Teaching Continuity Essentials

Using announcements (news), you can communicate course updates, share new information, and post reminders for students.

Notifications let students know as soon as content, news or grades are made available in your course. Each student needs to enable notifications for their D2L account.

If you need to communicate with your class, you can get the list of student emails from PeopleSoft. D2L also provides tools to let you send an email to the entire class, to specific sections or groups within the class or to individual students.

Office hours can be scheduled even when you are not in the office. You can either use the telephone or hold them online using Zoom.

Visit our Introduction to D2L site to learn more about the variety of tools provided D2L.

Learn how to post an announcement, syllabus and style instructions in under ten minutes with these three video tutorials.  

You can use YuJa (yuja.ucalgary.ca) to record videos using a webcam and screen recording. The YuJa video can then be added to your D2L course. 

Zoom provides a platform to have live, synchronous sessions with all your students. Take advantage of being able to share your presentation, visit websites, include students in conversations and small group activities. 

Course disruption can be especially challenging when there are labs, field experiences, seminars, and studios involved. This page outlines some resources and ideas to get you started with thinking through how you might approach the task.

This helpful infographic provides principles and practical strategies for remote teaching that enhance learning while reducing frustration for both instructors and students.

If you need ideas for planning future online courses, check out this useful online course design guide from Faculty Focus.

The discussion tool is a virtual conversation space where students and instructors collaborate using short question and answer style posts.  The discussion tool can serve as a focal point for conversation in an online course.

Both group work and projects can be facilitated online through a variety of tools. Using D2L, students can be divided into small groups where they can participate in discussions and other course activities such as problem solving or debates. D2L groups can also collaborate on documents and submit group assignments.

Participation in the discussion board forums is essential to successful learning in this online course. The discussion activities are designed to provide you with opportunities both to show that you are able to apply your learning in practical ways and to learn from other students in the course.

There are many different ways to use discussion boards to enhance collaborative learning in an online space. Formal opportunities for collaboration become more important to prevent isolation and increase meaningful learning.

Effective assessment helps students focus their learning on the most important aims of a course. This page outlines five principles with suggested strategies for meaningful online assessment.

There are many possibilities for alternate students assessment online such as presentations, student-created videos, and online discussions. 

Academic integrity is a commitment to, and the demonstration of, honest and responsible scholarship. Support student learning in an online environment while educating them about maintaining academic integrity though utilizing D2L tools. 

These resources suggest that instructors should think small in terms of large class assignments. Whether that is the one-sentence summary assignment or taking a larger assignment and breaking it into smaller parts, these assessment strategies will help students learn effectively and instructors manage time.

Cameron Welsh, senior instructor at Haskayne School of Business had team presentations scheduled at the end of March, when all teaching and learning was moving online. How would he make this work as an online class? Here are his thoughts as he pieced together his plan of action.

• Collecting assignments online
  Set up a D2L dropbox for students to submit their assignments. Students can submit links to their online presentations, attach files, and also view any provided feedback through the D2L dropbox.
• Grading and feedback
  Use D2L gradebook to organize, record and communicate grades to students. The Gradebook can also be used to calculate the final grades. Provide feedback to students individually through the D2L dropbox, gradebook, or email. You can also use the D2L discussion board to provide feedback to the entire class.
• Using online quizzes
  D2L can be used to implement quizzes online including multiple questions, fill in the blank, written responses and more.