From: “Victoria Russell (vrussel3)” <vrussel3@umw.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 10:08 AM
To: “Victoria Russell (vrussel3)” <vrussel3@umw.edu>
Subject: Center for Teaching Update
Good morning,
With the university finishing out the semester remotely, we know that many teaching plans sketched out last week may need some adjustment. The Center for Teaching remains available to help you as you continue to adjust instruction to meet the needs of students. The most direct way to reach Center staff is via email; we are also available for video chats. For more immediate attention, please reach out to Victoria (vrussel3@umw.edu). She is online Monday-Friday, 8-5 and can do a limited number of evening video appointments. Caitie and Melissa are also available, but may respond more slowly due to managing their own remote teaching loads.
As we shared last week, keeping things simple for our students and ourselves will give us the opportunity to focus on what may be most important right now–connecting to and maintaining our classroom communities. The Open Learning and Teaching Collaborative at Plymouth State University developed a framework for evaluating what is most important to our teaching in this context–the Rule of 2s is a worthwhile exercise to make decisions about how to move forward. Examples of how two different instructors might answer the questions are provided on the website. At a minimum, consider:
- What are two guiding principles you want to keep in mind as you redesign and teach during this time?
- What are two tools you might use to support your teaching during this time?
- What are two content chunks you want students to know and understand by the end of this course?
- What are two skills or dispositions you want students to to have or demonstrate by the end of this course?
- What are two ways students can participate in helping you to redesign this course?
If there is anything the Center can provide at this time to help you move forward, please do not hesitate to let us know. We are working closely with DLS and other university partners—while our physical doors are closed, we are actively working through our online spaces and will do what we can to support your work.
Caitie, Victoria, and Melissa