What are the Course Learning Outcomes for your course?

Your course outcomes should be listed in your course syllabus. You can also find your course learning outcome through the Abbreviated Syllabi confluence page. Consider how you can meet these outcomes in an online environment. What are successful students able to measurably do after a given session?

• Do you typically provide content, explanations, or clarifications through lectures?
• Do students engage content through large or small group discussion?
• Do students learn from each other through student presentations?
• Do students spend class time practicing skills or hands-on exploration?

Once you know what student learning experiences you need to facilitate online, decide whether synchronous or asynchronous options suit your needs.

What are the pros and cons of synchronous (real-time or live) and asynchronous learning?

There are two options for instructors to facilitate class sessions remotely: 

1. Synchronous: instructors and students gather at the same time and interact in “real time” with a very short or “near-real time” exchange between instructors and students.
2. Asynchronous: instructors prepare course materials for students in advance of students’ access. Students may access the course materials at a time of their choosing and will interact with each over a longer period of time.

Instructors may choose to engage their students synchronously or asynchronously depending on the course content or material that needs to be taught. There are many advantages and disadvantages to asynchronous and synchronous teaching options. 

Advantages of Synchronous Teaching

1. Immediate personal engagement between students and instructors, which may create greater feelings of community and lessen feelings of isolation
2. More responsive exchanges between students and instructors, which may prevent miscommunication or misunderstanding

Disadvantages of Synchronous Teaching

1. More challenging to schedule shared times for all students and instructors
2. Some students may face technical challenges or difficulties if they do not have fast or powerful Wi-Fi networks accessible 
3. Some students may face accessibility issues without live captioning or other accommodations for live content.

Advantages of Asynchronous Teaching

1. Higher levels of temporal flexibility, which may simultaneously make the learning experiences more accessible to different students and also make an archive of past materials accessible.  
2. Increased cognitive engagement since students will have more time to engage with and explore the course material. 
3. Increased ability to provide accessibility accommodations such as captions or alternative descriptions of images.

Disadvantages of Asynchronous Teaching

1. Students may feel less satisfied without the social interaction between their peers and instructors. 
2. Course material may be misunderstood or have the potential to be misconstrued without the real-time interaction.

Source: Stanford University, "Teaching Effectively During Times of Disruption, for SIS and PWR," CC-BY-NC-SA

Perhaps the most straightforward way to emulate live class time is to hold a live meeting virtually via Zoom, UNW's preferred live video conferencing tool. You can meet with your class just like you would in the classroom to provide information and have a discussion. If you have PowerPoint slides that correspond with your lecture, you can open them on your computer and share your screen with students so they can follow along. During these meetings, you can give short lectures, facilitate discussions, or have students give a presentation. Follow the directions below to create a virtual meeting and invite your students.

Whichever method you use, be sure to clearly communicate to students the schedule and expectations for participation, especially if and how any synchronous activities are graded.

Considerations for using Zoom vs Teams

• Accessibility (auto-closed-captioning): If your students could benefit from captioning, consider recording a lecture and posting it on Microsoft Stream. Microsoft Teams has an automatic live captioning capability for Teams meetings.

How do I set up a synchronous class meeting online?

Perhaps the most straightforward way to emulate live class discussion is to hold a live meeting virtually via Zoom, UNW's preferred live video conferencing tool. You can meet with your class just like you would in the classroom to provide information and have a discussion. If you have PowerPoint slides that correspond with your lecture, you can open them on your computer and share your screen with students so they can follow along. Zoom allows a feature called Breakout Rooms (not available in Teams). This allows you to break your class into small groups for discussions. You can enter each of the rooms to monitor or participate in the discussions.

Follow the directions below to create a virtual meeting and invite your students.

Whichever method you use, be sure to clearly communicate to students the schedule and expectations for participation, especially if and how any synchronous activities are graded.

Considerations for using Zoom vs Teams

• Accessibility (auto-closed-captioning): If your students could benefit from captioning, consider recording a lecture and posting it on Microsoft Stream. Microsoft Teams has an automatic live captioning capability for Teams meetings.

How do I set up a synchronous class meeting online?

Perhaps the most straightforward way to emulate live class speeches or presentations is to hold a live meeting virtually via Zoom, UNW's preferred live video conferencing tool. You can meet with your class just like you would in the classroom to provide information and have a discussion. If you have PowerPoint slides that correspond with your lecture, you can open them on your computer and share your screen with students so they can follow along. Students can give a presentation that they would have given in class during a virtual class meeting. If students have slides (or documents, webpages, etc.) that correspond with their presentation, they also have the ability to share their screen (with permission from the meeting host).

Follow the directions below to create a virtual meeting and invite your students.

Whichever method you use, be sure to clearly communicate to students the schedule and expectations for participation, especially if and how any synchronous activities are graded.

Considerations for using Zoom vs Teams

• Accessibility (auto-closed-captioning):  If your students could benefit from captioning, consider requiring students to record their presentations and post them on Microsoft Stream. Microsoft Teams has an automatic live captioning capability for Teams meetings.

How do I set up a synchronous class meeting online?

You may consider assigning real-time group work as a synchronous course activity. This can be done with both Zoom and Office365. Both resources can serve as a medium for group work. Be sure to clearly communicate to students the schedule and expectations for participation, especially if and how any synchronous activities are graded. 

Collaboration on Zoom

• Discussion: Students can verbally discuss course work over Zoom.
• Accessibility:  Zoom does not offer live captioning. If your students could benefit from activities that do not rely on audio or video, consider assigning group work over Office365.

Collaboration on Office365

• Real-time collaboration: Most Office365 apps support collaboration. Students in groups can all work on the same file at the same time.
• Accessibility: Office365 collaboration does not require verbal communication or visual presentation to function well for group work. Microsoft Teams has an automatic live captioning capability for Teams meetings.

Providing a link to an internet site

In your Moodle course site, you may want to add links to external resources, such as an article or video. There are a few ways to do this.

• Add URL to course home page: URL is an resource type in Moodle, and you can add a link to your home page by selecting "add an activity or resource" and selecting "URL." From there, you will give the resource link a name and add the URL to the "external URL" field.
• Add links to text in a course page: When you are editing a course page, you will see a text editor box. Within the text editor, there is a link button in the toolbar. You can add a link by highlighting the text you want to add a link to, selecting the link button, and inserting the URL into the "Enter a URL" field.

Providing a library link

If you are adding a link to a Bernsten Library resource, you can use either method listed above, but you should use a permalink for Library resources, rather than a normal link. Library permalinks all have the prefix https://login.ezproxy.unwsp.edu/login?url=. This ensures that students are all directed to the same resource. If you are using an existing library resource link, check that the URL has the proxy prefix. If it does not, add the prefix in front of the existing URL.

For more information on library resource permalinks, see Changing Links - Adding Proxy Prefix page on the Bernsten Library website.

Uploading files to your course site

In your Moodle course site, you may want to add files to your course site. There are a few ways to do this.

• You can drag and drop your file directly into your course site home page.
• Add a file: File is an resource type in Moodle, and you can add a file to your home page by selecting "add an activity or resource" and selecting "File." From there, you will select the file from your computer that you would like to upload. See Add a Syllabus (or other files) confluence page for more information.
• Add a folder: Folder is a resource type in Moodle, and you can add a folder to your home page to house multiple files in one place. You can add a folder by selecting "add an activity or resource" and selecting "Folder." From there, you will select the files from your computer that you would like to upload and house in the folder. See Add/Edit a Folder Resource confluence page for more information.

The following are options for providing lecture content on your course site.

• Find and share an existing related video online (e.g. Films On Demand or YouTube)
• Record and share your own lecture video.

Whichever method you use, share the video with your students in your Moodle course site (either with a link or embedded in a Moodle page). If videos require captioning for your course, contact the Online Learning Office.

If you planned to have students engage in a discussion, you could create an online discussion forum in Moodle.

Create a Forum

If you were planning an in-class discussion, you can use an online forum to facilitate the discussion. Follow these instructions to create a discussion forum:

1. At the bottom of the current week, add a discussion forum. See Add/Edit Activities & Resources for assistance.
2. Give the forum and name and write the instructions in the Description textbox. It is recommended that you include the following in your instructions:
   1. Purpose: Why are students engaging in this discussion?
   2. Context: How is this related to the week’s topic and reading assignments?
   3. Instructions: What are students doing?
      1. Prompt: Clearly state the open-ended questions that students should discuss.
      2. Participation: Describe the criteria for participating in the forum. For example, “Create your initial post by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday and reply to at least two other students by 11:59 p.m. by Friday.”
      3. Expectations: Clearly state how you expect students to reply to each other. For example, “Compare your analysis to your classmates’. Identify areas where your perspectives align and possibly differ.”
      4. Grading: Describe how this forum will be graded. What criteria count, and what are quality contributions?
3. Contact the Online Learning Office for assistance in incorporating this forum into the gradebook.
4. You can adjust the settings if you wish or leave the default settings.
   • You may want to divide the students into small groups to have the discussion. To learn how to setup a group discussion, see Creating and Using Groups. 

Ideas for Discussions

1. Reflection: Watch a video or read an article provided by the instructor, and write a reflection about it.
2. Response to inciting article or quote: Instruct students to find an article that discusses a given topic. Then, have them post a link to the article and write a reflection.
3. Open Q&A Forum: Allow students to question their peers and/or instructor about the material that they read this week.
4. Role Play: Invite students to reflect on what they would think or recommend from the perspective of somebody in a situation related to your course content. Exploring the perspectives of fictional people can empower more substantive discussion, since students may hesitate to argue for or against their own or their peers' actual perspectives.
5. Debate: Stir some interest by inviting students to debate an intentionally provocative or contentious quote or statement. Set up the discussion forum ahead of time with a thread/topic for posts defending the statement and a separate thread for posts challenging the statement.
   1. Students first post an argument either defending or challenging the statement, in the respective thread.
   2. Require students to reply to posts in the opposing thread with questions, counterexamples, and rebuttals, while also engaging any replies to their own initial post.
   3. Conclude with a third discussion thread asking students "Reflect on how your thinking on this topic changed or refined from the beginning of the discussion to the end.

If students are expected to give a presentation in class, they can instead record their presentation using VoiceThread or share their recorded video via Stream to submit it in Moodle. Submitting shared links with the whole class works well in a Discussion Forum.

If student videos require captioning for your course, either assign students to provide captions for their presentations (in VoiceThread) or contact the Online Learning Office. Microsoft Stream provides auto captioning.

Student Presentations using VoiceThread

If students were going to give presentations in class in groups or individually using slides (e.g. PowerPoint), they could create a VoiceThread presentation online and submit it via Moodle.

Instructors can follow these steps to get started.

1. Your course site must include a VoiceThread access link before students can create a presentation. Contact the Online Learning Office for assistance in adding this link.
2. Create a place for students to post their presentation link. This can either be a discussion forum or an assignment activity in Moodle. See Add/Edit Activities & Resources for assistance.
3. Provide instructions for the assignment. Be sure to include how long the presentation should be and when it is due. Keep in mind that creating online presentations takes much longer than presenting in-class, so provide plenty of time for students to create and submit the presentation.

Provide the following instructions to students in order to create and share their presentation.

1. Open the VoiceThread Access Link located at the top of the course site.
2. Use your presentation slides to create a new VoiceThread. Directions are provided in the VoiceThread User Guide.
3. Post the link to your presentation in the [location decided by instructor]. Be sure to keep the boxes checked for allowing anyone to view and comment. Directions are provided here: Getting a share link.

Student Presentations using other recording tools (non-VoiceThread)

If students were going to give presentations in class individually with or without slides, they could record a video using other tools, upload it to Stream, and submit it to the Moodle course site.

Instructors can follow these steps to get started:

1. Create a place for students to post their presentation link, either a discussion forum or an assignment activity in Moodle (If other students need to see the presentation, use a discussion forum). See Add/Edit Activities & Resources for assistance.
2. Provide instructions for the assignment. Be sure to include how long the presentation should be and when it is due. Keep in mind that creating online presentations takes much longer that presenting in-class, so provide plenty of time for students to create and submit the presentation.

Provide instructions to students in order to create and share their presentation.

• Refer to the "Recording a new video" instructions earlier on this page. Feel free to copy/paste those instructions into your course site for students to follow.

1. See the tutorial Create an Assignment for assistance.
2. Include any instructions, expectations, and grading criteria to the description of the assignment activity.
3. Consider enabling a due date so students can clearly see upcoming deadlines on the course site calendar.

Students can take quizzes and tests in Moodle.

1. See Create Quizzes for assistance.
2. Add necessary instructions, time limit, expectations, and grading criteria to the description of the quiz activity.
3. Consider enabling a due date so students can clearly see upcoming deadlines on the course site calendar.
4. It is possible to import questions from Word documents that are formatted a certain way. Contact the Online Learning Office for assistance.
5. Short, low-stakes quizzes are preferable to longer, high-stakes quizzes.

Tips for using quizzes as learning activities

Quizzes can work well as practice activities by using some or all of the following settings. These ideas work especially well for concept/terminology mastery:

• Allow multiple or unlimited attempts (to encourage and incentivize practice and mastery)
• Enable short time limits (to encourage mastery)
• Allow students to check question answers during the quiz (with or without a grade penalty for incorrect question attempts)
• Randomize and shuffle questions for each attempt from a larger bank of questions (so students can't simply memorize the quiz through trial and error)
• Include review questions from previous quizzes

For assistance or advice with any of these ideas, contact the Online Learning Office for assistance.

You may find that certain key learning activities that would take place in class are difficult to implement online.

1. Consider the learning outcomes that such activities equip students to fulfill.
2. What alternative activity (or set of activities) could equip students to fulfill the same outcomes?

If you need inspiration, contact the Online Learning Office for assistance.

As you conduct your class online, be aware of any departmental attendance requirements you are required to follow. If you will be taking attendance, you may consider a few options:

• Counting activity/discussion participation as attendance
• Using the attendance tool in Moodle. See the Set Up Attendance confluence page for directions.

You may want to specify online office hours for your course so students know when you are available to work one-on-one. In an online course, students may have more questions and therefore greater need for means to connect with you.

Here are a few options for how you might facilitate office hours to meet student needs:

• Zoom: Identify time(s) within the week that you are available to talk over a zoom meeting. You can schedule appointments or just have your zoom meeting launched during that allotted time for students to "drop in."
• Email: Tell students when you are available to respond timely to emails and clarify your average response time when you receive emails outside of that specified time (I.e. within 24 hours).
• Phone: If you prefer talking with students over the phone, you may consider sharing your office or personal phone number with your students, along with times that it would be appropriate to call you.

You have the option to create an open forum(s) in your course for students to post questions or comments about course content or logistics. This can potentially decrease the amount of questions you will receive directly. It would also give students an opportunity to interact with one another.

• To create an open forum, add a forum activity, add a title and description, and check that the forum type is set to "Standard forum for general use."
• For the purpose of this forum type, do not add due dates or grade information.

Feel free to invite students to host Zoom sessions with classmates, similar to an in-person study group.

If you elect to create new graded activities in your course site or remove any graded activities from your course, be aware that doing so will shift the relative distribution of grade weights or points in the gradebook. Keep this in mind, and be sure that your course syllabus reflects any changes you make.

Students often rely on their grade represented in the Moodle gradebook, so keeping it accurate and up-to-date is a valuable service to them.

Moodle has many features that, if used well, can help clarify course content and improve student experience. Here are a few basic features you can add to your course:

• Weekly Overviews: Students in online courses benefit from greater clarity about what is expected of them and when. Usually the beginning and end of a face-to-face class session involves reminders and clarifications to this effect. In an online environment, students greatly benefit from a clear, reliable place on the course site that gives context for their learning and lists all the tasks assigned, due dates in one place.
  
  • Context and Tips: In a couple sentences or short paragraphs, aim to elicit students' interest and prior knowledge about the concepts in the upcoming lesson or week.
    • Why should students care? A compelling quote, graphic, video clip, or story work well (Think of attention-getters in a speech).
    • How does the lesson's ideas relate to the course's big picture?
    • How does the lesson's ideas build on what came before or lay a foundation for what is coming later in the course?
    • What are tips or reminders which can foster student success on these tasks?
  • List of Assigned tasks: List all the required tasks, especially graded activities and submissions.
    • Optional or recommended activities should be clearly differentiated from those that are required.
  • Due Dates: Clearly communicate when assignments are due.
• Labels: You can separate the various resources and activities with a week on the course site home page by adding labels.
  • For instance, you can add "Due Monday," 'Due Wednesday," and "Due Friday" labels to your week to show students the flow of the week and guide them to upcoming assignments.
  • However you decide to chunk your content, labels will help students identify what items are and where to go next.
  • See Add/Edit Activities & Resources for assistance in using labels.
• Due dates: You can add due dates to activities. These may help keep your students on task and avoid procrastination. With due dates enabled, students will see upcoming tasks on the sidebar calendar and "Upcoming Events" block, which is helpful clarity without reminders you might typically provide in classroom.
  • You may also set date-related restrictions. For example, you might apply grade deductions for late submissions or restrict activity access until other activities are completed first. See Manage Activity Access confluence page for more information about restrictions.