Online Learning
Instructional Continuity for in-person and hybrid courses
Instructional Continuity may be an unfamiliar term, but it really just means keeping your class on schedule during disruptive times. Extended closures and course cancellations can occur for a variety of reasons: inclement weather, widespread illness, family emergencies, unexpected events, and even business travel.
Preparing a backup plan for teaching
If meeting face-to-face with students is not possible, its important that faculty are prepared to adapt instruction as necessary to address the challenges of continuing course work. It is important to have a plan to ensure smooth communication with students about alternate plans, make up class dates, or the conversion of some activities in the course to online activities.
Having a clear communication plan for your students is essential to maintaining continuity for your class, and can be shared in the course syllabus. How will you contact students? How should they contact you? Where should students go to find out information about changes to your class? What will be expected of them in the event of a prolonged school closure?
How can you prepare?
There are several ways that you can prepare depending on whether you plan to use Canvas or not.
Using Canvas
If you are not familiar with Canvas we encourage you to partner with a colleague who has been using Canvas to help you move your materials into Canvas and to mentor you about Canvas. You can,
- Store electronic copies of handouts
- Enable online submissions for Assignments
- Use Canvas quizzes for exams and consider using Proctorio for proctoring
- Communicate to students using Announcements and the Canvas Inbox
- Create short lectures using Studio
Not using Canvas
- Use ConferZoom to
- stream and record lectures
- provide synchronous meetings with your students
- Communicate with students from MyPortal
- Allow students to email work to you
Resources for your virtual classroom
- Virtual Classroom Options
- (Canvas course)
- ConferZoom Quick Start Guide
- (Online Faculty Handbook)
