[UPDATE, 3/12/20 2:14pm: More information has been provided regarding this topic. Updated information can be found here]
From: Kevin P. Kearns, Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
As you are all aware, SUNY has been closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation and Governor Cuomo has instructed all SUNY schools to close March 19 through the remainder of the semester. As a result, SUNY has instructed campuses to utilize digital instruction for the remainder of the semester.
This memo will help faculty as they transition to teach their courses digitally.
Beginning Steps
● Download a class roster from OnCourse and save student contact information from Your Connection.
● Send your students a message through the News Forum in OnCourse that includes your contact information and how you’ll communicate with them.
● Remind students to download/save and print a copy of the syllabus. Include your contact information in the syllabus.
● Make sure you can access your teaching materials and Learning Contracts/Learning Agreements from home in the event you cannot get to campus. During this campus disruption, you will automatically be given permission to remotely access your office computer and access the U-drive.
Considerations for Continuity of Instruction
● Be flexible, it is likely that you’ll need to deviate from your syllabus. Estimate the predicted number of impacted class meetings and compare this to the syllabus. What is the priority to continue and what can realistically be done?
● Check myfredonia.edu for information and updates. Be sure your students know to check daily as well. A coronavirus information link is available on our website and will be updated regularly (Fredonia.edu/coronavirus)
● Communicate with your students NO LATER THAN MARCH 23 to let them know you’ll be continuing instruction digitally through OnCourse. The OnCourse News Forum and Quickmail should be used to contact your students. Using these two tools keeps a history of the communication within the course so students can refer back to your messages.
● Create a communication plan so your students know how and when you will communicate, and how to contact you with questions and requests for clarification. Remember that this is stressful for students, too, so communicating often will help students feel connected to you and the class.
● Communicate new expectations with students. Remember the impact this situation may have on students’ ability to meet those expectations, including illness, lacking power or internet connections, or needing to care for family members. Not all students will have computers at home, or have access to the internet. Be ready to handle requests for extensions or accommodations equitably.
● Select tools you are most comfortable with to facilitate course continuation. These may be tools you are already using, such as Google Drive. Using tools the campus supports connect you to additional help for you and your students. Use the links below to guide you.
[RELATED: How the Coronavirus is affecting campus]
Logging Into Oncourse
To get started, log in to OnCourse. Every course at Fredonia has an OnCourse “course shell” that faculty can access and use at any time. The login link should be shared with students that don’t know how to log in to access OnCourse.
Communicating With Students
OnCourse offers several ways to communicate and engage with your students. News Forum, the course announcement tool, allows you to reach all of your students by posting a message. Using this tool creates a history of your announcements in the course shell, allowing students to go back and review communications.
■ Making a course announcement
■ Contacting individual students through OnCourse
Synchronous Lectures Within OnCourse
If you want to hold class virtually during the time when your class would normally meet, or be available synchronously with your students, communicate those expectations. Collaborate Ultra, built into OnCourse, is a webinar software that allows for synchronous meetings to take place.
● Create a Collaborate Ultra session
● Ask students to join a Collaborate Ultra session
Sharing Materials with Students
You may want to use OnCourse to upload lecture notes, powerpoint slides, and support materials that you would have handed out in class. Readings available through the library databases may be uploaded to enhance learning.
■ Linking to library resources
■ Using Linked in Learning (formally Lynda.com)
Collaborating With and Assessing Students
When teaching digitally, you will want to engage your students in group discussions, interact with them one-on-one, and assess student learning outcomes. All of this can be done through OnCourse.
■ Creating a dropbox to assign and collect student work
Offering a Lab Online
Due to the “hands on” nature of labs, and the use of equipment and reagents, it can be very challenging to offer the lab components of classes online. However, there are considerations that faculty can make to transition the lab to a digital offering.
● Take part of your 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 can provide online (for example, video demonstrations of techniques, online simulations, analysis of data, other pre- or post-lab work).
● Investigate virtual labs. Online resources and virtual tools might help replicate the experience of some labs (for example, virtual dissection, night sky apps, video demonstrations of labs, simulations). Those vary widely by discipline, but check with your textbook publisher, or sites such as Merlot for materials that might help replace parts of your lab during an emergency.
● 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.
● Explore alternate software access. Some labs require access to specialized software that students cannot install on their own computers. Information Technology Services (ITS) might be able to help provide alternate computer lab resources that have the software your students need.
● Increase interaction in other ways. Sometimes labs are more about having time for direct student interaction, so consider other ways to replicate that level of contact if it is only your lab that is out of commission.
Considerations for Continuity of Non-Classroom Based Instruction
Internships, practicum placements, student teaching, clinical instruction and other forms of learning that are non-classroom based may be difficult to offer digitally. Outcomes and assignments may need to be altered. Additional information and guidance will be available after consultation with internship coordinators, clinical supervisors, and College of Education faculty.
Additional Information
Consult Answers for detailed directions on other tools in OnCourse and other campus supported tools. There will be a faculty team assisting Online Learning, and they have agreed to be available for questions via Tracker, for in-person trainings and during drop-in hours. For questions and help, email OLL@fredonia.edu. In addition, a training schedule will be emailed shortly.
This information will be available on the Academic Affairs website. I urge you to check it regularly as additional information will be added and updated. For now, it is important to be prepared to to continue working with students to ensure they, too, are prepared and feel confident that they will be able to continue their studies at Fredonia.
I want to thank you for your patience and dedication during these challenging times. Your dedication to Fredonia students, and your profession, is truly extraordinary.