Online teaching - Ep. 24

In this episode, we discuss our experience with online teaching through the COVID-19 pandemic. We share our best practices, and lessons learned.

Here's the summary of our tips:

Tips:

• Less is more, in terms of content and tech tools
• More than just reduce content: put kindness and compassion for students first
• Much more leniency with deadlines and evaluation strictness
• Flexibility with office hour time, and accommodate student in different time zones 
• Be consistent in the way you compile your information
• Present the same material in different sensorial ways
• Reconsider your assessment methods
• Stick to one didactic model
• Have 3-5 learning objectives and keep those front and center
• Invest time in your didactic skills
• Ask your students, colleagues, and TAs  for feedback
• Make sure you got your tech tools working well: lighting, microphone, drawing tools

Here are some references for this episode:

• From Eva's blog
  •  Poll on tools for online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic 
  • PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: Online resources for scientists 
  • Explorations into Blended Flexible Learning 
  • PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: challenges and opportunities for international researchers during COVID-19 
• From elsewhere on the internet
  • The 5Es instructional model of Catlin Tucker
  • A brief introduction to constructive alignment 
  • More information on Bloom's taxonomy 
  • Felder-Silverman model of learning styles for engineering students