Resources for Teaching Online

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Online Learning
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Author: Emily Farris

As universities think about what’s to come with Covid-19, many of us are starting to prepare for changing our classes to be more online. This is not ideal, as Dr. Kate Antonova points out in her tweet.

Below is a list of some ideas to consider as I start to think about this as well, with folks like Dr. Shawna Brandle helpfully tweeting ideas!

  1. Recording long lectures may be tough. You might have kids at home or your students might be watching on their phone. Consider breaking up the lectures into shorter videos. You can also see what’s already out there on YouTube, like this crash course series.
  2. If you are recording with Zoom, consider changing your background to something fun. You can also currently get a free 90 day trial to the WebEx video conferencing platform.
  3. If you end up needing help with a class because you get sick or you may need to take care of someone, Dr. Laurel Eckhouse created this awesome spreadsheet of political science faculty entitled, Faculty Guest Lecture Exchange  which you might find helpful. There are also folks offering expertise on teaching online.
  4. So many great folks on Twitter have stepped up to help. Dr. Shawna Brandle has written up her thoughts on switching online in her article, Emergency Online: Thoughts and Resources for Quickly Adapting Your Course to Online. Dr. Paul Musgrave has advice in his Twitter feed.  Dr. Jenae Cohn has another great one as well. Dr. Rebecca Glazer has a video (see it below) about her research on teaching online. Dr. Sean Michael Morris has this tweet thread. Dr. Barbara Smith has some useful tweets here.
  5. Ask your students about their digital access. Not all might have access to high speed internet. You’ll need to consider how students might access materials on mobile devices. Now is a good time to do a class survey, as Dr. Kim Yi Dionne is thoughtfully offering to share her survey template.