With the nearly universal decision coming last week to transition schools and universities to online instruction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, educators across the globe—myself included—are finding themselves scrambling to convert their otherwise face-to-face courses to online.
Some great resources have come out in the last few days to help teachers make the quick transition, including a few I’d like to cite here:
- Your Suddenly Online Class Could Actually Be a Relief (Inside Higher Ed)
- How to Pivot Online Learning in the Event of a Campus Shut Down (Eduflow.com)
- How to Convert a Face-to-face Class to Online/Remote Learning (DrLukeHobson.com)
In an effort to help, I took much of the great information from these sources and added in a few of my own tips from personal experience (I’ve been teaching in online, hybrid, and face-to-face classes continually for nearly fourteen years now) and I put them into a single, shareable visual guide. Following the guide, I have more detailed explanation.
Before You Begin: Some Words of Wisdom
Quickly converting a face-to-face course into a virtual environment can feel overwhelming. If you’re totally new to online instruction, it can feel downright intimidating. Even if you’re comfortable working online with learning management systems (like Canvas or Blackboard) or online course platforms, you may feel that your course content doesn’t really fit well in an online environment. Whatever it is you’re feeling, you probably at least feel like you have your work cut out for you in the transition.
As you begin the process, I have three key pieces of advice: don’t stress; stay patient; and simplify.
- Don’t Stress: Okay, I realize that may sound trivial and it may sound insensitive to what you’re currently feeling, especially considering what’s happening in the world with the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. I don’t mean it to. The whole idea behind “don’t stress” is simply to suggest that—these aren’t usual circumstances. Nobody expects you to (or…at least, they shouldn’t! expect you to) create a perfect online course. Recognize that we’re all improvising here. Do the best you can, knowing your own abilities and time frame.
- Be Patient: Circumstances that cause a university or college to go unexpectedly and rapidly online are, well, extreme. Finding ourselves in this situation means that everybody—you, students, college administrators, lawmakers, everyone—is figuring it all out at the same time. Be patient with yourself. You may not adapt to online instruction immediately. That’s okay. Be patient with students. They’re likely dealing with stresses that we don’t understand. They may be a little late or they may not understand an assignment. That’s okay. Be patient with school administrators. This is new to them, too. If their communication or expectations aren’t always clear, be patient and ask questions. In a lot of ways, you’re the online student getting information from them, just as your students are getting information from you. Just learn to adapt and be as patient as possible.
- Simplify: Now isn’t the time to learn seventeen new technologies. Now is the time to make due with what you know. That doesn’t mean you can’t and shouldn’t be creative, but if you’re 100% unfamiliar with doing video lectures, trying so now might only completely stress you out. Just think about what your students really need and what you’re capable of doing and simplify as much as you can.
A Note about Online Pedagogy…
You may or may not be familiar with the literature surrounding online pedagogy. But…it’s likely you have at least heard that online instruction and learning is fundamentally different than that of in-person instruction. Most experts in the field of education and online learning from educational institutions like DeVry University would say that you shouldn’t simply turn a face-to-face course into one that is online—meaning you shouldn’t just keep all assignments, activities, lectures, discussions, etc. the same. You have to adapt for a totally different environment and you have to provide engagement, instructions, rubrics, and discussions to fit a different model.
That said, don’t worry too much. We’re not exactly in an ideal situation where you have the time to develop an online course the “right way.” Most online instructors will tell you that the workload for an online course is leaps and bounds beyond what the workload is for an in-person course. There is a tremendous amount of time put into building resources (slides, videos, instructions, rubrics, etc.), not to mention the efforts that go into engaging and personally getting to know each online student at the beginning. There is a great deal of effort that goes into building communities, creating effective discussion forums, providing real-time and asynchronous feedback, and scheduling calls. Online courses done well intricately map out the progression of learning and engagement in ways that require an extensive amount of over-communication. In face-to-face classes, you can tell all students the same thing and, for the most part, all will listen. If a F2F student has a question, you can respond to that question quickly while everyone is there. Online, it’s different.
With that in mind, recognize that under this unique circumstance, you didn’t have the luxury of mapping out the perfect online course in advance. You’re adapting, on the spot. You weren’t prepared to do this. You’ve moving quickly. So…this may not be your best pedagogical achievement. Don’t feel bad. Make it as good as you can and be comfortable with that.
Follow a Seven-Step Process for Designing an Online Course
This is outlined fairly clearly in the graphic above, so I won’t reiterate everything here. But having a process in front of you may take some of the stress away. Here’s what I recommend:
- Step 1: Identify the Big Goals: Determine what your students really need to know and…what they might be okay without. Considering the uniqueness of the situation, it’s possible you’ll have to simplify some projects. So, determine first of what really matters for the rest of the course and write that down.
- Step 2: Outline the Course: With your big goals in mind, create an outline for what students need to accomplish and how you can help them get there. That usually means writing in outline format, with the major headings being assignments/outomes, and the subheadings or bullets being the activities, mini-assignments, discussions, or readings that will help students get there. Put your entire outline together.
- Step 3: Map a Timeline: Now that you have the entire course outline, assign times to each. Make sure your students have enough time to complete each project, reading, and activity and—equally important—make sure you have the time to assess all of the work (recognize that assessing things like discussion forums well can be a bit time consuming, so plan in advance). If you need to revise your outline, do so. Just have this all mapped out in advance.
- Step 4: Structure the Learning Management System: Put your course into your learning management system. If it’s already partly there (most face-to-face courses these days have some online submissions already), just modify it. Map the new online course to your timeline you just created.
- Step 5: Write Detailed Instructions and Rubrics: This will likely be the most time-consuming process of converting your course, but will pay dividends if you take the time to do it well. Recognize that students will likely have a lot of questions. The more clear and detailed you can be, the better. AND…don’t forget the formatting and the rules of information design! Realize that students, like all humans, tend to skim and scan, looking for what’s most important. Help students out with headings, bulleted lists, highlighting techniques, links, images, and so forth. Chunk information to be easily digestible and make requirements, deliverables, and due dates big and obvious. The more clear this information is, the less you’ll find yourself answering emails and phone calls for clarification.
- Step 6: Add a Variety of Resources: Do the best you can in adding extra resources. This, again, can be time-consuming, but online students don’t all learn the same way. Some will want video. Some won’t. Some will want to download and print readings, others will be fine online. Some will read external links. Some want slides. Don’t feel like you have to do it all, but do what you can. If something is required (like students MUST watch a video), make that very clear.
- Step 7: Build in Engagement: A term often used in education is “social presence.” While the course may be online, students should feel connected to people–you, the instructor, their peers, and possibly people in the community, depending on the work their doing. Even though students aren’t in-person, they can still engage with each other. There are synchronous options (like a Zoom video where they all log in at the same time) or asynchronous options (like online discussion forums and peer reviews. Whatever it is you choose, be sure not to make students feel isolated. Simply reading a book and taking a test has been proven to not be the best way to learn for most people.
Lastly, Remember the Best Practices for Online Instruction
This is a short list, but, as best you can, try to incorporate these into your online environment:
- Be ultra-present and passionate
- Show your personality
- Over-communicate
- Be supportive and motivational
- Break learning into chunks
- Describe expectations clearly
- Provide technical support
- Include a detailed syllabus
- Make dates and schedule obvious
- State learning objectives frequently
- Provide timely feedback
- Encourage learning from experience
- Help students interact with each other
- Reach out to students individually
You got this! Do the best you can with the time and knowledge you have. The great thing about developing a course online is that once you’ve done it once, you have a lot of the materials ready for the next time. And…it’s almost always better the second time you do it 🙂