Teaching and Learning Surveys

At the end of the Spring 2020 semester, we surveyed instructors and students about their experiences in the shift to online instruction and asked them what we could do to make online instruction at UW Oshkosh more effective.  Here are the results of those surveys:

• Instructor Survey Results (PDF)
• Student Learning Survey Results (PDF)

Teaching During an Emergency:

Continuing Instruction During a Campus Closure or Major Disruption

This site is intended to help all faculty and instructional staff prepare for and respond to a sudden campus closure or suspension of on-campus instruction.

Contacts for Questions and Requests for Additional Information

Instructional Technology Questions:
UW Oshkosh Help Desk
helpdesk@uwosh.edu
920-424-3020

Pedagogical Questions:
Online Instructional Mentors
920-424-2324
IDteam@uwosh.edu

Curriculum & Policy Questions:
Charlie Hill, Associate Vice Chancellor
hill@uwosh.edu
920-424-3190 (office)
920-509-7298 (cell)

While the university will do its best to provide as much support as possible during this time, remember that staff members may be overwhelmed. Talk to your colleagues and your chair to determine where the “local” expertise is in your college and department.

If you find that you do not have the equipment or access that you need in order to teach from home, follow this link and complete the IT survey, and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.

Preparing Ahead of Time

Make a plan: How will you continue instruction in the event of a major disruption or campus closure? Discuss your plan with your colleagues and your chair. Your department or program chair and your Dean may provide guidance appropriate to the teaching mission of your department and College. They may have already provided you with more specific guidance. This page from UC-Davis (https://keepteaching.ucdavis.edu/assess-and-plan) contains much more detailed advice on issues to consider while developing your plan.

Prioritize your expectations and course requirements (e.g., lectures, discussions, group work, assignments, quizzes and exams). Can some activities be omitted in an emergency situation? Can some be rescheduled for later in the semester? Which can be done online? Think creatively: Can an exam on the syllabus be replaced with a written assignment? Can quizzes be replaced by short one-paragraph written responses that the students email to you?

This article contains some ideas for moving science labs to an online environment.

Don’t wait to communicate your plan to your students. The Provost recommends that you present this information in your class and also email it to your students, if you have not already done so. (Of course, you can tailor the message as you see fit.)

In the event of disruption of normal classroom activities due to a coronavirus outbreak, information pertaining to the completion of this course will be emailed to all students. It is possible that the format for this course may be modified to enable completion of thecourse. In that event, you will be provided an addendum to the course syllabus.

When the Disruption Occurs

Communicate to Students Early and Frequently. Students will need to know immediately about

• any and all changes to the delivery of your courses.
• how they can contact you.
• how you will be communicating to them.
• where to look for assignments, readings, and feedback.

Keep expectations realistic. Remember that students’ lives are being disrupted, and they may need some extra time to complete reading and writing assignments. In any event, they will need clear instructions. Be prepared for a steady stream of questions via email or Canvas. Keep expectations realistic for both the students and yourself.

Holding Classes Remotely

We encourage all instructors to work creatively with their colleagues and chairs to develop strategies for continuing instruction that are most effective and appropriate for their courses. For many classes, the most effective and efficient way to continue instruction will be to work through an online environment

10 General Principles to consider when planning the move to an online environment.

There are so many principles to consider when developing a quality online course that doing so can become overwhelming, especially in an emergency situation.  Quality Matters, a nonprofit organization that helps universities develop and maintain high-quality online courses, created this guide to help instructors ensure that their courses are student-centered and high quality, even in an emergency situation.  Here is a summary of the guide for quick perusal.

The Most Important Principle of All:  Be Kind.  This is stressful for your students, just as it is for you.  And they were just as unprepared to take this journey.  Students may require accommodations for a variety of reasons (e.g., limited access to Internet). Please make sure to let them know to ask and please be generous in your assumptions about the legitimacy of their requests. 

The remainder of this page consists of some best practices, instructions and video tutorials for offering instruction in UWO’s Canvas environment.

Tips for the Writing Center

Library Information

Communicating with Students

If you move to online instruction from face-to-face quickly within the semester, we recommend that you communicate with your students frequently at the beginning of the transition and continue to communicate with them throughout the course.  

Remember, just as many instructors have not offered online courses, many students have not taken them. Therefore, providing support to students in the transition from a face-to-face environment to an online one will be important. Consider early what means you will use to communicate to students on the day-to-day expectations and requirements of the course.  

Announcements

Canvas Announcements tool provides an easy and effective way to communicate important course information. You can use the Announcement tool to introduce a course topic, summarize a course topic, share current events, and point out course changes. 

Canvas Inbox / Conversations

While announcements are good for a whole class, sometimes you may need to communicate with a small group of students or just an individual.  For these situations, use the messaging tool in Canvas.  Best of all, Canvas messages are also sent to a student’s email address. 

Organizing your Course

Conveying to students your expectations for how they should now participate in the course will be critical. The Module tool and the Pages tool combine to offer an effective means of communicating to students the day-to-day expectations of your course.  

Modules

For an easy way to organize your course online, you may decide to create a module on your homepage for each week of the course. You can think of modules as being containers that contain links to pages, files and assignments. You can have as many modules on your homepage as you like.

Pages

For new online instructors and those who are not familiar with Canvas, we recommend that you use the Pages tool to create a page for each class period and provide students with information about your expectations for that class. You might provide information on the textbook reading, the assignments due, the activities to complete, and videos to watch, as some examples.

Files

There may be documents other than pages you want to share with your students.  You may want to share an article in PDF form, an Excel spreadsheet containing sample homework data, or a sample student essay.  Any information of this type can be added to the Files tool and then linked to a page or Module. 

Delivering Your Lecture

If you are not able to meet face to face with your students, you can still meet synchronously via Collaborate Ultra. It allows you to see your students and to display documents on your desktop to everyone in the class while you are talking to the students. This tool is easy to access, and you need very little preparation to get up and running

Host Class Virtually through Zoom

In the event campus is closed, schedule a virtual meeting room in Zoom. It is available for use in all Canvas courses.

Interacting with Students

Consider Options for Interaction 

Online courses can at times be very isolating for students. The physical classroom experience usually contains some amount of social interaction; students sit in the same places, they talk to peers, ask questions of each other and the instructor. The online environment can offer the same interactions, albeit through different modalities. 

Assessing Student Learning

Assessment activities are often a concern for new online instructors. As in any well-designed face-to-face class, you want to vary the type of assignments you are offering.  Some small formative assessments to help the instructor (and the student) know if they are on the right track are helpful.  Requiring larger, more comprehensive assignments will also ensure students are learning the “big picture” concepts.