What do you and your students need to be successful for the rest of the semester? Are there equipment needs? Access to particular resources? What are the critical goals, activities, and assignments remaining for the course? What accommodations may be needed? What time zones will your students be participating from?
Quick Start Guide for Teaching Online
✔ Take an Inventory
Student Survey: Considerations for Online Teaching/Learning
You may want to survey your students; this example survey, provided by UK's Dr. Lauren Cagle, can serve as inspiration or a template for faculty to adapt to their own purposes.
✔ Communicate with Students
Communicate early and often with students, even if you don’t have a complete sense of how things will work out. Communicate any changes regarding:
- Course Delivery Format
- Location of Resources and Course Information
- Expectations for Instructor and Student Communications
- Schedule and Deadlines
- Lessons, Activities, and Assignments
- Expectations for Assessment and Course Completion
- Course Policies and Procedures
What About FERPA?
As we pivot to remote course delivery and use online platforms to teach and communicate, it will be important to remember our responsibility to maintain the privacy of student information and education records. The document linked below outlines some best practices and points to other resources.
✔ Post Key Materials
Readings, notes, lectures, assignment instructions, rubrics, and other instructional materials in Canvas. They can be organized in modules. If appropriate, instructors can take advantage of existing educational resources (e.g., previous lecture capture recordings, open data or resources).
✔ Deliver a Virtual Lecture
Using Zoom or YuJa Video Capture, lectures can be delivered to students during the class meeting time or recorded for students to study on their own time.
Zoom
Local recording allows users to record meeting video and audio locally to a computer. The recorded files can be uploaded to a file storage service like Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, or a streaming service like YuJa.
YuJa
Create Recording provides essential tools to access, install, and manage both Software and Hardware Capture. These tools are accessible through the Create Recording option at the top of the screen after logging into uky.yuja.com.
✔ Engage Students Virtually
Canvas discussion and chat can be used to engage students with each other and the instructor. (And, you can use video, audio, and text to comment!) Zoom meetings with breakout rooms present ways to engage students, as do other platforms, e.g., OneDrive, Google Drive.
✔ Assess Student Learning
Quizzes and exams can be administered in Canvas, and students may submit assignments in an array of formats (or link to other locations, e.g., cloud storage via URL). Instructors can provide feedback and grades in the Canvas SpeedGrader. And, the rubrics feature makes it easy for students to know what to expect, and for instructors to grade efficiently. Automated and secure remote proctoring is available via Respondus.
✔ Regularly Check for Accessibility
Ally is a Canvas-based tool that provides three ratings (red, yellow, green) for the accessibility of Canvas content (e.g., ADA compliance). YuJa provides autocaptioning for videos. Depending on students’ bandwidth, Internet access, and personal devices, some activities may not be as accessible. Keep in mind any accommodation letters provided by the DRC.
What About Accommodations?
We are always responsible for providing accommodations listed in letters issued by UK's Disability Resource Center. You can contact the listed DRC consultant for questions; CELT's Universal Design Consultant (jennifer.pusateri@uky.edu) can also help instructors think about teaching with accommodations. Click below for more on accommodations in online teaching.