Body
Introduction
Emergency Remote Teaching: "a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances"
The Tennessee Board of Regents requires all courses (including on-ground courses) to have an associated eLearn course shell and syllabus that include a description of how the faculty member will move the class to an online environment should there be an administrative closure of Volunteer State campuses due to events like inclement weather.
In other words, regardless of the delivery method, you need to plan ahead and formulate an emergency remote teaching plan for each of your courses.
This article is a guide to help you plan your move to an online environment. This guide includes:
- Syllabus: Wording for your syllabus about moving your course online.
- Communications: Inform your students about text alerts. Use eLearn Announcements and Microsoft Outlook to inform your students about your plans.
- Zoom: Use Zoom to hold virtual class, administer office hours, and set up individual appointments with students.
- Course Schedule: If necessary, edit due dates.
- Emergency Remote Teaching Tips: Adopt a few of these tips to improve your online teaching skills.
Syllabus
Your syllabus should be available on the first day of class to your students in the eLearn course shell. Here is guidance on how to upload (Word or PDF) your syllabus to eLearn. Or you can create it as a course page right in eLearn, there are two templates for syllabi in eLearn that you can adapt to your needs.
Your syllabus should include an unexpected closure statement. You may copy and paste this language into your syllabus to help students understand how a campus closure may impact your class:
INCLEMENT WEATHER AND OTHER UNEXPECTED CLOSURES
Hybrid and Classroom-Based Courses
If Vol State is officially closed, please check eLearn and your student email for details from your instructor including plans for any missed classes and due dates.
In the event of an unexpected campus closure, this course will {FILL IN HERE}.
Check the Vol State website for campus closure information or sign up for text alerts. In the event of inclement weather, the college may be “open” in full or in part, and students should not endanger their lives or safety by attempting to reach campus when their local road conditions prohibit safe travel. The college expects that students will utilize the “honor” system in making the decision concerning whether or not to travel to campus based on possible local hazardous conditions, and in these situations individual students may be entitled to an excused absence which would provide the student the privilege of making up missed work. Relative hazards may vary within the eleven-county service area and the decision for any Volunteer State Community College campus to be opened or closed will depend on the possible hazardous conditions in the different regions of the college’s service area.
Online Courses
As an online course, this class is not normally affected by weather or school closures. Unless specifically, expressly stated otherwise, all due dates remain in effect even if campuses are closed. If you feel that there are special circumstances, you should contact the instructor.
Communications
Text Alerts
Students are informed of campus closings and other important college-wide news via our text alert system. Consider informing your students about the Text Alerts page on the Vol State web site. While VSCC automatically enrolls all students into text alerts, let students know about this page so they can manage their texts from VSCC.
Volunteer State also enrolls all new employees into our text alert system, so you may want to visit the Text Alerts page to manage your text alert account.
eLearn Announcements
eLearn Announcements are a great way to inform your students about your plans to move your class to an online environment should there be an administrative closure of Volunteer State campuses:
- General Information: Create and share your overall Emergency Remote Teaching plan in an announcement at the beginning of the semester before any class cancellations.
- Specific Information:
- During specific events, post an announcement informing students that planned activities (class, office hours, etc.) are cancelled or postponed.
- Explain how these activities will be made up.
- Adjust deadlines and due dates.
- Grant students the opportunity to make up missed work if the new due dates conflicts with their schedule.
Outlook Email
Use eLearn Announcements and Outlook Email in tandem. Students sometimes check email instead of eLearn course announcements, so forwarding a class announcement to students via email can be helpful. Also, continue to use email to address the questions and concerns of individual students.
Zoom
Hold face-to-face-classes using Zoom. We recommend that you use the Zoom tool inside of eLearn to set up your Zoom sessions . In addition to lecturing, you can use Zoom sessions for activities like discussions, question and answer sessions, and small group work. If you don't use these tools already, try Zoom’s interactive tools like breakout rooms, chat, polling, and reactions.
The Vol State Knowledge Base has over a dozen Zoom articles to help you make the most of Zoom.
Hold your office hours via Zoom and hold them at varying times of day to accommodate students with varying schedules.
Course Schedule
If necessary, edit due dates. Depending on how you have designed your course, you may need to adjust due dates in your course schedule, in your calendar, and in individual assignments.
If you find it difficult to edit multiple due date listings for a single assignment, consider keeping only one list of due dates on a master course schedule. You can then link to this schedule in each assignment.
Emergency Remote Teaching Tips
Keep it simple when planning for emergency remote teaching. Look for simple solutions and technologies that are familiar to you and your students so everyone can focus on learning subject matter instead of learning new technologies under emergency conditions that may be stressful.
The following tips will help you with your emergency remote teaching:
- Increase communications to keep students updated. Use announcements and email. Ensure that your course eLearn section is updated. Make sure that adjusted due dates are clear. Have an FAQ page that includes your Emergency Remote Teaching plan.
- Record short videos (3-6 minutes) explaining difficult content instead of entire lectures.
- Adjust existing assignments so they can be completed online or replace with alternative assignments.
- Consider extended or flexible due dates for assignments to accommodate student learning situations
- Upload your PowerPoint slide decks to eLearn and have students annotate the slides to demonstrate understanding.
- Assign supplemental writing prompts, problem sets, or case studies.
- Ask students to work collaboratively to generate review guides for final exams/projects.
- Assign students to take exams at home in open-note/open-book formats to mitigate potential academic misconduct. If possible, switch to more frequent, smaller-stakes tests and quizzes rather than few, high-stakes exams.
References
Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (2020, March 27). The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning