Instructional Continuity: Adapting To Virtual Instruction: Phase 2

An array of events can disrupt faculty’s ability to teach courses via on-campus, in-class sessions. Cal Poly is committed to providing students the opportunity to complete courses despite disruptions. Steadily advancing communication and instructional technologies have greatly enhanced faculty’s ability to provide quality virtual learning experiences.With  planning, training on selected user-friendly technologies, and mentoring on effective instruction, faculty can continue instruction through many forms of instructional disruption.

 

Guide For Adapting a Course to Virtual Instruction

Following these steps to adapt a course from in-class to virtual instruction will result in a better course experience for you and you students, even when under severe time constraints. This process may also reduce your stress and uncertainty about adapting your courses, and result in more effective instruction and greater learning for students.

Phase 2

Here are the steps for Phase 2 (of 2):

1. Identify Essential Course Components

• Review the Course Components Matrix (see below) and your completed Adapted Course Design from Phase 1 to identify the components that will be part of the virtual instruction version of your course.
• Insert the essential components into your version of the matrix template.
• Identify and insert your intended alternatives to in-class forms of those essential components.
• Identify and insert the instructional technologies preferred for each alternative instruction component.

NOTE: Those relatively new to online instruction are encouraged to first leverage the many tools in the campus's learning management system (LMS): Canvas or PolyLearn. They are designed expressly to support virtual forms of instruction, including as an enhancement to in-class instruction and especially for out-of-class instruction. Most all Cal Poly students are likely quite familiar and comfortable with LMSs from experience in high school as well as with PolyLearn -- and they have shown their ability in Winter 2020 to adapt smoothly to Canvas.

2.    Identify Key Instructional Technologies

• Using the draft Course Components Matrix for the specific course you are working on, identify the most important instructional technologies of those selected (i.e., those you intend to use the most frequently and centrally). These technologies (likely, first and foremost, your LMS of choice) should be your highest priority for (1) building your user skills and (2) gaining ideas and insights for effective instruction. (See below for descriptions of four essential instructional technologies you will likely use) 
• Review the CTLT’s Instructional Continuity webpages to find user guides and tutorials, online workshops, and online consultations. There you can find support for both technology use and effective instructional practices.
• Explore the relevant resources and create your preparation plan by signing up for the workshops in support of your virtual instruction plan.

3.    Prepare A Version of the Adaptation Plan for Students

• Consider preparing a student-oriented (simplified) version of your Course Adaptation Plan document to distribute to students in this course. You can make it available before the course begins and call students' attention to it as part of your Day 1 orientation activities.
• For students, understanding your adapted course design will help them understand why the course is designed the way it is, why they are going to do what they are going to do, and why the selected technologies are being used. This will be especially valuable at a time of significant uncertainty and stress for them.
   

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Course Components Matrix

(Click here to download editable document to customize for your course)

Component	Alternatives to In-Class	Instructional Technologies at Cal Poly
Announcements	Canvas	- Canvas Announcements tool - PolyLearn tool - Campus email
Syllabus	Canvas	- Canvas Syllabus tool - PolyLearn tool - Campus email
Gradebook	Canvas	- Canvas Grades tool - PolyLearn Grades tool
Lectures	Recorded lectures and screencasts	- Zoom; Screen-Cast-O-Matic (coming soon)
Discussions	Scheduled synchronous online sessions; asynchronous online sessions	- Zoom (synchronous) - Canvas Discussions tool (asynchronous) - PolyLearn Forum tool
Assignments	Online distribution and submission	- Canvas Assignment tool - Canvas Modules tool - PolyLearn Assignments tool - Campus email
Labs	Adapted labs, online labs or lab alternatives	- https://kb.iu.edu/d/arxd - Merlot: https://virtuallabs.merlot.org/
Guest speakers	Live and/or recorded personal guests; curated content from across the internet	- Zoom (live and recorded); stored on OneDrive; linked in Canvas - Pre-produced online videos (e.g., Kahn Academy; TED Talks; etc.)
Group work	Online team collaboration	- Canvas Collaborations tool - Canvas Groups - PolyLearn
Projects	Online team collaboration	- Canvas Collaborations tool - PolyLearn
Presentations (group or individual)	Recorded student presentations	- Zoom (recorded); stored on OneDrive; linked in Canvas
Assessments (quizzes, tests, midterms)	Online assessments	- Canvas Quizzes tool - PolyLearn Quiz tool
Office hours	Scheduled real-time online sessions (More Detailed Suggestions)	- Zoom
Final exams	Timed online exam	- Canvas Quizzes tool - PolyLearn Quiz tool

Canvas

Canvas is the new campus learning management system (LMS) that provides a powerful platform for the backbone of most courses taught virtually, as well as a useful complement to traditional in-class courses. Canvas is now available to all Cal Poly faculty and will fully replace PolyLearn as of Fall 2020. It offers a broad range of the most popular tools to support teaching and learning – many are similar to those in PolyLearn, and some will be new to PolyLearn users.

NOTE: Anyone needing to establish a course in an LMS for Spring, or who has a Spring course in PolyLearn but uses the LMS minimally (e.g., posting a syllabus, gradebook, a few quizzes) is strongly advised to use Canvas instead of PolyLearn. In addition to the ease-of-use that Canvas offers, two other considerations are that 1) the PolyLearn system is more fragile and less reliable and 2) PolyLearn will be decommissioned at the end of this summer and only Canvas will be available beginning Fall 2020.

PolyLearn

PolyLearn is Cal Poly’s branded version of the Moodle learning management system software. It has been the campus LMS since 2012, but it is being replaced by Canvas fully in Fall 2020. The PolyLearn system is scheduled to be decommissioning at the end of Summer 2020. The software is hosted on aging on-campus hardware that cannot be repaired or upgraded, hence a move to the cloud-based, popular Canvas system. (See note under the “Canvas” description above.)

Zoom

Cal Poly has adopted Zoom as a multi-faceted communication tool that offers an impressive array of capacities useful for synchronous communications and asynchronous interactions. It is a user-friendly yet powerful way to accomplish the following:

• Video-conferences for synchronous class meetings and office hours (including video, voice only, screen sharing, chat channel, breakout rooms, closed captioning)
• Video recording of lectures or guest speakers by faculty (including video, screen sharing, closed captioning)
• Video recording of presentations or speeches by students (including video, screen sharing, closed captioning)

OneDrive

This is an online digital file storage service that is available to everyone on campus as part of Cal Poly’s Office 365 suite of tools. It’s easily accessible through the Cal Poly Portal with generous storage capacity for every account. Files on OneDrive are accessible to instructors from any location, including remote teaching. Account owners can determine who has access to files and entire folders, including permissions from read-only to full editing capabilities. Instructors can enable student collaborative work on multi-authored documents or other files. It is also useful for instructors to upload recorded media (e.g., lectures or presentations produced in Zoom) and share the links with their students in Canvas or PolyLearn.