember, now is not to time to increase learner anxiety or place more demands on them.

Consider substituting a different assessment for your final exam. For example, perhaps you can assess the same learning with:

- a case study,

- problem-solving questions,

- portfolios, or

- self-reflective activities.

Open Book Exams

If you want to maintain an exam approach, we encourage you to adopt an open book exam. Michelle Schwartz, Educational Developer at Ryerson University, has prepared a document on Open Book Exams that we recommend. As Schwartz states,

In the broadest sense, an open book exam allows students to consult some form of reference material in the course of completing the exam. Open book exams and closed book exams have different pedagogical ends. While a closed book exam “places a premium on accurate and extensive recall, and unless carefully designed, its assessment of students’ knowledge is likely to be dominated by that ability” (Gupta, 2007), an open book exam places the focus on higher level learning. Because open book exams don’t have the same emphasis on memorization, questions can move up Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, and ask students to analyze, evaluate, or synthesize knowledge, rather than just remember it.

Design your exams to take advantage of being open book:

- Questions should be designed so students “do things with the information available to them, rather than merely locate and summarize or rewrite it.”

- Allow enough time. It may take your students longer to complete an open book exam.

- Make sure you are clear in your marking criteria.

A Guide for Open Book Exams: The University of Newcastle Australia’s Centre for Teaching and Learning has created A Guide for Academics – Open Book Exams which provides more specific advice and questions types that you may also find useful.

Further Resources

Chan C. (2009) Assessment: Open-book Examination, Assessment Resources@HKU, University of Hong Kong.
Farrell, M. and Maheu, S. (April 5, 2019). Why Open-book Tests Deserve a Place in Your Courses. Faculty Focus.
Schwartz, M. (n.d.). Open Book Exams. Ryerson University.

Managing your marking load

It’s also important as you consider assessment for your remote course that you keep your own workload in mind. Again, Brenna Gray’s webinar Managing Your Marking Load provides some practical tips that you may find helpful. The slides are also a good reference: Managing Your Marking Load.

To go deeper

- University of Calgary’s Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, Five principles for meaningful online assessment

- A Guide for Academics – Open Book Exams

- 5 Tips for Using Take-Home Exams

- Create interactive videos using H5P through eCampusOntario’s H5P Studio or other methods, so that students can self-assess as they watch

- Weleschuk, Dyjur, & Kelly. (2019). Online assessment in higher education. Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning Guide Series

- Wisniewski, Zierer, & Hattie. (2020). The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers of Psychology. 10:3087. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03087

- Jopp & Cohen. (2020) Choose your own assessment – assessment choice for students in online higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, pages 1-18. DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2020.1742680

Up next

The next chapter addresses communication in the course, both between you and students and well as among students themselves.

III

Chapter 3: Nurturing a Community, Without Walls

7

Helping students become effective online learners

Most students don’t have experience learning in an online format. They may be comfortable but not necessarily proficient online. Students haven’t chosen to work in this remote format and most would have chosen to be in a face-to-face class. You can ask them about their experience using a Google Drive form like this, which can be adapted to your own context. As such, they could use help knowing how to work effectively online.

Supporting Students as Self-Directed Learners

TRU’s Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching’s (CELT) suggests the following strategies for supporting students and fostering their intrinsic motivation to learn during the shift to remote classrooms which will require more than ever that students take responsibility for their own learning.

1. Give students choice whenever possible—but limit the options to provide guidance and avoid overwhelming them. While unlimited choice can be overwhelming, giving students some autonomy in their learning can foster their motivation to learn. Can they choose their project or paper topics? Can they choose some of their readings or learning activities? Can they choose from a list of options about what format an assignment will take (paper, presentation, video, podcast, etc.), as long as they are demonstrating achievement of course learning outcomes?

2. Make course material relevant to students’ lives. Demonstrating the relevance of your course content to their lives will go a long way in encouraging them to engage with your course. Can you relate your course concepts to something happening in the world? Can you let students know why they may find this information or these skills useful in the future?

3. Provide opportunities for students to practice using skills and knowledge in a safe, low-stakes way. Are there opportunities for you to assess students formatively, in a low-stakes way designed to offer helpful feedback before a graded task? Can students write practice quizzes, complete drafts of an assignment or lab report, or get feedback in some other way? If you have clear assignment criteria, you might even be able to allow students to self-assess, or to peer assess, using your criteria to reduce marking work/time for you.

4. Ask students to articulate their learning when possible, including their processes for undertaking tasks and applying skills and knowledge. Providing students with a few prompts to get them thinking about their learning and how they learn can help them learn better and more deeply. For example, asking a student to articulate their writing process, problem- solving process, or approach to undertaking a task encourages them to consider what works and what doesn’t. Asking a student to identify their three main takeaways from a video or reading or lab report will help them to see the value of the exercise, and it will also highlight—for them and for you—where their learning has and hasn’t happened.

5. Encourage student input into the course whenever appropriate. Student learn best when they feel invested in a course, so find ways to allow them input and feedback. For example, could the students offer feedback about your grading rubric (or other marking tool)? Could you negotiate categories or criteria weighting with them? Can you ask them to self-assess with the same tool? Even if you can’t change the rubric, having an open discussion with your class about how marks are determined can go a long way to fostering students’ investment in your course—and in their own learning.

Resources

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., Norman, M. K., & Mayer, R. E. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching (1 edition). Jossey-Bass.

Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Harvard University Press.

Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Belknap Press.

Bowen, J. A. (2012). Teaching naked: How moving technology out of your college classroom will improve student learning (1 edition). Jossey-Bass.

Doyle, T., & Zakrajsek, T. (2011). Learner-centered teaching: Putting the research on learning into practice. Stylus Publishing.

Lang, J. M. (2013). Cheating lessons: Learning from academic dishonesty. Harvard University Press.

Lang, J.M. (2016). Small teaching: Everyday lessons from the science of learning. Jossey-Bass.

Nilson, L.B. (2013). Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to strengthen students’ self- awareness and learning skills. Stylus Publishing.

Pink, D. H. (2011). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. Riverhead Books.

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice (2 edition). Jossey- Bass.

Supporting Students in Remote Group Work

CELT notes that “Group work is challenging to manage at the best of times; it’s even more challenging in a time of social distancing. These tips should help you support students as they try to navigate the challenges of working in groups remotely.” They suggest the following strategies for support:

1. Remind students NOT to meet in person during the covid-19 crisis. Yes, there projects are important, but not as important as their well- being. Plus there are many, many options for them to discuss virtually. If you haven’t already done so, set up group discussion forums for all groups in Moodle. The Moodle Support Team can help you with this if you don’t know how to do this.

2. Whenever possible, ask students to create group agreements, contracts, or charters, so it’s clear who is responsible for what— complete with agreement about what happens if group members don’t agree or don’t complete their work.

It’s not likely students will agree all the time in the best of times, so we can’t expect all projects to run smoothly now with the added stressors of COVID-19. Provide students with a template to create a set of agreements to help them complete their work smoothly, including provisions for what they can do if they don’t have good internet access— and what will happen if someone from the group becomes ill. Need help with this? Contact the CELT Team at celt@tru.ca. Also, Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberley Center has some helpful templates here.

3. Encourage students to come up with a team name. This may sound silly, but belonging to a team with a name helps students feel they belong. Team names help groups form identities, and this helps create community. Community is especially important when groups cannot meet in person.

4. Remind students that they can accomplish more as part of a group than any one student can accomplish individually. This helps them understand the rationale of group work in a time that isn’t conducive to group meetings. Allow them to see that the group’s success depends on everyone contributing, and that their success is linked to the success of others.

5. Provide examples of how students can break projects up to work independently. Can you help students divide tasks or content? Can projects be divided in ways that allow students to work to their strengths?

6. Provide both individual and group grades, if possible. Students need to feel like they have some autonomy over their own grades. Ask students to self-assess and describe their own contribution to the group project. Students also need to feel accountable to the group, so ask them to peer-assess and describe their own contribution to the group project. We in CELT can help you create rubrics for this; e-mail us at celt@tru.ca. Also, Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center has some helpful templates here.

7. Ask students to reflect on their learning from the group project. Provide them with prompts, such as “What was the most important thing you learned about [TOPIC] from working on this project?,” and “What are you most proud of with this project?,” and “If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?” These kinds of prompts can help students feel positively about their group experience, and reflection fosters deeper learning from that experience.

Resources

Barkley, E. F., et al. (2014). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. (2nd edition). Jossey-Bass.

Burtis, J., & Turman, P. (2006). Group communication pitfalls: Overcoming barriers to an effective group experience. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Eberley Center. (2020). Sample group project tools. Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved from https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/teach/instructionalstrategies/groupprojects/tools/index.html.

Forrest, K., & Miller, R. (2003). Not another group project: Why good teachers should care about bad group experiences. Teaching of Psychology, 30, 244-246.

Gueldenzoph Snyder, L. (2009). Teaching teams about teamwork: preparation, practice, and performance review. Business Communication Quarterly, 72, 74-79.

Hammar Chiriac, E. (2014). Group work as an incentive for learning: Students’ experiences of group work. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1-10.

Hansen, R.S. (2006). Benefits and problems with student teams: Suggestions for improving team projects. Journal of Education for Business, September/October, 11-19.

Kilgo, C., Ezell Sheets, J., & Pascarella, E. (2015). The link between high-impact practices and student learning: Some longitudinal evidence. Higher Education, 69, 509-525.

Vittrup, B. (2015). How to improve group work: Perspectives from students. Faculty Focus. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/how-to-improve-group-work-perspectives-from- students/

Weimer, M. (2014). 10 recommendations for improving group work. Faculty Focus. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/10-recommendations-improving-group-work/

Provide a tip sheet

This tip sheet gives a quick, clean starting point; it was adapted from Carleton University. The adaptable version is available in the chapter: “Quick start overview and resource documents“.

Provide a worksheet

This adaptable worksheet can be used to set goals and make a plan, and includes explanations and examples. The file can be found in “Quick start overview and resource documents“.

Encourage developing learning skills

The Growth & Goals module was developed to help students become more efficient learners.

Two version are available in English and French:

- a course-integrated version, meant to be linked with the course’s intended learning outcomes, ideal study strategies, and support options

- a course-independent version, which can be used by anyone in any area (e.g., academic, athletic, artistic)

The infographic below gives a brief overview of the module.

To go deeper

Develop (and share?) your own methods of supporting students with the education community.

Up next

The next chapter provides step-by-step instructions for many aspects of Moodle.

8

Communication and facilitation in the course

This chapter addresses communication in the course, both between you and students and well as among students themselves.

Communication between you and students

It will come as no surprise that clear, consistent communication is as helpful in online as face-to-face context, helping to orient the students in the course and to your expectations. You can tell the students both the methods they can use to communicate with you and the response times to expect. For example:

- Send Moodle announcements for course messages, weekly.

- Hold office hours via videoconferencing (e.g., Teams, BigBlueButton), Mondays 1–2 pm

- Students can email you with confidential matters; you check email every 24 hours

- The Moodle discussion forum can be used for general or course-related questions; you check the forum every 24 hours

- During videoconferencing (e.g., BigBlueButton, Teams), students can raise their hand to ask a question or use the chat function.

- Note: at the time of writing, TRU recommends BigBlueButton  and Teams for synchronous classes and office hours.

Communication between students

- During videoconferencing, students can use the chat function to speak with each other or use breakout rooms for students to have conversations in small groups, such as introducing themselves in the first class

- Students can use the Moodle discussion forum to communicate with each other (but will likely use their own method instead)

- Seminar courses have their own set of considerations and could be considered in some ways like online conferences; suggestions here.

Behaviours, engagement, and rights in the online environment

Major goals in an online course are to build community and trust, engage students in the course, and help them take greater ownership of their learning process. To that end, we have a few recommendations:

- During videoconferencing, share expectations for online communication. For example, you could use or adapt the guide below; the file can be found in the “Quick start overview and resource documents“.

- Students are generally excellent at online etiquette, so they can be trusted to stay on mute if necessary when others are speaking or in large groups and to use the chat function responsibly. Closing the chat shuts off a main way that students can communicate with each other, ask questions, and build community.

- Encourage students to use their video and encourage oral participation (i.e., unmute to speak), but make this optional. While sharing our video lets us remember that we are working with real people online, students (or educators!) may not want their home environment shared, for a number of reasons.

- Similarly, encourage students to upload a profile photo of themselves on Moodle.

- This course can be an opportunity for professional growth for students. While you may not be explicitly assessing their professional skills, you can ask them to self-assess.

Up next

The next chapter addresses strategies for building community and creating a good online experience.

9

Building community

Building community and a good online experience

Building community and ensuring a good experience in an online environment includes a number of concepts, including building online presence both synchronously and asynchronously.

The importance of the first week in establishing a presence, expectations and simply getting everyone off to a good start cannot be underestimated. Watch Instructional Designers Melissa Jakubec and Michelle Harrison’s webinar Building that Crucial First Week to learn more about tips and techniques for getting off to a good start in your remote course. The webinar slides are here: Building the Crucial First Week.

We also recommend Educational Technologist Brenna Gray’s webinar Building Community with Tech Tools, and accompanying Building Community with Tech Tools.

In addition, Equity Unbound has teamed up with OneHE and created a resource for sharing community building resources. You can find all the activities on OneHE’s site as they are released. Some are good introductory activities, while others can be used throughout the semester. They will also provide opportunities to contribute and share your adaptations of them.

Recommendations for holding synchronous sessions

This collection of articles summarizes key aspects of facilitating online learning sessions.

Video series of recommendations

The first series of four videos from Contact North captures some main recommendations for working with students through videoconference methods.

Prepare before class

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=177

Prepare your students

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=177

Encourage participation

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=177

Engage your student

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=177

These next videos speak to two key areas: building teacher presence online and what to do when things go wrong.

Building teacher presence online

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=177

What to do when things go wrong (like a zoombombing)

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=177

To go deeper

“How to make online a ‘place’ for learning” provides an in-depth description of creating community in the online environment, plus many other resources are cited therein.

Up next

The next chapter focuses on fostering a culture of care and supports available for students.

10

A culture of care

Consider how the pandemic affects students

What an anxious moment we are all surviving together. When designing a course for remote instruction, flexibility is important. In this pandemic situation, students have not CHOSEN to take a remote course. They are being required to take courses remotely and may not even have taken an online course before. Even if they had made that choice, a pandemic is not the ideal circumstance in which to begin that experience.

Students will not have equitable access to essential tools and materials for an online course. For example, students may: (i) not have a printer, (ii) have poor or no wifi, (iii) not have a calm place to work, (iv) not have a suitable device, (v) health (their own or family members’), or (vi) may be working in a different time zone, be working for a family business, or have other responsibilities that take time away from their studies.

It is easy to imagine myriad ways in student identity could line up with challenges they will experience as remote learners. Remember also that intersectionality (belonging to more than one group that traditional experiences obstacles to full participation) makes potential challenges more complex and hard to fully address in advance.

We suggest simply addressing this issue at the outset of the course, and acknowledging the circumstances in which we all find ourselves (students, professors, TAs). We share the goal of trying to include everyone, regardless of their circumstances. Including everyone with reasonably similar effectiveness will simply require a bit of extra care and patience. This does not imply discarding academic standards, but does imply applying them thoughtfully in an individual way wherever practical.

Students may not have access to these elements during the pandemic.

To address potential issues, you can ask students what tools they have available to they, for example, by copying this questionnaire (adapt as desired). Using asynchronous options is one way to allow for greater flexibility in the course. There are also lower bandwidth alternatives to common tools that you may wish to explore.

Student can be referred to uOttawa’s Student Academic Support Services, and Accommodation Services (formerly “Access Services”) in particular. Educators should add an accommodation statement to their syllabi.

Remember how the pandemic affects you

Students are not the only ones who have or will experience serious challenges. Professors and TAs are subject to all of the same constraints. Pressures could even be greater under some circumstances.

Be kind to yourself and forgiving of colleagues. We suggest giving yourself extra time to get things done if you find yourself managing many obligations. If colleagues appear to breeze through some of the challenges that take you longer, maybe they do not have children, or their children are grown, or… just, be kind.

Strategies for Reinforcing Care and Community

Stress levels for everyone are extremely high right now, and the uncertainty around us doesn’t help. But there are strategies for reinforcing the care and community you have already established in your face-to-face classes, even as we move online.

1. Remind students of your presence. Often. Whether through short video blogs, regular and predictable email responses, or remaining present in discussion forums, students will be reassured by your continue participation in their classwork.

2. Be flexible, humane, and kind. Students will be dealing with a lot of additional external stressors during this time. Consider relaxing your approach to deadlines and late penalties in the coming days. Remember that the authorities ask that we not tax the health care system, so it may not be appropriate to require a doctor’s note for missed work due to illness.

3. Seek support. Our Moodle resource has a faculty support forum, and the Learning Technology and Innovation team is here to provide support for all your questions about teaching online. The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and the Instructional Designers in Open Learning are all community resources for you to draw on. Let us help.

Some additional ways to demonstrate care (all resources can be reused and shared, with attribution):

- Maha Bali’s OLC Innovate 2020 Virtual Conference Keynote “Centering a Critical Curriculum of Care During Crises” is particularly relevant.

- West Virginia University Press Teaching & Learning Series Pedagogies of Care: Open Resources for Student-Centered & Adaptive Strategies in the New Higher-Ed Landscape is a collection of videos, audio podcasts, interviews, infographics and articles focused on design, teaching, collaborative practices and assessment.

- Aimi Hamraie’s Accessible Teaching in the Time of COVID-19 explores how to best serve all students in this moment.

- Danya Glabau has produced a thorough questionnaire to evaluate student capacity for online learning within a specific class.

- Caleb McDaniel and Jenifer Brattner offer tips and ideas to help students who have never learned online before make the most of the rest of this semester.

- Torrey Trust’s Teaching Remotely in Times of Need is incredibly thoughtful (and we’re especially fans of Slide #24).

Addressing Wellness

“Wellness is an active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life. Wellness is more than being free from illness, it is a dynamic process of change and growth.” – UC Davis

“…a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
– The World Health Organization

“a conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full potential.”
– The National Wellness Institute

To support students’ wellness, you can suggest that they:

Visit TRU Services

- Counselling Services offers academic, career and personal counselling and now offers virtual appointments.

- Health & Wellness support is also available, including a Medical Clinic, Wellness Centre, and a Multi-Faith Chaplaincy.

- Career & Experiential Learning continues to offer work study and career planning and development support.

- Academic Supports provide many tools and resources, including advising and a variety of learning supports, including:

- The Writing Centre helps with grammar, essay structure, integrating resources, citation and much more through synchronous and asynchronous appointments.

- The Math Help Centre can also provide assistance.

Consult external resources

- Consult resources on staying emotionally healthy during a pandemic, such as:

- “How to Stay Emotionally Healthy During the Coronavirus Outbreak” by Jamie D. Aten, in Psychology Today, Mar 2020.

How and when to provide suggestions and resources

There are no rules for this but some ideas include:

- Sending periodic Moodle announcements, which can be set up in advance.

- Short weekly video overviews can be useful to students and help them focus on the week’s tasks.

- You can put resources links like the ones above in a Resources section in Moodle.

Up next

The next chapter focused on ways to help your students become better online learners.

IV

Chapter 4: Using Technology

11

Using Moodle

Basic Moodle Settings

When you first access Moodle, you will see a small gear icon on the top-right of your page that allows you to review and edit the settings for your course as a whole. This Basic Moodle Settings document walks you through some of the most commonly-questioned sections of these settings.

You will see that some things – like your department and faculty – cannot be edited. If you notice an error in a section you cannot edit yourself, please contact Moodle Support.

If you are enabling groups in your course, you’ll need to activate them in the general course settings, too. See our document on Creating Groups for more information on how this functionality works.

Importing Content

A few important caveats shape what can and cannot be imported

- You may only import content from a course where you are a Teacher.

- Student data from previous semesters will never be imported.

But all of your Assignments, Quizzes, and other Course Materials can be transferred from course to course, semester to semester.

To make formatting your course easier in the long run, make sure both the new course and the one you are importing content from have the same format (see our guide to settings for more information on this).

You will need to start in the course you wish to import content into, and click your gear icon to access the “Import” option.

Next, you’ll be able to select the course you wish to import. Depending on how many courses you’ve taught, this list can be quite lengthy, so you may need to use the search function. Use the course name exactly as it appears in your Moodle dashboard.

For a basic import with all the content and settings, just tick all the boxes and click “Jump to Final Step.” This process can take a little bit of time, depending on your internet connection and the size of the course being imported.

If you run into any trouble in importing your course content, please don’t hesitate to contact Moodle Support for assistance.

You’ll need to review your course materials and edit them accordingly. (For example, you’ll probably find you have two Announcements pages now – go ahead and delete one.) And make sure you update your Course Outline and any relevant dates and deadlines.

You can print this Importing Course Content document for ease of reference.

Combining Sections

Creating a course meta link allows all the students in one course to be automatically enrolled in another course. You will want to create a course meta link when you are teaching more than one section of the same course and you are using the same course materials and gradebook setup. We recommend creating and adding all students that are currently enrolled in the course to a group before adding the course meta link.

Creating a Course Meta Link

1. Click the Participants link located in the left hand navigation menu

2. Click the Action menu then click Enrolment methods

3. From the Add method drop down list select Course meta link

4. Select the course you are linking to from the Search drop down list, select the group you want to add the students to from the Add to group drop down list. If you do not have a group created select Create new group from the Add to group drop down list. Click Add method

You can print this Combining Sections document for ease of reference.

Enrolling Students

Students will be auto-enrolled in your class based on Banner data. You can always enrol additional students or other teachers by clicking on Participants in your left-hand menu and clicking on Enrol Users. If you have a different kind of Moodle Shell that is not linked to Banner, you will need to create a self-enrolment key in order to allow access to your shell. Please follow the steps in this Self Enrolment Key document, summarized in the infographic below.

Uploading Files

These resources will walk you through the basics of uploading files to Moodle. Given that we are unsure of what internet access students will have, please keep file sizes as small as possible. Most students will be able to access DOC, PPT, and PDF files, and DOC and PPT files are most accessible for students in need of screen readers or other accessibility tools.

The following annotated images demonstrate how to upload files to your course space.

Please note that all files you upload can be downloaded by the students; it is not possible to make them “view only.”

The following videos may be useful. Note: You will need to be logged on to Moodle to access them:

“How to Upload Files.”

How to Use the File Picker

How to Hide/Show Items

Allowing Students to Upload Video Assignments

This website provides additional information on File Resource Settings.

Additional Help

If you have a problem that isn’t solved by the information in this book, there are also extensive help documents available on the Moodle website. The following pages offer additional solutions to common issues with Moodle.

Note: You will need to be logged in to Moodle to access the resources below.

Managing MoodleURL

This is a good introductory resource for understanding Moodle, including basic definitions of all the key terms.

Working with filesURL

This document helps you to understand how to upload and organize files. Please note that all files uploaded to Moodle can be downloaded by students; there is no “view-only” option.

Editing textURL

This resource is useful for understanding what text in Moodle can be edited and how to go about doing that.

ActivitiesURL

This document outlines how to use all the range of activities available. The most common activities used by Moodle users at TRU include Assignments, Forums, and Quizzes.

BlocksURL

Moodle is organized on a structure of blocks. This resource can help you understand how to customize your Moodle space by using blocks, and also helps you understand what to do if you accidentally delete one.

Grouping usersURL

This resource helps users understand how to make use of groupings, which is a larger and more inclusive structure for organizing structures than groups. There can be multiple groups within a grouping.

Grading quick guideURL

The grading tools on Moodle include everything from quick grading to a robust tool for creating matrices and rubrics. This grading quick guide helps you understand how to best make use of the range of tools available.

Grader reportURL

This tool helps you to understand how to set up your grade book and how to adjust the settings to make your best use of it.

This section on Moodle is taken from materials created by TRU’s Learning Technology and Innovation team.

Creating Discussion Forums

To keep up communication with students and allow for class discussion, you can use discussion forums.

Forums in Moodle

Asynchronous communication on Moodle is performed through the Forum activity. Forum activities can be made with different formats and settings to facilitate various discussion goals and are, by nature, asynchronous.

All new Moodle course shells are created with an “Announcements” forum which is a one- way communication forum only instructors can post to.

Forums have many uses, such as:

- A social space for students to get to know each other

- For discussing course content or reading materials

- For continuing online an issue raised previously in a face-to-face sessionAdding other forums is a straightforward process and to create a forum and they can be set up as a graded item as an option. To add a forum, Add an activity or resource, select Forum and click Add.

Forum Settings

Add a forum name, description and consider settings that will meet your needs and link to your gradebook if desired (note that it is important to set up your gradebook first). Done’ forget to Save once complete.

Accessing and posting in a forum

Once created, the forum is accessible under the topic or week you create it in (or move it to).

Posting a forum topic

Click on the Add a new discussion topic which opens a posting page where you can add a subject line, message, and attachment. Once one clicks on “Post to forum” they have 45 minutes to edit it before it is shared with all participants. To edit is, simple click on the Discussion topic post to edit as needed.

This “How to Set Up a Discussion Forum” video also provides a useful overview.

You can also find more information on Forum Settings on Moodle’s support site.

Creating Assignment Dropboxes

Assignment dropboxes allow you to easily collect student work. Specifying that students submit files as PDFs will allow you to mark directly in Moodle; otherwise, files can be downloaded for review. This resource walks you through how to set up an assignment dropbox.

How to Create an Assignment Dropbox

The Assignment activity allows students to submit work to their teacher for grading. The work may be text typed online or uploaded files of any type the teacher’s device can read for example, word-processed documents, spreadsheets, images, audio, and/or video clips. Grading may be by simple percentages or custom scales, or more complex rubrics may be used. Students may submit as individuals or in groups.

When reviewing assignment submissions, instructors can leave feedback comments, upload files such as student submissions with comments, or audio feedback. Assignments can be graded using points, a rubric, or grading guide. Grades entered on the Assignment grading page are automatically added to the Moodle gradebook.

Step 1

Ensure editing is turned on. Locate the Section where you would like to add the assignment activity then click + Add an activity or resource

Step 2

Select Assignment from the activities list then click Add. The Adding a new Assignment page will open.

Step 3

Give the assignment a name, in the description area you can explain what the students must submit and you can upload supporting documents in the Additional files area. Expand all opens the topic headings to display their configuration setting.

1. Assignment name

2. Description Area (Optional)

3. Additional files (Optional)

Step 4

Configure the assignment options. Click Expand all to view all the possible settings or click each topic heading to view the settings for each topic individually.

Under the heading Availability we recommend adjusting the due date to reflect when the assignment is due.

Step 5

Click Save and return to course to return to your course or click Save and display to view the assignment. Alternatively, click Cancel to return to your course without creating the assignment.

You can also find more information on Assignment Activity Settings on Moodle’s website.

You may find the following videos helpful:

How to Set Up an Assignment Dropbox

How to Create an Assignment

How to Retrieve, Mark and Return Submitted Assignments

Uploading Final Grades

If you haven’t been using gradebook thus far, you don’t necessarily need to learn it now. You can keep your grades as you have before, but you may find the gradebook a useful tool for simply communicating a final course grade to students. If so, this “How to Upload Final Grades” video may be helpful.

Source

Thanks to the Learning Technology and Innovation Group, particularly Brenna Gray, Educational Technologies Coordinator, for the resources in this section.

Up Next

We know that this large change in course structure is demanding. The following chapter explains where to find additional support and resources.

12

Specific examples of video setups

This section contains specific examples about set-ups, recording, and processing options, organized from the simplest to the most advanced. Prior to presenting these ordered examples, we include a reminder about keeping learning outcomes in mind throughout the workflow process of generating remote learning content.

The chapter entitled “Creating and sharing content” described key guidelines to consider when making videos, in order to maximize student learning and engagement.

The learning outcomes should inform the choice of technologies, not the other way around. What do students need to take away from this course? Then decide on the tools you need to accomplish your goals. Keep things simple by using tools that you already have and know, to the extent possible.

You will probably encounter learning curves when creating workflows that are needed to create good quality remote learning materials.

Aligning with the course’s intended learning outcomes: tech in service of teaching

- Set-up: iPad (or tablet such as Wacom), Notability, PPT or PDF (for slides), Blue Yeti microphone, built-in computer webcam

- Content: Video segments chosen according to the course’s intended learning outcomes

- Processing: Camtasia (alternatively: YouTube Studio — learn how,iMovie, or other video editing software) → Export to MP4 → upload to YouTube as public or private → post in Brightspace

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=309

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=309

Below, we provide examples for approaches for remote learning video construction that include real-time content creation. These examples include:

1. Creating a video of handwriting on a blank page (the remote learner’s blackboard…), with video and audio captured using an iPhone 8, to present a brief section of course material,

2. Creating the handwriting outcome using purely digital tools,

3. Approaches with a bit more sophistication around inlaying the professor’s image inside the image of course slides using a greenscreen,

4. An example of a video-based lab demo,

5. A high production value video showing what a leading professor can achieve with a team of video production professionals intended to provide a little inspiration.

Example 1 – Handwritten notes

- Set-up: iPhone, stack of books, marker, paper, Make notes ahead of time

- Content: Focus on important points, good pacing, smile, use an engaging voice

- Processing: YouTube Studio to remove undesired parts (learn how), list as public or private, post in Brightspace

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=309

Example 2 – Digital handwriting and slides

- Set-up: iPad (or tablet such as Wacom), Notability, PPT or PDF (for slides), Blue Yeti microphone, built-in computer webcam

- Content: Digital handwriting, can correct mistakes

- Processing: Camtasia (alternatively: YouTube Studio — learn how,iMovie, or other video editing software) → Export to MP4 → upload to YouTube as public or private → post in Brightspace

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=309

Example 3 – Recording using slides and green screen

In this example, Dr. Elaine Beaulieu describes how she creates videos using a combination of tools.

- Preparation:

- Equipment: Snowball microphone, Logitech HD Pro Webcam (C920), Camtasia editing software, lights and green screen (easy to buy as kits on Amazon)

- Set-up: Videos recorded on laptop using Camtasia software, which captures sound, computer screen and video output. Video camera should preferably be rigged so that it is slightly above eye level (avoid nose shots). What ever it is you wish to record on laptop screen will work (powerpoint presentation, web based apps or browsing, drawing, etc…).

- (A note from the Flynn & Kerr: A green screen is optional. It lets you “cut out” your image within a video more easily. It is still helpful for achieving that effect, but video editing software is much more capable than it used to be at correctly identifying the boundaries of a person and clipping out everything outside those boundaries.)

- My green screen is small and only allows me to sit in front of computer to capture my image, I set up lighting for the green screen (even lighting on the green screen helps processing image during editing), but mostly on me.

- Content: Most videos are recorded with at least a minimum of script preparation, but nothing is rehearsed. I don’t rehearse my lectures, so I mostly don’t rehearse videos either, I accept it’s not going to be perfect, but time constraints means “good enough” is totally acceptable.The process may differ for the purpose of the video. Depending whether I am recording an emergency lecture (end of last semester), a blended course video resource or whether I am answering a student’s question.

- Processing: Videos were all edited in Camtasia or Quicktime (a free alternative would be tinytake). All my videos were posted in YouTube. When uploading a video into your account, you can create a playlist for your class, and you can chose who can see you videos : private, unlisted or public. I normally choose the unlisted option for my courses, which means your video would not come up in a YouTube search, but anyone with the link can access it. I specify to my students, in my syllabus and at the beginning of class, that all my teaching material, PPT, videos, activities, etc. are my intellectual property, which means they cannot reproduce it or post it somewhere else or distribute it without my consent.

Example 4a

Here is an example of a lecture. There is little editing apart from moving my image left to right and perhaps zooming in/out. This is a very simple recording, and adding a video of myself is optional, but I add it because I’m comfortable with the tech and because I believe, perhaps wrongly, that my presence on screen is more engaging than screencast alone.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=309

Example 3b

Here is a video recorded for a blended learning class, where students have tasks to accomplish and I am guiding them in learning how to use the software needed to accomplish the task. You’ll notice there is generally more editing to these videos (arrows, text bubbles, zooming in and zooming in/out) than there is in lecturing video. This means the process is more time consuming and demands greater knowledge of video editing:

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=309

It is also possible to create short videos that answer specific questions: just make sure you link to them in ways that make both the question and your answer easy for students to see and find.

Example 4 – Laboratory video

Here is an example from Dr. Horace Luong at the University of Manitoba. This example uses a more advanced set-up and editing, so the details can be found in the attached document.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=309

Example 5 – Full production

In this most advanced example, Professor François Chapleau collaborated with an external firm to produce this incredible video. While such production goes far beyond an individual’s editing capacities (unless you are Steven Spielberg, maybe), we did want to show an example of what was possible when working with a team of professionals in the area.

This examples is provided more as inspiration than as a spur for aspiration.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://remoteteaching.pressbooks.tru.ca/?p=309

1

Where to find help and advice

Educational Technology Support Service

The Learning Technology and Innovation Team provides support for Moodle and other learning technologies. For Moodle inquiries email moodlesupport@tru.ca and for all other inquiries email learningtech@tru.ca

Faculty learning technology support is also available through the Support for Alternate Modes of Delivery Moodle course. Check the course or Educational Technology website for office hours.

Learning Design Support

If you have questions related to the design of your course or want any feedback on aspects, the Instructional Designers at Open Learning are also available for individual or group consultation. You may find us assisting in the Moodle Drop in sessions or can reach out by emailing learningdesign@tru.ca and one of us will respond to you as soon as we are able.

Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) is also available at celt@tru.ca. They also have resources in their Facilitating Learning in Moodle course.

Thank you for reading!

2

Acknowledgements

This resource is adapted from Alison Flynn and Jeremy Kerr’s Remote teaching: a practical guide with tools, tips, and techniques. We gratefully acknowledge their work and those contributed to and reviewed this guide, including Dean Louis Barriault, Vice-Dean Academic Alain St-Amant, Department Chairs David Bryce, James Harden, Paul-Eugène Parent, and David Schneider, students, staff, and faculty.

We also sincerely thank all the educators and institutions who chose to make their work openly available so that we might use it in this guide, with credit to that work when it is cited.

Additional resources were pulled from a variety of other OERs, including Humber College’s 10 Step Design Process, Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s “Keep Teaching” website, our own Learning Design and Innovation department resources (blogs, courses, wikis) and other openly licensed content.