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Alternate Methods for Continuing Class

Assistance is available from IT Academic Technology Services and the Center for Educational Effectiveness for faculty who would like to review their course context.
Assessment
Alternative Approaches Tool Goals Setup Things to Consider
Online tests, quizzes, and assignments
Sakai tests and quizzes
Sakai assignments
-- Administer online tests, timed tests.
-- Conduct polls to gage student opinions, experiences.
-- Administer quizzes to preview or review student level of comprehension.
-- Offer homework assignments.
Sakai tests and quizzes
Sakai assignments
  • Set time for students to take test and inform them accordingly.
  • Clearly communicate academic code of conduct to students and outline their responsibility to adhere to code of conduct when taking online examinations.
  • Select or modify items from existing tests, exams for online delivery.
  • Compare response options/scales between paper version of exam and online format.
  • Provide students opportunity to submit draft of their work, re-do work, if appropriate.
  • Provide students with timely, constructive feedback on their work.
  • Guidelines for construction of multiple-choice items.
Online tests, quizzes, and assignments
Sakai tests and quizzes
Sakai assignments
-- Administer online tests, timed tests.
-- Conduct polls to gage student opinions, experiences.
-- Administer quizzes to preview or review student level of comprehension.
-- Offer homework assignments.
Sakai tests and quizzes
Sakai assignments
  • Set time for students to take test and inform them accordingly.
  • Clearly communicate academic code of conduct to students and outline their responsibility to adhere to code of conduct when taking online examinations.
  • Select or modify items from existing tests, exams for online delivery.
  • Compare response options/scales between paper version of exam and online format.
  • Provide students opportunity to submit draft of their work, re-do work, if appropriate.
  • Provide students with timely, constructive feedback on their work.
  • Guidelines for construction of multiple-choice items.
Collaboration
Alternative Approaches Tool Goals Setup Things to Consider
Sakai Discussion Forum Sakai Discussion Forum
-- Provide online meeting place for groups to collaborate on projects.
-- Serve as collaborative space to collect research, resources.
-- Conduct peer review and peer editing.
-- Provide faculty / TA feedback on group projects.
 Sakai Forums
  • Create separate Forums for groups to collaborate on projects.
  • Post guidelines for collaborative work, e.g., self-assessment, peer-assessment.
  • Post criteria for successful completion of the collaborative project, e.g., assessment rubric.
  • Enter the Forum frequently to provide feedback and monitor group progress on their work.
Shared Documents Google Documents
-- Support student collaboration on project.
-- Facility student authoring of group paper.
-- Assist students in preparing group presentation.
Provide feedback on group projects.
 Google Docs
  • Google Docs is compatible with Internet Explorer version 6 or greater, Firefox version 1.07 or higher (but not Firefox 3) and Safari 3.1 or higher. In addition, you must enable Javascript and cookies to use the applications.
  • To access Google Docs, both you and your students need to create a Google account. Google accounts are free.
Communication
Alternative Approaches Tool Goals Setup Things to Consider
Virtual office hours Sakai Chat Room
-- Be available to students to address their questions, concerns.
-- Get feedback on student learning, difficulties, misconceptions.
-- Offer feedback on the students' work.
-- Advise, mentor students re career aspirations, major, postgraduate goals.
-- Provide learning strategies, advice on studying skills.
 Sakai Chat Room
  • Provides a secure place to hold office hours.
  • Alert students to start time of real-time chat.
  • May not facilitate one-on-one conversation as Chat Room is available to all students who are signed on to the site at the same time.
  • Chat is text-based only and messages can be archived.
  • Can function as message board to students who are unable to join the live chat and serve as a basis for in-depth discussion in the Forum.
  • Given the stressful H1N1 context, students may have more questions about how to access the course material, submit assignments, and may be concerned about the impact of their prolonged absence on their grade; we recommend you and/or your TA hold virtual office hours frequently.
Virtual office hours Skype
-- Be available to students to address their questions, concerns.
-- Get feedback on student learning, difficulties, misconceptions.
-- -- Offer feedback on the students' work.
-- Advise, mentor students re career aspirations, major, postgraduate goals.
-- Provide learning strategies, advice on study skills.
 Skype
  • You may use Skype to communicate verbally with your students, no webcam required.
  • For face-to-face conversation both users' computers will require a webcam. 
  • Alert students to start time of real-time, virtual office hours.
  • Given the stressful H1N1 context, students may have more questions about how to access the course material, submit assignments, and may be concerned about the impact of their prolonged absence on their grade; we recommend you and/or your TA hold virtual office hours frequently.
Discussion
Alternative Approaches Tool Goals Setup Things to Consider
Blog Sakai Blog
-- Reflect on the course content and its application.
-- Synthesize the readings, highlight personal relevance.
-- Raise questions about course content, readings, guest speakers.
-- Reflect on professional development, personal growth, e.g., internship exerience.
-- Link theory to practice by posting news stories and describing how they illustrate concepts.
 Sakai Blog
  • As each student creates a Blog, you would be reading and responding to multiple blogs. This may be of concern if you're teaching a large enrollment class; the Forum may be a more viable option.
Chat Room Sakai Chat Room
-- Hold live discussion with entire class or groups.
-- Discuss project with group of students.
-- Provide feedback on group projects.
-- Bring guest speaker / expert to the class.
 Sakai Chat Room
  • Alert students to start time of real-time, text-based chat.
  • Chat Room is available to all students who are signed on to the site at the same time.
  • Chat is text-based only and messages can be archived.
  • Can function as message board to students who are unable to join the live chat and serve as a basis for in-depth discussion in the Forum.
  • Assign specific times for Chat to specific groups when working with students on projects.
  • Groups of students can use Chat to touch base on collaborative assignments.
Discussion Forum Discussion Forum
-- Dialogue on various course topics.
-- Maintain threads of logic through discussions.
-- Engage students with the course material and each other.
-- Post questions, problems, cases pertaining to course content.
-- Prompt student response to issues via online media, e.g., YouTube clip.
 Sakai Forums
  • All students post to one online location which facilitates instructor access.
  • Try to refrain from responding to each student's posting to encourage student-to-student dialogue.
  • Serve as moderator: seed the discussion, listen in, steer in productive direction, respond to patterns in students' postings by asking open-ended questions, asking for reasoning behind statements.
  • Involve your TA as moderator.
  • Assign teams of students to take responsibility for a particular topic of discussion.
  • Consider requiring a minimum amount of postings to involve all students.
  • Provide guidelines for appropriate postings; e.g., The online discussions extend our seminar discussions, help you integrate the course content with your actual teaching practice and discuss issues with your peers. Go beyond repeating what has been said. If you agree with an earlier posting, say so, but also provide new evidence to support your point of view. Keep your postings to 1-2 paragraphs to move the discussion along.

 
Feedback
Alternative Approaches Tool Goals Setup Things to Consider
Feedback on student learning Sakai tests and quizzes
-- Obtain informal feedback on student learning experiences to make course adjustments.
-- Gather relevant information on how students are doing during a stressful period.
-- Convey to students faculty support, concern and caring.
 Sakai tests and quizzes
  • To support student learning, it is important that faculty collect frequent feedback on how students are learning the course material. Such informal feedback is particularly critical in a time of stress.
  • Use open-ended questions to gage students' level of comprehension; e.g., what was the most meaningful thing you learned in today's lecture? What question remains foremost in your mind? What was unclear to you? Please answer each question in 1-2 sentences.
  • Use open-ended questions to get a sense of students' learning experiences in the course; e.g., what is helping you learn as we continue this class online? what hinders your learning? Please talk about the two main aspects.
  • Assure students of the confidentiality of their responses and indicate how their responses will be helpful to both you and them. Also, assure students that their responses will not impact their grade but will be purely used for course enhancement.
  • Analyze the student feedback data for common patterns and respond to the students in a timely fashion; e.g., Thank you for your constructive feedback. I'm delighted to learn that most of you find the lecture notes in Sakai helpful and benefit from the frequent Chat office hours. A number of you had difficulty posting your papers to the Forum and only a few of you were able to provide peer feedback. Following please find a link to instructions on how to access the Forum. Please try again. Thank you.
Feedback on student work Word docs
-- Provide timely, constructive feedback by faculty and / or TA.
-- Provide peer review and feedback.
-- Provide self-assessment.
-- Pose questions to faculty, TA, peers about the work.
 "Track changes" feature
  • Communicate format for document submisison (.doc) and expected response time.
  • Communicate means for studnets to submit work, e.g., e-mail, UD DropBox, Sakai Forum).
  • Provide students with guidelines for assessing the quality of their work, e.g., assessment rubric.
  • Consider the guidelines for timely, constructive feedback.
Lecture
Alternative Approaches Tool Goals Setup Things to Consider
Narrated PowerPoint Presentation ispring
-- Publish narrated ppt as movie file on the internet.
-- Students can download the movie file, view lecture at their convenience.
 ATS
  • After narrating over your slides in PowerPoint, you must download and install ispring. This free software will convert your PowerPoint presentation into a web friendly Flash (.swf) movie that you can share over the internet.   
  • Students will need to download Flash from the Adobe site.
  • Prepare concise script of each of your ppt slides.
  • Paraphrase the information on ppt slide, avoid reading the ppt slides.
  • Imagine speaking to a live class to convey enthusiasm, interest, engagement.
  • Be mindful of the pace of your delivery, use internal summaries, and transitions to ease comprehension.
  • Incorporate rhetorical questions and interesting examples to engage the listener.
  • Spell out difficult terms and refer to their respective location on the ppt slide.
Phone conferencing Skype -- Deliver a live lecture in the format of a teleconference. ATS
  • You will not be able to see your students via a Skype lecture.
  • Communicate to students ahead of time: (a) time of lecture; (b) phone number to dial into.
  • Deliver lecture from quiet location to reduce noise distraction.
  • Develop protocol for accepting student questions and comments; e.g., "After 15 minutes of lecture, I will stop for 5-minutes of questions by stating: I welcome your questions now. Please state your name prior to asking your question."
  • Inform students where they can access your lecture materials, e.g., handouts, ppt slides prior, during or following lecture (post in Sakai).
Posting lecture outline, notes, materials, handouts Sakai Resources
-- Prompt availability of materials to ensure students stay on top of content.
-- Preview and/or review of lecture material.
-- Compare notes, summary of readings to lecture.
-- Provide accurate representation of graphs, definitions, equations, calculations.
-- Serve as reading guide in preparation for lecture.
 Sakai@UD Content Delivery
  • You may upload your materials in various formats, e.g., .doc, ppt, pdf, excel.
  • You may use Sakai Forum for follow-up discussion, questions.
Recording of lecture with ATS assistance Recording lecture
-- Make lecture promptly available to students.
-- Facilitate review and exam preparation.
-- Provide reference point for TA instruction.
 ATS
  • UD facilities and/or ATS staff need to be available.
Shared computer session DimDim -- Show presentations, collaborate via whiteboards, chat, talk and broadcast via webcam. ATS
  • Consider class enrollment as free version only allows 20 users at a time to participate in webconference.