Page 37 - Campus Technology, March/April 2020

director, product management at TetraVX
“The low-hanging fruit is dragging and dropping content to share with a class and then using the activity feed to keep the class on track for what comes next.” —John Baker, CEO, D2L
“Slides. Slide decks are extremely easy to upload into any online teaching platform.” —Shaan Patel, founder of Prep Expert
“Placing basic course materials in a repository
is the easiest to transition and something that many instructors are already doing. Online quiz- zes and tests have become more common but do require more effort and time on the faculty’s part to digitize. Conducting labs is the hardest com- ponent to transition to online delivery.” —Wayne Bovier, founder and CEO at Higher Digital
“Lecturing, asking questions to engage students, and asking students to comment on the remarks of their colleagues all transition well to online delivery. More sophisticated use of the online platforms will allow for students to form break- out groups. But even without doing this, many standard classroom techniques can comfortably be used. For instructors who prefer to use Pow- erPoint in teaching, the ‘share’ function on Zoom, for example, allows for the entire class to see the instructor’s home screen, where the [slide] display can be displayed.” —Frederick Lawrence, secretary and CEO, The Phi Beta Kappa Society
“The lowest-hanging fruit might be content that is already online, such as homework engines
associated with your textbook or a practice site like Khan Academy. You can turn to these to get started while solving trickier goals.
“If there is content that is best shown, rather than told or written, consider creating a quick series of videos. Just be sure to keep videos to two to five minutes and follow each one with practice, activity or discussion so that students stay engaged. Try to avoid simply recording a lecture in front of a whiteboard, but for faculty whose teaching style involves demonstrating a math equation on the blackboard or mapping the connections between philosophical con- cepts, making use of video is a quick and easy way to keep teaching without losing the ability show concepts in action.
“On the flip side, some content in your class- room lectures may have zero visual component at all. Can this content be quickly and easily transitioned into readings that can be completed individually? Can they be delivered in easily digestible formats, like bulleted lists with bolded headlines, so you’re not significantly adding to students’ reading requirements?
“Finally, consider the times that in-classroom learning centers around group discussion and collaboration. Assign cohorts or small groups right away and set up a cadence for them to complete phone calls or videoconferencing sessions. Assign subjects to be discussed daily or weekly. Make use of technology to keep the social component of the classroom going.
“Consider also the types of assignments or work that students might be doing. Can you adjust the timeline or order of those assignments to make the best use of this time? Perhaps you can tweak your course plan to help students get started on research or writing of a term paper or
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