Microsoft Resources for Teaching with Office 365

Microsoft Resources for Teaching with Office 365

by | Mar 27, 2020 | Collaborative Learning, Educational Development, Educational Technology, emergency instruction plan, O365, Online Learning, Other Resources, Teaching with Technology

As more schools begin to make the transition to distance learning and online classrooms, we want to help. Microsoft has created resources, training, and how-to guides that we hope will help educators and their classrooms make this transition.

To help support you during this time, we’ve created a support page for O365 with the information Microsoft has provided.

Microsoft Education is committed to helping all teachers, students, and staff stay engaged and focused on learning. Creating an online classroom is an important step in moving to a remote learning experience. Free for schools, Microsoft Teams, provides a secure online classroom that brings together classroom management features, collaborative workspaces like OneNote Class Notebook, and virtual face-to-face connections in a single digital hub that keeps students engaged.

Information included are Microsoft’s top resources on distance learning, Web Pages with tools to connect remotely, Microsoft Teams quick start guide for EDU (PDF). Webinars designed for educators, Blog posts, and Free Training, 

Sign up today for the Microsoft Learning Community to share best practices and connect with peers from all over the globe who are enabling remote learning with Teams.

 These resources have been provided by the Microsoft Corporation and are included in this post for the convenience of WCU faculty who want to use Office 365 to facilitate online learning.

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OLC Webinar – Keeping Student Engaged in a Transition to Online Learning

by | Mar 18, 2020 | Blog, Online Learning, Student Engagement

The Online Learning Consortium is offering a webinar on Friday that may be helpful.  Click on the date to register.

Webinar: Keeping Students Engaged in a Transition to Online Learning

March 20 | 1:00pm ET

As educators across the country and at all levels rush to shift their teaching to a virtual environment, their first focus is content and delivery—rightly so. Faculty also need to know how to identify online at-risk student behaviors that, if mitigated, can lead to better course outcomes and satisfaction for faculty and students, alike. This session will help you identify ways to proactively keep your students engaged in an online environment (course) and understand what data you can use to help mitigate attrition.

Faculty Planning Tools – Making the Shift to Online

by | Mar 18, 2020 | Activity, Blog, Educational Development, emergency instruction plan, Online Learning, Pedagogy, Pitfalls

Organize Graphic with Colorful Tiles

 

 

 

 

 

The Coulter Faculty Commons has developed a planning organizer for faculty use for the remaining spring 2020 term.

The simple Word document contains weekly dates and boxes for each week remaining in the term. Faculty can use the document to notate “before” activities and “now” activities–to help them reflect on prior activities and chart a path forward, now that instruction is moving online.

Faculty can download the documents below. It comes in two forms–for a single course, and for a five-load course.

Single Course Template

5 Course Planning Template

The PLEA for using just-in-time over in-real-time teaching modes!

by | Mar 17, 2020 | Blog, Educational Development, Educational Technology, emergency instruction plan, Learn, Online Learning, Pitfalls, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning

It is easy to just assume that you will be able to have live class sessions online using Zoom at the same time and day they have been scheduled, but that will not produce a good learning experience for the students, nor will it be pleasant for you as the instructor.  We gathered a couple of really good posts that align with our approach to moving online quickly.

Do This, Not That

~Alison Wang, Online Teaching Do This Not That

Click on image to download the PDF. Creative Commons License Attribute No Derivative, No CommericalShared through Creative Commons, Attribute, No Derivative, No Commercial Purpose.

 

Do This, Not That Graphic

This has been flying around social media, but it’s one of the good ones. She refers to particular systems and programs but her advice is right on.

Please do a bad job of putting your courses online

What? Did I hear you correctly? YES!

As Rebecca Barrett-Fox says “You are NOT building an online class. You are NOT teaching students who can be expected to be ready to learn online. And, most importantly, your class is NOT the highest priority of their OR your life right now. Release yourself from high expectations right now, because that’s the best way to help your students learn.” ~https://anygoodthing.com/2020/03/12/please-do-a-bad-job-of-putting-your-courses-online/ 

And we like her list of 10 considerations:

  1. Your students know less about technology than you think. Many of them know less than you. Yes, even if they are digital natives and younger than you.
  2. They will be accessing the internet on their phones. They have limited data. They need to reserve it for things more important than online lectures.
  3. Students who did not sign up for an online course have no obligation to have a computer, high-speed wifi, a printer/scanner, or a camera. Do not even survey them to ask if they have it. Even if they do, they are not required to tell you this. And if they do now, that doesn’t mean that they will when something breaks and they can’t afford to fix it because they just lost their job at the ski resort or off-campus bookstore.
  4. Students will be sharing their technology with other household members. They may have LESS time to do their schoolwork, not more.
  5. Many will be working MORE, not fewer, hours. Nurses, prison guards, firefighters, and police officers have to go to work no matter what. As healthcare demand increases but healthcare workers get sick, there will be more and more stress on those who remain.
  6. Some of your students will get sick. Others will be caring for people who are ill.
  7. Many will be parenting.
  8. Social isolation contributes to mental health problems.
  9. Social isolation contributes to domestic violence.
  10. Students will be losing their jobs, especially those in tourism and hospitality.

Other recommendations she puts forward that we promote as well:

  • “Don’t do too much. Right now, your students don’t need it. They need time to do the other things they need to do.”
  • Make all assignments due at 11:59 pm on the same day of the week. Make them due on Sunday at 11:59 p.m. instead of Friday so that they use the evenings and week-end to get work done.
  • Allow students to take every exam or quiz twice so that if there is a technical problem (such as getting kicked out of the LMS), they will have another opportunity to complete the exam.
  • Record lectures only if you need to.  But use the TED talk method: no longer than 18 minutes and focused on one concept, big question or idea.
  • Don’t fuss over videos.  Don’t worry about your ums and ers. It helps if you write a script (also provides a transcript for ADA purposes) and read through it a few times.  Then practice 5 times just the first few sentences or first few slides. That will get you into the recording without the jumpstarts we do at the start.
  • Do NOT require synchronous work!  Students’ life and schedules have been turned upside-down as well. A good use of Zoom or Bb Collaborate is to use it for office hours or tutoring sessions. But make it optional.
  • Do not use proctoring or ask students to record themselves when taking a test.  This is a violation of their privacy and they did not sign up for an online course.
  • Remind them of due dates. This is not hand-holding!!  They need contact from you and as we said before, their lives have been turned upside down.  Be kind to them and kind to yourself.  Be supportive and encouraging, Be a mentor and coach!
  • Respond to them when they ask for help.  These are anxious times and they will need encouragement.

We will continue to share quick tips and helpful resources over the next few weeks!

 

Assess Your Students’ Changing Needs – A Survey Template

by | Mar 16, 2020 | Blog, Educational Development, emergency instruction plan, Event, Feedback, Help Your Students, Online Learning, Other Resources, Pedagogy, Pitfalls, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning

Student needs are changing during this move to offering alternative modes of instruction. Faculty who want to find out what challenges students are facing can utilize a new web form created in Office365. 

The form can be modified by faculty prior to sending out. The survey should take students 5 minutes to complete, and asks for the following types of information:

  • whether students expect to have reliable Internet access
  • times of day students expect to do online work
  • preferences for asynchronous or synchronous activity
  • accessibility requests (content in different formats, for example)
  • basic psychological and physiological needs

The survey form is available below. Note the options for modifying the survey questions, collecting data, and sending out the link (the Settings icon can be found top-right of your screen, to the right of the Share button).

Open the Form

A heartfelt thank you to our colleague Dr. Mae Claxton, Professor of English, for reaching out to the CFC with this idea.

Designing Assignments

by | Jan 26, 2016 | Online Learning

Designing Assignments for Your Blended and Online Courses

When setting up assignments for courses that we teach either blended or completely online, you may want to consider what information the learners may need regarding the assignment that would be similar to what we might offer in a face-to-face classroom. The information may include a wide variety of communication tools such as announcements, instruction documents, rubrics, email, etc. that will hopefully guide our learners to reach or surpass the desired learning objective of the assignment.

It is clear to us why we have included an assignment into our respective courses. However, it may not always be clear to all of our learners and it may be necessary to provide some information about why and how the assignment helps to achieve a certain learning objective. This most likely does not need to be a lengthy discourse but rather something short and sweet to help tie the learning objective to the assignment.

As you create assignments for our classes, below is a checklist of some things that you may want to consider as you design your assignments.

  1. Is the assignment written clearly on the board or on a handout?
  2. Do the instructions explain the purpose(s) of the assignment?
  3. Does the assignment fit the purpose?
  4. Is the assignment stated in precise language that cannot be misunderstood?
  5. If choices are possible, are these options clearly marked?
  6. Are there instructions for the appropriate format? (examples: length? typed? cover sheet? type of document?)
  7. Are there any special instructions, such as use of a particular citation format or kinds of headings? If so, are these clearly stated?
  8. Is the due date clearly visible? (Are late assignments accepted? If so, any penalty?)
  9. Are any potential problems anticipated and explained?
  10. Are the grading criteria spelled out as specifically as possible? How much does content count? Organization? Writing skills? One grade or separate grades on form and content? Etc.
  11. Does the grading criteria section specifically indicate which writing skills the teacher considers important as well as the various aspects of content?
  12. What part of the course grade is this assignment?
  13. Does the assignment include use of models (strong, average, weak) or samples outlines?

If you would like additional information about creating assignments for blended or online classes, please do not hesitate to contact the CFC.

(Source: http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop10e.cfm)