| Issue to Address | Possible Solutions |
|---|---|
| Establish a mode of communication to use in case of an emergency (Ensure students all have access to and are aware of this communication method) | Moodle Announcement |
| Decide how you will distribute documents and readings during a disruption (Make your syllabus available digitally) | Moodle |
| Designate a centralized place to collect student works(homework, assignment, paper, etc.) | Moodle Assignments |
| Think about how you would continue class discussion in the event of a disruption | Moodle Forums Voices Teams |
| Consider recording your lecture content for students to watch remotely | Teams PowerPoint Narration ExplainEverything (iPad Pro) |
| Holding class and/or office hours virtually/online. You can fall back on your chosen option if it is expected that several class periods will be missed. | Teams |
| Deliver online quiz/test to evaluate student learning | Moodle Quizzes |
| Provide students with grades and feedback on their work online in the event of an emergency | Moodle Assignments and Grades |
Using Moodle to Facilitate Continuity
In times of planned/unplanned events, offering an online class session is a proactive way to maintain course continuity when meeting face-to-face is not an option. Wooster’s instance of Moodle (online learning management system) provides solutions that allow faculty to engage with their students in a variety of ways.
Online learning is comprised of many aspects including the dissemination of content, student collaboration, student assignments and/or activities, and communication – all completed virtually within the learning management system.
Every course section established through Colleague has a corresponding course in Moodle. To access your course(s), please visit https://moodle.wooster.edu to login using your Wooster information.
It is imperative that all courses in Moodle are made visible (directions on Moodle homepage) in order for students to have access and receive communications.
Update Your Course Page
- Include a message about new online components and expectations.
- Include contact information for you.
- Consider offering office hours through Teams.
Suggestions for Student Success:
- Encourage students to check Moodle courses daily. Reading announcements and other notifications are crucial to having a successful online experience.
- Step-by-Step Student Resources:
Communicate With Students
Post Announcements with written or recorded messages to communicate updates, changes and other relevant information to your students. This is an easy way to communicate with your entire class from within Moodle.
Alternatively, you can add the Quickmail Block to your course and send messages through it or you can send an email To the course email list.
Suggestions for Student Success:
- Remind students to check and/or modify their spam folders to allow for copies of Announcements to be sent to their Wooster Inbox.
- Step-by-Step Student Resources:
Host Class Virtually (Live Lecture)
You can schedule a virtual meeting using Microsoft Teams. You’ll need a computer with a microphone and webcam for this to work best. Your students can join using a computer, tablet or even phone. For in-depth information on teams, visit our Teams posts.
- Set up a virtual meeting using Teams.
- Post an Announcement in your course notifying students of the date and time of the meeting.
- Record the meeting for students who are not able to attend.
To optimize your Teams session, we recommend:
- Device with a good internet connection.
- Use headphones or earbuds with a microphone to minimize surrounding noise and maximize your voice.
- In your Teams settings, opt to Mute Participants upon entry into the meeting. As the host of the meeting, instructors are able to mute and unmute participants at any point. (??)
Suggestions for Student Success:
- Students should ensure they have access to the Internet.
- Students should ensure they have access to a computer or a mobile device. This device will need to include:
- Audio – At a minimum, ensure you have speakers and a microphone; however, we recommend a headset or earbuds (with mic).
- Video – Ensure you have a webcam, either built into your computer or an USB webcam.
- Step-by-Step Student Resources:
Set up a Class Forum
Setting up a Moodle Forum allows students to respond to you and one another asynchronously (i.e., not in real time). You can provide a prompt that asks students to discuss course material, reflect on how key concepts are linked to other fields of study or to their own experience, or share their works in progress, among other things.
- Create a forum.
- For large classes, see Creating Group Enabled Forums. Group Enabled Forums make discussions in large classes more manageable.
Tips for administering effective online discussions:
- Communicate clear guidelines in the prompt that establish your expectations for students’ contribution to the discussion. Many instructors choose to provide details about the writing style (e.g., formal/informal), number of posts, length (e.g., number of words), frequency, tone, and content (e.g., elements that constitute “value added”).
- Use threaded discussion responses to allow students to respond to one another multiple times in an organized way in each discussion board post.
- Be present in the discussion board by providing feedback and coaching to student responses.
- Create questions and prompts that require complex thinking and application of ideas to avoid repetitive student responses.
Suggestions for Student Success:
- Encourage students to first save longer discussion responses in a Word document before entering it in a Discussion posting. This avoids losing work in the event of any kind of technical glitches during the submission process.
Share Course Documents and Information
Need content here or link to wiki docs.
TIPS:
- Instructors use many different organizational structures. Time-based courses might have sections titled Week 1, Week 2, etc.. Topic-based courses might have sections titled Course Introduction, Cells, DNA, etc.. Item-type Modules might be titled Lecture Notes, Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, etc.
Share Lecture Video and Audio
To record and share lecture videos or screen share presentations, you have several options:
- Schedule, host, and record a Team meeting with or without your students. You can then share the video in your course.
- Use Explain Everything on and iPad Pro, a tool to capture video and audio of your iPad’s screen and webcam to create lectures, tutorials, demonstrations and more.
- Narrate a PowerPoint presentation (you can annotate while narrating if on an iPad or tablet).
To optimize your asynchronous recorded lecture, we recommend:
- Draft a script or an outline of your ideas for your lecture before recording.
- Use headphones or earbuds with a microphone to minimize surrounding noise and maximize your voice.
- Record longer lectures into smaller, separate video lectures, organized by topic, idea, or skill. By watching video lectures of less than 15 minutes each, learners are more likely to maintain focus and retain key information.
- Include questions throughout your lectures to engage learners and allow them to check for understanding as they watch.
- Upload PDF files, websites and media that support the content of your lecture to provide your learners a comprehensive and immersive learning experience.
Assessing Students Digitally
Instructors can leverage Moodle tools to formatively and summatively assess student learning.
Assignments
Instructors may use the Assignments tool in Moodle to collect student work.
- Learn how to create an Assignment for online submission.
TIPS:
- When you create an Assignment with the Online Submission type, Moodle automatically creates the drop box for students to submit their Assignment files.
- Graded Quizzes and Discussions are also considered Assignments. When you create them on the Quizzes and Discussions pages, they will show up on the Assignments page as well.
- You must create an assignment for anything you wish to assign a grade in the gradebook.
- Make sure that you publish each assignment to make them available to students and create the corresponding column in the Gradebook.
Suggestions for Student Success:
- Always save documents before turning them in online. Consider downloading files to an offline location or computer as a precaution.
- Keep track of assignments and due date from the Sidebar To Do list, calendar and if available the syllabus, assignments or modules pages.
- Step-by-Step Resources:
- How do I view Assignments as a student?
- How do I submit an online assignment?
- How do I upload a file as an assignment submission in Moodle?
- How do I upload a file from OneDrive as an assignment submission in Moodle?
- How do I know when my instructor has graded my assignment?
- How do I view assignment comments from my instructor?
- Step-by-Step Resources:
Quizzes
Instructors can create quizzes, exams and tests using the Quizzes tool in Moodle.
- Learn how to create a Quiz for online submission.
- Learn how to provide extra time that might be required for specific students.
- Learn how to access quiz statistics.
Tips for administering effective exams online:
- Create complex questions that require deep, analytical thinking skills to complete.
- Use time limits for the exam availability to maintain students’ focus during the exam.
- Randomize the questions of a quiz to maximize academic integrity.
Suggestions for Student Success:
- Make sure you have a reliable, wired internet connection when taking a quiz; a wireless connection will work, but is not recommended.
- Avoid taking tests on mobile devices such as phones or tablets. Not all quiz settings or question types are compatible with the mobile app yet.
- Do not navigate to other locations or applications in Moodle after the test opens. Do not use any of the browser navigation buttons (i.e. Back, Forward, Home, etc.)