Transitioning Your Courses

1. Communicate immediately with students to reassure them and prepare them for changes. 

2. Look at your Course Outline and determine what the Contribution to the Program is (ex. Vocational Learning Outcomes, and / or Essential Employability Skills, and / or General Education Theme Requirement) and whether this Contribution to the Program should be Taught and / or Assessed, or Culminating Performance.  

3. Look at what you’ve done in your course, so far – how close are you to meeting the Contribution to the Program? Have learners had the opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities building to these outcomes? What more is needed? 

4. Determine how to provide the remaining opportunities that will help learners meet the Contribution to the Program.  What content and assessments are most relevant? 

5. Explore posted resources for teaching online. 

6. Decide what changes to your content and assessments are needed to support online delivery; consider how to provide additional choice and flexibility to learners, as well as accessibility.  

7. Adjust your Learning Schedule to meet the most relevant content and assessments and to reflect any changes due to the move online.  

8. Update your Brightspace to reflect any changes to the course. 

9. Continue communicating with students and highlight any new expectations and upcoming activities. 

Start a conversation that includes the following elements:

• Start a conversation that includes the following elements:
• Has a general tone of calm (e.g. “I might not have all the answers, but I will continue to give you updates as I know more.”)
• Identifies modality changes (i.e. asynchronous or synchronous) to content delivery and assessment.
• Gives clear expectations and instructions for learners (e.g. communication turnaround time, virtual office hours, and assignment submission format) and from learners (e.g. expected “attendance,” preferred communication channel, study tips, online etiquette).
• Communicates encouragement and support around term completion and accommodations in the event of sickness.
• Provides supporting resources including the college FAQ site and ITS support.

Regular communication with learners (Announcements and e-mail), highlighting changed expectations and upcoming activities, is also encouraged.

As we move forward with our plans for academic continuity, it is important to be clear about the context in which these changes are being made. Clarity will help with the decision-making required to finalize delivery plans.  

At Algonquin, we are working towards ensuring that courses are “substantially complete.“ 

For clarification purposes, a course would be considered “substantially complete“ when:

1. the course has made its contribution to the program as outlined at the beginning of the course outline (e.g., VLOs, EESs or General Education theme requirement), and  
2. the faculty member responsible for the course has determined that learners have had the opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities building to the applicable outcomes, and  
3. the plan for substantial completion, with direction from the program coordinator(s), is approved by the Chair responsible for the course.  

For definitions of the key terminology and answers to questions such as the following, please review our Substantial Completion page – https://www.algonquincollege.com/lts/substantial-completion:

• Is it possible to use “a most recent, most consistent” approach to evaluation?  
• How does the number 80% relate to our Academic Continuity Plans?  
• Do I need to make adjustments to the Evaluation Criteria Weighting specified in the course outline?

Algonquin College is recommending asynchronous delivery because both our students and we as faculty may face challenges in attending courses at a particular time, even if it adheres to the previous face-to-face class schedule, due to adjustments in our caregiving and other aspects related to the Covid-19 isolation measures.   

Find out more about asynchronous delivery vs synchronous delivery here – https://www.algonquincollege.com/lts/synchronous-or-asynchronous/.

To support all learners as you plan for potential modality changes, consider:

• the format, availability, and accessibility of your content,
• the ways in which your learners will engage with the content, with you, and with each other, and
• the alternative means through which your learners could demonstrate the outcomes required.

For theory courses, you might consider:

• Adding supplementary materials and links to your Brightspace shell (e.g., videos or podcasts as well as additional articles).
• Recording upcoming lessons/lectures in format(s) that could be shared online later.
• Setting up discussion forums or topics in Brightspace to promote asynchronous connections with learners.
• Engaging learners in online discussions by participating (e.g. commenting, posting and answering questions).
• Using alternative (authentic) assessments and evaluations for learners to demonstrate the outcomes required. You may also consider re-thinking your final exam.
• Providing feedback in text, audio, or video form.

For practical/lab courses, you might consider:

• Using existing simulation resources to nurture the on-going development of skills, e.g. general repositories such as Merlot or OnlineLabs.
• Leveraging readily available videos (via YouTube) or resource sites (LinkedIn Learning, Khan Academy) to continue helping learners to hone the skills covered in the course.
• Posting accessible options for practicing foundational skills safely in a home environment that include suggestions for alternative materials (some great suggestions can be found here).
• Preparing case studies and encouraging learners to provide a written explanation of the steps they would take to address the situation(s).
• Broadening the use of hybrid activities for assessment purposes.
• Offering options for learners to submit their assignments in different formats (e.g. text, audio, or video).

As you work through these ideas, email support, drop-in sessions, and workshops are available here. You may also want to review our additional collection of resources and articles on alternative delivery and assessment.

You may want to take the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the tools you could use for content delivery, learner engagement, and assessments. For a full list of resources, check the Tools for Delivery page. The following tools can be used for content delivery, learner engagement, and assessments. If you are considering other third party tools, please be aware of the policies around student data privacy when using them.

Purchasing Tools For Delivery

Based on market research completed, the college is recommending a cap of $150 plus tax for academic staff to equip themselves with webcams that include microphones as well as headphones. Faculty are asked to buy these items themselves and put in an expense claim.

You will already have access to Brightspace, and through Brightspace you have access to the Zoom Classroom. You may also want to:

• Review the Brightspace Essentials for Faculty course for how-to guides on using Brightspace (login required). The links below, to specific tools in Brightspace, will take you to this course.
• Review this section of Brightspace Essentials for guidance on how to use the Zoom Classroom through Brightspace (with further information and considerations here).
• Get set up with a Zoom account, to host Zoom meetings with individual students outside of Brightspace.
• Test that your computer meets the minimum requirements to use Zoom at home.
• Familiarize yourself with the security and privacy guidelines around hosting Zoom meetings, particularly when you plan to record these meetings.
• Review the Zoom Help Center for how-to guides on using specific functions in Zoom.
• Set up access to the Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Here is a list of course activities and the respective tools that could help you to adapt such activities. For a full list of resources, check the Tools for Delivery page.

Content Delivery

• Brightspace: upload accessible lesson materials (e.g. word documents, PDF, slideshow, videos, audios, weblinks, and other curated resources). What is accessible content?
• Zoom (within or outside of Brightspace): live streaming (with recording option available) of lectures, discussions, and other in-class/lab demonstration activities; lecture recording/capture for asynchronous delivery purposes; guest presenter in remote locations.

Learner Engagement

• Brightspace: set up Discussion Forums; post Announcements with your course updates; Email your class list; create Surveys and Checklists; use Intelligent Agents to track learner activity and send automated, customized emails in response to this activity.
• Zoom (within or outside of Brightspace): host class meetings; host one-on-one/small group meetings; breakout rooms for small group discussions within a whole-class setting; polls.

Assessment

• Brightspace: Quizzes, Assignments, and Discussions, all of which can have associated rubrics and grades; submissions can include text, video, audio, multimedia compositions, and a range of other file types, depending on the Brightspace tool. Quick Eval aggregates submissions for easy grading, and feedback can be provided in text, audio, or video form.
• Zoom: video and/or audio presentations (with/without slides); debates or other participatory activities; live skills performance demonstration; live feedback conversations.

The Library and Student Support Services are offering academic support to learners to help with their transition to online learning. Please direct them to the following websites for more information:

• Student Learning Kit – resources to help learners with the transition
• Top Tips for Preparing to Learn Online – this page includes online workshop listings including sessions on how to use Zoom.
• Online Peer Tutoring
• Online Coaching

We have also created an additional document with some more thorough guidance on how to succeed as an online learner. You are welcome to upload this to your Brightspace courses to share with your learners.