The UGC timeline of August 1st week to start the academic year for already registered students is now upon us. It is quite clear, at least in places like Delhi where I live, that university campuses cannot/will not open for face-to-face instruction. I hope Universities have planned before hand for this eventuality.

In the winter semester, campuses closing suddenly meant, the classroom instruction was moved to online as an emergency measure. There was no time to learn or follow best practices. No time for preparation of online resources or setting up processes for clear communication. We survived through that. However, the August 1 starting is not sudden, we know we will have to teach online so there is no excuse for just copying classroom practices to online and hope or pretend that it will work. These two are completely different spaces with their own strong and weak points. Replicating the face-to-face experience online in the name of not lowering /keeping standards will be a huge mistake.

Here are some areas in which teachers and administrators need to think differently to achieve best outcomes. These are based on decades of research in online and distance teaching and learning:
Classroom time together
The best part of face-to-face instruction is constant feedback for the teacher; quality time with the teacher and peers for the student. However, it is not translated well at all in synchronous online teaching. An online lecture due to its lack of non-verbal feedback is one of the least productive teaching strategies. The best part of ‘online’ is the flexibility of not being present physically. By asking students to attend lectures in real time fails to capitalize on the best that online can offer.

Instead, teachers need to plan for recorded lectures for basic content, and a follow up session every week to check in with students, address queries, expand on the material already provided. This takes care of practical difficulties students face such as – lack of stable connection, lack of space to study, lack of individual resources (computer, mobile, internet connection) for each person in the house to use at the same time. This also gives students time to mull over the material and apply the concepts so that they are much more prepared in the weekly check in session. Overall, a much more productive use of resources and the synchronous teaching time.

When creating rules about contact hours, the important point for administrators would be to think about total hours spent in synchronous and asynchronous contact rather than being hung up on replicating the twice or thrice a week timed lecture in the classroom, in an online setting.

Grading for attendance
As we shift from the weekly timed lectures to a mix of synchronous and asynchronous teaching, we also need to rethink the participation grade. Many teachers, use attendance in face-to-face classroom (and may be being vocal in that space) as a proxy for participation. Colleges also have policies about attendance. In the changed circumstances it will be punitive for the most underserved students unless the colleges can provide a dedicated computer, internet connection, and space where they can attend the synchronous online sessions.

Instead think of activities that can be completed asynchronously, such as discussion forums, regular ungraded homework assignments that can tell you if a student is participating. If colleges have a generic classroom attendance policy, administrators need to change it to participation policy to keep up with the times.

Planning for an hour-long lecture vs planning for a unit
In a face-to-face setting, our syllabus/ instructional planning is generally based on the number of hour-long lectures we have in a semester and the content to be covered. With the focus shifted to a mix of synchronous and asynchronous, the time together cannot be the central unit of planning anymore.

Instead plan based on a unit focused on subtopics you want to introduce. Best practice is to think of a subtopic that can be handled as a weekly unit. The unit can have recorded lectures, readings, activities that scaffold learning with the material provided, and a culminating synchronous session. The recorded lectures further need to be thought out as small subtopics that can be explained in bite sized short 10-minute videos. Depending on the complexity of ideas, each video or a group of videos can end into a self-study question. Such possibilities of self-check peppered throughout the unit keep students on task, provide feedback to the teacher, and creates basis for the participation grade.

Administrators need to offer workshops and/or ongoing consultations from a specialist to help teachers plan for the online settings. They also need to provide technology support and consultation so that teachers can prepare quality online content.

These are just a few places where we need to make a thoughtful shift. I will write in more detail about assessments and grading in the next post. Now that we are not available physically during our assigned lecture hours, clear communication and managing expectations is also going to be an important aspect. I guess another post on that is in order as well.