Designing for disaster resistance
- External resources:
Going online in a hurry: what to do and where to start
, by Michelle D. Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 9, 2020.Putting some of your course content online in a hurry? We have resources for you!
, by Stacey Johnson, Vanderbilt University, March 6, 2020. Ignore the article's particulars about using Brightspace (Vanderbilt uses Brightspace). Focus on the higher-level ideas, which are solid regardless of the software used.- Tips on Moving Your Course or Resource Online, from the University of Washington, which despite the general title is really focused on accessibility. The most helpful aspect of this page is the many good links to places with positive suggestions for helping folks with disabilities actually perform well in your online course. The legal aspects (the page mentions the OCR a lot), while necessary, are not as helpful as the links.
- General considerations
- Specific points
- Moodle basics
- Easy preparations: posting materials, staying in touch
- Mostly-easy preparations: assignments, quizzes, forums, multimedia, online office hours
- More involved preparations: synchronous class discussions, Webconferencing, recorded lectures
General considerations
We are facing pressure to plan for keeping our courses going if our normal face-to-face teaching environment is disrupted. By and large, this involves being prepared to move operations online, to the extent that that is practicable. These are some thoughts on how to do that.
Moving a course online means a complex multi-way tradeoff between how resource-intensive you want your course to be, the richness of the learning experience you offer, the constraints of your particular discipline (and its material), and (not least) how much effort you are willing (and able) to spend. One size will not fit all courses or all situations.
That said, here are some considerations for making your course more resistant to disruption:
- Communication is key!
- Students
will need to know:
- Where to look for updates on your class
- What is expected of them
- How to fulfill those expectations
- What to do if circumstances keep them from fulfilling those expectations
- You will need to hear back from your
students, to know:
- How they're doing
- What works, what doesn't
- What accommodations might be needed
- Students may need different accommodations online than they would face to face
- What other unforeseen obstacles they're running into
- Times of upheaval increase cognitive load. Students won't necessarily comprehend as quickly or thoroughly as they usually would. Repetition can help with that.
- Don't rely on just one communication channel. Use Moodle/Google Classroom and email and face-to-face communication (if you have a chance as the crisis develops). One channel may get through where another fails (or doesn't get checked).
- Students
will need to know:
- Low-bandwidth methods will generally outperform high-bandwidth methods. In a disaster, everyone and their various pets1 will be trying to do things online. The network infrastructure may hold up, or it may not. In addition, some of our students have slow or unreliable Internet service at home. Take that into consideration as you plan, and have a low-bandwidth fallback for the folks whose Internet pipe is really more like a small straw.
- Online, all tests are open-book. You can try to proctor exams through screen sharing or the like, but the most reliable solution to online cheating is to reduce the temptation to cheat. Students, like most people, will generally resist temptation as long as it's not too strong. If your assessments are designed on the assumption that the students have the entire Internet available at a click (or on an alternate device), then they won't be greatly tempted by actually having that access (just by virtue of being online). Avoiding high-stakes assessments (such as the proverbial final exam that's worth 75% of the course grade) is another way to help students keep temptation in check.
- Synchronous or asynchronous?
- Synchronous interactions are those
where everyone is (virtually) present at the same time.
Advantages:
- Real-time interaction allows for a more responsive and flexible approach to the material.
- Misunderstandings and miscommunications can be discovered and cleared up quickly.
- The immediacy of the interaction can foster feelings of community, which may be important in a time of crisis.
- Asynchronous interactions happen over a
period of time, without requiring everyone to be in the
same virtual space at the same time. Advantages:
- The load on the infrastructure is spread out, making these interactions more resistant to technical and network issues.
- Scheduling is far easier, which may allow more students to participate.
- The increased amount of time allows more opportunities for students to reflect.
- Synchronous interactions are those
where everyone is (virtually) present at the same time.
Advantages:
Specific points
Moodle basics
Easy preparations
- Make your syllabus, handouts, and as many course materials as possible available online, by posting files or Web links.
- Keep in touch with your class. You can use Moodle messaging (which additionally sends email), or email your class from the Faculty Course Center on MyConverse.
Mostly-easy preparations
- Put assignments online.
- Put quizzes and tests online—but remember that there's no such thing as a closed-book exam online.
- Hold asynchronous class discussions online (forums)
- Post multimedia resources, if appropriate.
- Hold online office hours. There are many ways to do this:
- Be available by phone at set times. (Of course, the students need to know the hours and your phone number.)
- Answer email at set times (again, known to the students).
- Use Moodle's chat facility (or another).
- Have a predictable Google Meet room that the students can find.