Classroom Activities
Many traditional classroom activities can be moved online with a little bit of work and help from technology already present at UD. It may also take some adjustment for both you and your students to become accustomed to participating in online learning activities. It won't be the same experience as in the face-to-face setting, but it'll at least keep your students engaged with the course material in a meaningful way.
While not comprehensive, the following list provides some potential online alternatives for common classroom activities:
Course materials can be shared with students in a number of different ways. Some options include Isidore course sites, email, and shared Google Drive folders. It’s important to let students know where to find your course resources, stay consistent in your approach, and to notify them when new resources have been posted.
Considerations
- Whenever possible, it’s ideal to share resources in PDF format. This approach ensures that students will be able to easily access them on phones or other mobile devices.
See Microsoft’s Knowledgebase for saving files in PDF format.
Resources
The ‘Forums’ tool in Isidore can be used to facilitate online discussions in an asynchronous format (e.g. within a certain time frame, but not all at the exact same time). You can set up discussion topics and define prompts that you’d like students to respond to.
Considerations
- Outline clear expectations with your students about the required level of engagement in each online discussion. Do they simply need to respond to a prompt you create? Do you want them responding to each other? Will you grade these discussions?
Resources
Meeting online with Zoom is the closest thing to a traditional face-to-face class with students. The University of Dayton has a campus-wide Zoom license that allows all faculty and students to hold live classroom sessions online.
Considerations
- Your students theoretically still have your class time-slots free, so you can take the guesswork out of determining the best time for everyone to meet by just saying you will meet at your usual class time. Remember, though, that some students may now be located in different time zones, so they will need to adjust hours on their own.
- Ensure you have a working microphone and webcam if you plan to use Zoom. If you’re expecting students to participate vocally in the session, they will need a working microphone, too.
Faculty can create lecture videos on their own computers using a program called Snagit. Snagit allows you to record your voice and your screen, so you may talk through your PowerPoint slides or even demonstrate a problem in Excel. You may optionally record your webcam as well. Those videos can be shared with students to view asynchronously.
Considerations
- Faculty are encouraged to share their lecture videos through the Warpwire Video tool in their course Isidore sites. Closed captions are automatically added to all videos uploaded to Warpwire, ensuring that they are accessible to all users.
- Aim to record videos under 10-12 minutes, as students are more likely to watch shorter videos. Longer lectures should be recorded in parts to keep the video length down.
Resources
Faculty can create lecture videos on their own computers using the Zoom tool in Isidore or using Zoom through the UDayton Zoom account. You will record a lecture using a Zoom meeting without any participants. Recording a lecture in Zoom in Isidore makes the video automatically available to students in the Zoom tool in Isidore. Recording in the Zoom account will create a video file link you can share.
Considerations
- Recorded scheduled meetings in Isidore are automatically added to recorded sessions in Isidore.
- Recorded meetings in Zoom account are shared via a link.
- Closed captions are automatically added to all videos ensuring that they are accessible to all users.
- Aim to record videos under 10-12 minutes, as students are more likely to watch shorter videos. Longer lectures should be recorded in parts to keep the video length down.
Resources
Utilizing the ‘Assignments’ tool in Isidore will help you keep submissions, feedback, and grades organized. It’s a great way to provide assignment directions, set points, and control due dates.
Considerations
- The Assignments tool in Isidore is integrated with UD’s TurnItIn account, allowing faculty to easily check for plagiarism.
- Set aside time to provide quality feedback to students on their work. Providing written comments is time-intensive, but helps students understand whether they’ve mastered a learning objective or if there are areas that need improvement.
Resources
Isidore’s ‘Tests and Quizzes’ tool can be used to build and deliver course assessments. Many question types are available, including multiple choice, true/false, essay, fill-in-the-blank, and numeric response. Most assessments can be automatically graded by the system and sent to Isidore’s Gradebook.
Considerations
- Consider offering a low-stakes assessment (maybe a reading quiz) before offering a higher-stakes exam. This will help familiarize students with the Tests & Quizzes tool and gives them a chance to ensure their computer, web browsers, and network connections are working optimally.
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While cheating in online assessments can be a concern, strategies such as time-boxing,
randomizing questions, using question pools, hiding immediate feedback, and the using
essay-type questions where students are required to support their answer can mitigate a
large amount of the risks.
Read more about mitigating cheating -
Consider whether you've agreed upon special testing arrangements with your students. You may
have students who need to take the exam outside of the exam window and/or students who
receive extended time accommodations.
Learn how to setup testing exceptions in Isidore
OLR Accommodated Online Testing Guidelines - Spring 2020
Resources
- Video: Creating Assessments in Isidore
- Video: Configuring Assessments in Isidore
- Video: Grading & Reviewing Student Assessment Submissions in Isidore
- Directions: Using Tests & Quizzes
- Best Practices for Online Assessments
Request Help Building an Exam
While the official laboratory on campus is preferred there are some creative solutions to provide the essentials of lab components for students while they remain off campus. Virtual labs, high quality simulations, research article review and modified kitchen labs are available to replace the full laboratory experience.
Considerations
- Check with your department for preferred approach to handle laboratory assignments during this time.
- Check for resources provided by your textbook publisher. Publishers often have online resources for simulations and virtual labs that correspond to topics in your textbook.
- Review the resource attached below for additional alternative activities and links to online labs, simulations, and other resources.
Resources
- Moving Science Labs Online
- STEM Online Teaching Resources
Whether you are trying to share an equation or step students through a few lines of code, teaching technical material online can be its own challenge. Luckily, there are some simple ways detailed in the resources below that can make this less of a challenge for both instructors and students without sacrificing quality.
Considerations
- Use pen and paper to write out steps and your phone to take pictures to share online.
- You can ask your students to also write out their own math problems and take pictures to send them back to you.
- Remember that low-tech options may be the way to go rather than expending a lot of effort and cost on electronic whiteboards and styluses. Keep it simple.
Resources
Many faculty may have the need to show a film online or share sections of a book digitally to their classes during this period. We absolutely understand this need and want to help however we can. With that said, it will be important for the university to stay in copyright compliance. While it may be technically possible to make a copy of a DVD or VHS to show online, we must make sure that we have permission to do so. With that said, please use the information below to starting those conversations.
Need Help Showing a Film Online?
Were you planning to show a film that you owned on DVD or VHS during an upcoming face-to-face class session? If so, please contact Chris Tangeman (ctangeman1@udayton.edu) in Roesch Library. Please provide him the name of the film(s) you would like to show to your class, along with the course and section number. Chris will do his best to procure an online version of the film(s) for your classes through one of our online content providers. It is important to note that not all films are available from these sources, so some requests may not be able to be filled.
The Office of eLearning had previously been able to help digitize films for faculty in the event that Chris was unable to find an online version, but that is not currently an option as everyone has left the LTC to work from home.
Need Assistance Digitizing Book or Journal Content?
Please contact Elizabeth Jacobs (ejacobs1@udayton.edu) in Roesch Library for inquiries and assistance. Please include details of what you’re hoping to digitize.
Keeping in touch with students in a personal way will go a long way to keeping up great student/faculty relationships. Students may be feeling lost and unsure of class expectations during this transition. Hosting virtual office hours is one small, yet highly impactful, way to keep up the communication.
Considerations
- Set up a recurring meeting in your Zoom account and share with your students in each course site.
- Make sure to set this meeting up with a waiting room so that students can enter one at a time OR set up a breakout room where you can meet with one student at a time while displaying an informational message in the classroom.
- Your TAs have permission to set up meetings within the Zoom tool in your class if they are in the "TA-Grading" or "TA-Limited" roles.