{"id":403,"date":"2020-07-28T19:41:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T01:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/?page_id=403"},"modified":"2024-08-10T19:05:59","modified_gmt":"2024-08-11T01:05:59","slug":"online-teaching","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/online-teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned about Remote\/Online Teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I spent the spring and summer of 2020 doing a conference, webinars, readings, videos, etc. about teaching online\/remotely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In no particular order, here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve been learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The hardest thing for students is motivation. See the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/resources\/suddenly-online-national-undergraduate-survey\/\">report by Every Learner Everywhere<\/a> on students surveyed about Spring 2020 courses.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The most important thing for teachers is engagement. See pp 14-15 in the report above. Using more strategies for engagement = higher student satisfaction. Which should translate to higher motivation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The second most important thing for teachers is authentic engagement&#8211;be yourself.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Maximum of 4 or 5 students in a breakout room.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Have some easy wins early on to build confidence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If using zoom for office hours, enable the &#8220;waiting room&#8221; function so you can be private with a student until you choose to let someone else in.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There are a lot of whiteboard apps.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Build in lots of white space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Don&#8217;t use technology just because it&#8217;s shiny. Ask yourself what problem it solves. If it&#8217;s not the best solution to a problem, skip it. You can add shiny later. I made some fun avatars and have set them aside.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Don&#8217;t make beautiful, professional videos&#8211;be yourself. It makes students less afraid of posting their own videos and enhances their connection to you.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Have a FAQ page on your LMS.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Check for accommodations needed right away. Then if you have to have captioning as you go, you&#8217;ll know. Same with alt text and other UDL features. Put in what you have to right away, then add more each time you teach.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>From colleagues, I hear that week-by-week modules are their preferences. I&#8217;m going to try it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Have a set weekly schedule: labs on Thursday, quizzes on Tuesday, etc. Be consistent as much as possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Be kind to yourself.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Try a first assignment of a short introduction video, and do one yourself as an example.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Short videos&#8211;no more than 10 minutes for introducing content. (Though my examples of problem solving tend to be 15-20 mins.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>YouTube will auto-caption videos for you. (I will try this, and yes, I&#8217;m nervous about it.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you can, make a special discussion for anonymous questions\/postings. I am probably going to install Piazza solely for this, since Canvas can&#8217;t do anonymous.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Try for a variety of types of coverage of content: readings, videos, discussions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Discussion forums need to have your input. Not necessarily daily, but at least a few times a week.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>No one has an answer to the cheating problem for assessing student work, but the best thing to do is just trust in students&#8217; integrity and not worry about it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Consider re-naming Office Hours to something more friendly, less intimidating. I&#8217;m considering &#8220;Physics Hour&#8221; or &#8220;Afternoon Tea&#8221;. Could be a good excuse to wear my fancy hats!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Build in lots of structure. It&#8217;s not handholding&#8211;it&#8217;s necessary support.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Access and equity are things to think through as you build a course.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Consider audio feedback instead of written feedback.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If possible, have feedback refer to where the student should look for help (Lecture 5.1 at 08:39).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Make campus resources obvious (tutoring, counseling, other).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Find out what resources students have right away. I have an opening survey asking about internet access, familiarity with zoom\/google docs\/teams\/office online. Luckily, UW-Stout is a laptop campus and every student has a laptop. I have never been more grateful for that.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>For slideshows, adding a picture for picture&#8217;s sake is bad&#8211;distracts the learner, especially if there is voice-over.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Even though Kahoot was originally designed for K12, a lot of university-level folks use it. I&#8217;m going to try it, if I can get it to connect up with my videos.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I&#8217;m making a &#8220;Laura, please make a video on &#8230;&#8221; form for my course so students can ask for a particular topic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Have a clear communication plan. When &amp; how on your end, and when &amp; how for students too. DO NOT be available 24\/7. Have clear time boundaries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>For a first time through, just do your best to make it work. Nothing in teaching is perfect the first time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use as many resources as you can from others. Don&#8217;t reinvent the wheel.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Be kind to your students. We&#8217;re all trying to do this in a pandemic. Nothing is normal.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Consider what students really need to get out of your class this year, this term. Focus on that first, then your typical objectives. I&#8217;m adding two learning objectives about responsibility for learning, and participating in an online class. I also will be trying to use current events as much as I can (but again, being engaged and authentic is priority one; this is lower priority).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s where I&#8217;ve been learning, in no particular order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sixredmarbles.com\/faculty-success\/\">Six Red Marbles&#8217; Faculty Success<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theremotesummit.org\/\">The REMOTE conference at ASU (sessions are available on demand for a few months)<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Small Teaching Online<\/em> by Darby &amp; Lang<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/acue.org\/online-teaching-toolkit\/\">ACUE Online Teaching Toolkit<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>PhysPort recommendations: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.physport.org\/recommendations\/Entry.cfm?ID=119927\">for lab courses<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.physport.org\/recommendations\/Entry.cfm?ID=119906\">in general<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spent the spring and summer of 2020 doing a conference, webinars, readings, videos, etc. about teaching online\/remotely. In no particular order, here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve been learning. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Here&#8217;s where I&#8217;ve been learning, in no particular order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-403","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/403\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}