Shifting face-to-face classes to virtual classes requires re-envisioning how to teach class content and to build effective classroom community. Here are some resources for how to do that transition effectively, in ways that honor our liberal arts context.
There will also be special @4 Spring 2020 programming, with notes and videos.
Puget Sound's Educational Technology page provides assistance with the technologies our campus supports for virtual teaching.
Connecticut College provides a small liberal arts college view of quickly during this outbreak.
: Mays Imad offers 10 teaching strategies to support students and help them continue to learn during this time of uncertainty.
offers strategies for making expectations clear and welcoming students into discussions online.
is a well-developed repository of strategies for teaching and learning that is organized into categories, such as online teaching persona, social presence, and cultural competence.
suggests ways to divide students into manageable working groups, direct discussion traffic, help students engage in specific ways, and help students interact with each other, and hold students accountable for doing the preparatory work necessary for successful engagement in discussion.
offers this helpful advice on the ongoing importance of the kind of face-to-face connections at which we already excel: 鈥淢aintaining connections with our students and keeping them engaged as our classes go online should take top priority. My research shows that when faculty build rapport with students, they are significantly more likely to stay enrolled and finish the class successfully. We can do this through just being ourselves in our videos, calling our students by name, reaching out through personal emails, and connecting on a human level. Our efforts are put to much better use engaging with our students rather than wrestling with technology鈥 Our greatest priority right now should be retaining our students鈥攅specially our most at-risk students鈥攆or the remaining weeks of the semester. Multimedia elements can be helpful for engaging students in online classes, but even if you don鈥檛 have the ability or energy to add those right now, know that many of us have an advantage that online classes usually don鈥檛鈥攚e already established in-person relationships with these students in the first part of the term. We just have to make sure we maintain those connections and keep them engaged for the rest of the term.鈥