Guiding Principles for Fall 2020 Course Adaptations
At the broadest level, we strive to offer an equitable experience to all students enrolled in our courses, minimizing and mitigating against barriers to their access and success caused by the need to adapt our teaching in response to the global pandemic.
Please follow the link associated with each principle to see associated implications and suggestions for Instructors.
Principle 1: Approach course adaptation decisions with a commitment to compassion and care for everyone involved.
We are all adapting our lives due to a global pandemic emergency. We are all contending with new concerns and anxieties, and potentially changing circumstances, while we attempt to engage in the work of teaching and learning online. Seeing the human and embedding flexibility is key for all of us. See implications and suggestions…
Principle 2: Use course and program-level learning objectives to guide decisions about where to invest time and effort.
Learning objectives represent what we expect our students to understand, know and do upon completion of a module, course or program. As we adapt our teaching, they can provide a framework for choosing the content, activities and assessments that best align with our online classroom’s capabilities. See implications and suggestions…
Principle 3: Accommodate the reality that access to technology, including hardware and internet access, will vary across students in your courses.
Stable, high speed internet access, modern, reliable hardware, and quiet study/teaching spaces were significant issues for many in Spring 2020. As much as possible, use our common, University-supported toolset and develop a technology contingency plan for your course. Ensure that you consider accessibility and privacy concerns in the development and delivery of all of your activities and assessments. See implications and suggestions…
Principle 4: Explore ways to adapt both your course design and delivery to take advantage of the flexibility made possible by online learning while cultivating a strong, inclusive, online learning community.
Our students will be in different parts of the world; wellness, inclusion and fairness must guide decisions on our delivery strategies. Consider using a blend of synchronous and asynchronous engagement strategies and, where possible, build choices into how students engage with content and demonstrate learning. See implications and suggestions…
Principle 5: Consider various ways to foreground and address academic integrity.
Research tells us that breaches such as cheating and plagiarism are typically the result of feelings of desperation plus opportunity. Consider ways to position academic integrity in the context of professional and scholarly community behaviours. See implications and suggestions…
Principle 6: Consider implications for student progression.
If your course or program has been changed in a way that may impact degree progression, communicate with students clearly and regularly about the changes they are experiencing, including scheduling changes such as moving lab components to future times. See implications and suggestions…
This work is adapted from “Guiding Principles for Fall 2020 Course Adaptations” and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.