Getting Started with Teaching at a Distance

PREPARE · SHARE · ADAPT

When you realize you have to move aspects of your class from a face-to-face interaction into a remote learning and teaching context, it may be helpful to begin with these steps. The guiding principles are: prepare, share, and adapt.

Course Continuity: In This Section

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Prepare

Identify plans early:

In future semesters, consider adding a statement that addresses emergencies and expectations up front in your syllabus, so students know what will happen if classes are canceled, including procedures you will implement. Do this each semester, so you are ready in case of any (minor or major) emergency.

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Check in with your department or program:

Your department or program may issue more details about the situation and guidelines about their expectations for classes. Administrators may want to have many of the department's classes handled in similar ways, so check with your department chair before doing too much individual planning. Your program peers can be an excellent resource for discipline-specific strategies for modifying your practices to achieve preferred learning outcomes.

Communicate with your students right away:
- Even if you don't have a plan in place yet, communicate with your students as soon as possible. Let them know that you are aware of the potential disruption and will be sharing more details with them soon.
- Confirm your preferred method for how they will communicate with you (email, phone, via your chosen learning management system).
- Set expectations for them regarding how often they should check in with you and and how: for example, they should be checking email daily or logging in daily to your Bard Moodle or Google Classroom site.

Adapt

Revisit your learning goals. Build flexibility into your plan(s) for how students can now accomplish these:

Revisit your learning goals. Build flexibility into your plan(s) for how students can now accomplish these:

Given a sudden, dramatic shift in how or where you will teach, what can you realistically accomplish during this time period? Do you think you can maintain your original syllabus and schedule? Do you hope students will keep up with the reading with some assignments to add structure and accountability?
Review your course schedule to determine priorities:

Review your course schedule to determine priorities:

Identify your priorities during the disruption—providing lectures, structuring new opportunities for discussion or group work, collecting assignments, etc. Which activities are better rescheduled, and what can or must be done online? Give yourself a little flexibility in that schedule, just in case the situation takes longer to resolve or you find that the technological lift is heavier than you'd anticipated.
Review your syllabus for course materials, assignments, or policies that must change:

Review your syllabus for course materials, assignments, or policies that must change:

What will have to temporarily change in your syllabus (policies, due dates, assignments, etc.)? Replace physical resources with digital resources where possible. Remember that students who are not on campus will not have (physical) access to the library, and some will lack access to their course textbooks. Have realistic expectations about staff support for scanning articles or book chapters. Convert synchronous activities into asynchronous activities to ease scheduling or personal technology challenges, as long as the new asynchronous activity promotes the same learning outcomes. Since students will likely be thrown off by the changes, they will appreciate details and clarity whenever you can provide them.
Identify your new expectations for students:

Identify your new expectations for students:

You will have to reconsider some of your expectations for students, including participation, communication, and deadlines. As you think through those changes, keep in mind the impact this situation may have on students' ability to meet those expectations, including illness, lacking a computer, power or internet connections, or needing to care for family members. Be ready to handle requests for extensions or accommodations equitably.
Pick tools and approaches familiar to you and your students

Pick tools and approaches familiar to you and your students

Try to rely on tools and workflows that are familiar to you and your students when possible, and roll out new tools only when absolutely necessary. If a closure is caused by a local crisis, it may be already taxing everyone's mental and emotional energy; introducing a lot of new tools and approaches may leave even less energy and attention for learning.

Communicate

Try to be as transparent as possible:

Students are likely to feel anxious about not being able to attend class, or about unanticipated changes to course syllabi. Let students know about modifications to assignments and the impact these will have on how students are graded for the semester. Whenever possible, provide students with multiple ways to earn credit for “participation” so that those who are unable to attend class can continue to engage as fully as possible, and with the confidence that they won’t be penalized for their absence.
Create a more detailed communications plan:

Once you have more details about changes in the class, communicate them to students, along with more information about how they can contact you (email, online office hours, etc.). A useful communication plan also lets students know how soon they can expect a reply. They will have many questions, so try to figure out early how you hope to manage that.

This guide borrows extensively from an excellent guide prepared by Bowdoin College.
We are grateful to our colleagues there for sharing it with the higher ed community.

Getting Started with Teaching at a Distance

Course Continuity: In This Section

Prepare

Share

Adapt

Revisit your learning goals. Build flexibility into your plan(s) for how students can now accomplish these:

Review your course schedule to determine priorities:

Review your syllabus for course materials, assignments, or policies that must change:

Identify your new expectations for students:

Pick tools and approaches familiar to you and your students

Communicate

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