In a circumstance where you might be required to change the modality of your course
with minimal notice, this guide will provide you with some actions to take when making
this shift.
First, thank you all for your sensitivity to the diverse needs of our students and
how we can continue to provide services to the best of our ability.
Here within the Special Resource Center, we are working hard to address changes and to continue to provide accommodations
in as seamless a way as possible. It may not be the most ideal, but we will strive
to provide services in a reasonable and efficient way.
Here are tips faculty need to take into consideration working with students with disabilities
within their classes:
Attendance:
Students with compromised immune systems may need to miss class and/or exams to be
and feel safe. Use professional judgment and exercise flexibility when responding
to requests.
Consider ways students could participate in classes remotely or online (Zoom or Canvas)
following accessibility guidelines as mentioned below
Students with chronic illness, immunity conditions and similar disabilities may have
to stay out of school longer than other students
Do not ask the student to provide a note from a doctor or psychologist to verify
Instructional Materials:
Just like Face-to-Face classes, all online and digital instructional materials must
be accessible.
Preferred formats are Canvas, email, MS Word, PowerPoint. (PDF is not preferred as
many of these documents are not accessible.) PanOpto
Documents must be formatted to work with screen readers
Videos must be captioned accurately, check for accuracy
Audio files must also include accurate written transcripts
Links to content off campus such as You Tube videos or documents must also be accessible
Testing:
All Testing, including those students approved for extended time, should move to online
Students with extended time authorizations need to have adjustments made in Canvas
to allow for the extended time.
Lectures and Note Taking:
For most online teaching modalities that include a written record, such as PowerPoint,
Word Docs, and Canvas discussion boards, note taking should not be necessary,
Instructors may post their own lecture notes
For those that simulate a face to face classroom, such as streaming videos or Zoom
meetings, captioning and recording will be necessary. Zoom requires at least 7 working
days advance notice to provide a live captionist.
Captioning will not be provided after the fact, even if session was recorded. You
can send us a Zoom link in which the Interpreter can click the link and interpret
live as you lecture using Zoom, however there will be no live captioning happening.
Use of PanOpto. This is available with your Canvas shell. Use of PanOpto allows you
to video and audio record your lectures and have them uploaded in your Canvas Shells
so all students can access your lectures to view and take notes. They can also access
the recorded lecture again if its on Canvas to view at other times so that they can
look at information and/or capture information that was initially missed. Additionally,
we will use this program for our DHH Students where we will access your shell and
obtain your recorded lecture so that we can also record an Interpreter in the video.
Then the video will be uploaded into your shells with the interpreter recorded as
well. PanOpto also captions while recording. However, the captioning may not always
be accurate. Brian Krause will be providing a training on how to use PanOpto within
your Canvas shells tomorrow at 9:00 in our SRC office in the Educational Development
Lab Classroom.
This will also be recorded on WebEx for faculty to access if they are unable to attend
this training.
Additional guidance will be provided when and if it becomes available.
Thank you,
Gary Greco, Director, Special Resource Center, American Sign Language/Interpreter Training Programs,
Will be available via email to answer any questions. (310) 594-3861 (video phone)
Training to Support Move to Remote Instruction
Until further notice:
Dr. Moses Wolfenstein and Gema Perez will be available virtually from 8 to 11:30 and
from 1 to 4:30 pm
Keeping in touch with students is vital during any changes to your class(es). You’ll
want to let students know about changes in schedules, assignments, procedures, and
broader course expectations. Early and frequent communication can ease student anxiety,
and save you dealing with individual questions. Keep these principles in mind:
Communicate early and often: Let students know about changes as early as possible,
even if you do not have all the details yet. Consider matching the frequency of your
messages with that of changes in class activities.
Set expectations: Let students know how you plan to communicate with them, and how
often. Tell students both how often you expect them to check their email, and how
quickly they can expect your response. Let them know too, if you are using the Canvas
Inbox tool, since they may need to update their notification preferences. Student
help resources will be available on the Distance Education page.
Manage your communications load: You will likely receive individual requests for information
that could be useful to all your students. It may be most efficient to keep track
of frequently asked questions and send those replies to everyone. This way students
know they might get a group reply in a day versus a personal replay within an hour.
Also, consider creating an information page or Q&A Discussion in Canvas, and then
encourage students to check there first for answers before emailing.
You may need or want to provide additional course materials to support the shift to
remote instruction. The library offers a host of e-content, including e-book collections;
databases of scholarly articles, newspapers and magazines; electronic reference collections,
and streaming films, which can be accessed through the library’s homepage in the Databases A-Z Directory.
There is also an abundance of information available on the Open Educational Resources Guide to help you select a high quality OER for your class. Virtual support from our library
faculty is available to faculty and students through our Ask-A-Librarian platform,
which can be accessed through the FAQ page or by using the chat function on the library homepage. There is also a research strategies guide available.
If you are looking for digital alternative resources and need help, don’t forget to
reach out to your library liaison. If you would like a virtual library session in your class, please email the Instruction Librarian.
Considerations when posting new course materials:
Make sure students know when new material is posted: If you post new materials in
Canvas be sure to let students know what you posted and where. You can suggest that
they change their Canvas notification preferences to alert them when new materials
are posted.
Post materials one Canvas pages inside of modules: Instead of just uploading materials
to the Canvas files page, create clearly labeled modules in Canvas and post files
or links on pages within those modules. That way you can provide your students with
directions on the page about how to use the materials you are posting.
Keep things phone friendly: In a case of instructional continuity, many students may
only have a phone available. Consider saving other files (for example, PowerPoint
presentations) to PDFs., which are easier to read on phones and tablets, and keep
the file size small. It is fairly easy to reduce the size of PDF files using Adobe
Acrobat, which we have access to through our campus license. For help with Adobe Acrobat,
please contact the ITS helpdesk.
Depending on your course, you may need to deliver some lectures to keep the course
moving along. Be aware, though, that a 45-minute live lecture sprinkled with questions
and activities can become grueling when delivered online without breaks to aid cognition.
Here are a few suggestions to improve online lectures:
Record in small chunks: Even the best online speakers keep it brief: think of the
brevity of TED talks. We learn better with breaks so we can process what we’ve heard
and take an opportunity to apply new information. To aid student learning, record
any lectures in short (5-10 minute) chunks, and intersperse them with small activities
that give students opportunities to process the new knowledge, make connections to
other concepts, apply an idea, or make some notes in response to prompts. Smaller
chunks are also much easier to edit if you need to clean up automated captioning.
Be flexible with live video: Lecturing with Zoom is certainly possible, and it best
approximates a classroom setting, since students can ask questions. However, a crisis
might mean some students won’t have access to fast internet connections, ant others
may have their schedules disrupted. Only use ConferZoom for lectures if you are confident
with the tool, and if you do make sure to record live sessions to provide flexibility
in how students can attend and participate.
It's not just about content: In the event of campus disruption, lectures can mean
more than just providing course content; they also establish a sense of normalcy and
a personal connection. In online courses, we talk about the importance of “instructor
presence”, and that’s just as true during a short-term stint for instructional continuity.
So, consider ways that you can use lectures or even short non-instructional videos
to make students feel connected and cared about: acknowledgement of current challenges,
praise for good work, and reminders about the class being a community. The Canvas
SpeedGrader allows you to record audio and video feedback. Not only is this sometimes
more efficient than extensive written feedback, but it can provide a more personal
touch. This affective work can help their learning during a difficult time.
One of the biggest challenges of teaching during a building or campus closure is sustaining
the lab components of classes. Since many labs require specific equipment, they are
hard to reproduce outside of that physical space.
Considerations as you plan to address lab activities:
Take part of the lab online: Many lab activities require students to become familiar
with certain procedures, and only physical practice of those processes will do. In
such cases, consider if there are other parts of the lab experience you could take
online (for example, video demonstrations of techniques, online simulations, analysis
of data, other pre- or post-lab work), and save the physical practice parts of the
labs until access is restored. The semester might get disjointed by splitting up lab
experiences, but it might get you through a short campus closure.
Provide raw data for analysis: In cases where the lab includes both collection of
data and its analysis, consider showing how the data can be collected, and then provide
some raw sets of data for students to analyze. This approach is not as comprehensive
as having students collect and analyze their own data, but it might keep them engaged
with parts of the lab experience during the closure.
Fostering communication among students is important because it allows you to reproduce
any collaboration you build into your course, and maintains a sense of community that
can help keep students motivated to participate and learn. It helps if you already
had some sort of student-to-student online activity (for example, Canvas Discussions)
since students will be used to both the process and the tool.
Consider these suggestions when planning activities:
It's not just about content: In the event of campus disruption, lectures can mean
more than just providing course content; they also establish a sense of normalcy and
a personal connection. In online courses, we talk about the importance of “instructor
presence”, and that’s just as true during a short-term stint for instructional continuity.
So, consider ways that you can use lectures or even short non-instructional videos
to make students feel connected and cared about: acknowledgement of current challenges,
praise for good work, and reminders about the class being a community. The Canvas
SpeedGrader allows you to record audio and video feedback. Not only is this sometimes
more efficient than extensive written feedback, but it can provide a more personal
touch. This affective work can help their learning during a difficult time.
Use asynchronous tools when possible: Having students participate in live Zoom conversations
can be useful, but scheduling can be a problem, and only a few students will actively
participate (just like in your classroom). In such cases, using asynchronous tools
like Canvas Discussions allows students to participate on their own schedules. In
addition, bandwidth requirements for discussion boards are far lower than for live
video tools.
Link to clear goals and outcomes: Make sure there are clear purposes and outcomes
for any student-to-student interaction. How does this activity help them meet course
outcomes or prepare for other assignments?
Build in simple accountability: Find ways to make sure students are accountable for
the work they do in any online discussions or collaborations. Assigning points for
online discussion posts can be tedious, so some instructors ask for reflective statements
where students detail their contributions and reflect on what they learned from the
conversation.
Balance newness and need: As with any changed activities, you will need to balance
the needs and benefits of online collaboration with the additional effort such collaboration
will require on everyone else's part. Learning new technologies and procedures might
be counterproductive, particularly in the short term, unless there is clear benefit.
Collecting assignments during a campus closure is fairly straightforward, since many
instructors already collect work electronically. The main challenge during a campus
disruption is whether students have access to computers, as anyone needing a campus
computer lab may be unable to access necessary technologies.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Require only common software: Students may not have access to specialty software located
in on-campus computer labs.
Avoid emailed attachments: It may be easy to collect assignments in small classes
via email, but larger classes might swamp your email inbox. Use Assignments in Canvas
to collect all the information in one place. This will also allow you time limit file
types to standard formats like .docx or .pdf, and to provide students who don’t have
access to a computer to submit assignments using built-in Canvas tools. It will also
allow you to use Canvas SpeedGrader which is especially powerful for grading assignments
like papers and slide decks. Balance what is simplest for students with what is easiest
for you to manage.
State expectations, but be flexible: Some students will undoubtedly have difficulties
meeting deadlines in this new modality, or due to personal circumstances. Make expectations
clear, but do your best to provide more flexibility than you normally would in your
class without compromising academic integrity.
Require specific filenames: It may sound trivial, but anyone who collects papers electronically
knows the pain of getting 20 files named Essay1.docx. Give your students a simple
file naming convention, for example, FirstnameLastname-Essay1.docx.
It is fairly easy to give small quizzes to hold students accountable or do spot-checks
on their learning, and this might be ideal to keep students on track during class
disruptions. Providing high-stakes tests online can be challenging, however; they
place extra stress on students, and test integrity is difficult to ensure. If you
know there is a date for resuming on-campus classes, consider delaying exams until
you return.
General tips for assessing student learning during class disruption:
Embrace short formative quizzes: Short quizzes can be a great way to keep students
engaged with course concepts, particularly if they are interspersed with small chunks
of video lecture. Consider using very-low-stakes quizzes to help reinforce content
or to provide practice at applying concepts—just enough points to hold them accountable,
but not so many that the activity has a major impact on their grade. Alternatively,
add practice quizzes that are scored as Complete/Incomplete for lower stakes.
Move beyond simple facts: It is good to reinforce concepts through practice on a quiz,
but generally it is best to move beyond factual answers that students can quickly
look up. Instead, write questions that prompt students to apply concepts to new scenarios,
or ask them to identify the best of multiple correct answers. You can also use time
limits on quizzes to increase the difficulty.
Check for publishers' test banks: Look to see if your textbook publisher has question
banks that can be loaded into Canvas; reach out to distance education if you need
help with importing the test bank. In some instances banks are available in a standard
format called QTI that can be imported directly into Canvas. Some textbooks also have
their own online quizzing tools that can help keep students engaged with the material.
Update expectations for projects: Campus disruptions may limit students' access to
resources they need to complete papers or other projects, and team projects may be
harmed by a team's inability to meet. Be ready to change assignment expectations based
on the limitations a crisis may impose. Possible options include allowing individual
rather than group projects, having groups record presentations with Zoom, or adjusting
the types of resources needed for research papers.
Consider alternate exams: Delivering a secure exam online can be difficult without
a good deal of preparation and support, so consider giving open-book exams or other
types of exams. They can be harder to grade, but you have fewer worries about test
security.
Proctorio: At current we have a license for Protorio, an online testing plug-in for
Canvas. Video tutorials for using Proctorio are forthcoming.
A plan is forthcoming to determine how to move our tutoring services online and more
guidance will be available in the future.