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Dear Faculty and Instructors,
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We made it through the first week after the extended spring break! Thank you so much for the hard work and drive that went behind ensuring academic continuity amidst all the uncertainties. Many of you converted your face-to-face classes to a distance delivery mode in a matter of days!
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Communication is critical: It can be difficult to gauge how students are faring without seeing them in person. I am especially grateful to each of you for ramping up communications with your students. Each communication from you reinforces the fact that you care, it builds trust, and it instills confidence that it is safe for the student to reach out for help.
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Some of you asked why you are being requested to submit a Course Action Plan. I am sharing with you a letter from our NWCCU President that provides useful context for this request. A clear communication with the student on what has changed in their course midway and how the learning outcomes will be met is not only required but is also the right thing to do. The downloadable course action plan template we have provided is to ensure that the essential elements that need to be communicated to the students are covered, and we can confidently and proudly report back to our accrediting body on how our institute provided academic continuity while ensuring that student learning outcomes were met. UAF course offerings are very diverse, and if for some reason the changes in your course cannot be neatly described within the template provided, it is OK to note NA in some of the categories and add descriptive text at the end. The key point is that you clearly note and share how the student learning outcomes are going to be met in your modified course.
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Ideally, the students should have this information up front as we switch modalities, and many of you have already done that. For others who have not done so, I urge you to do so in the next week or the latest in two weeks (by April 10, 2020). If you are struggling with recasting your course and thinking through how to meet the learning outcomes, please reach out to one of the volunteer peer faculty mentors or other colleagues in your unit who may have already crossed that bridge. It also came to my attention that the guidance I provided may not have been clear, and that could have caused some angst. I want to clarify that if your course was already being offered via a distance delivery mode and the COVID issues have not impacted your offering, then you do not need to submit this course action plan.
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Please choose asynchronous delivery where possible: Many faculty members have moved to synchronous Zoom lectures or recordings of lectures. Done in isolation this is a practical and very reasonable approach. Our current situation, where a majority of the instructors took this route simultaneously, has added a new complexity.
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Madara Mason, the eCampus Associate Director of Teaching and Learning, rightly pointed out that for an average student carrying 12 credits, this will likely mean 12 hours per week of synchronous video lectures – an untenable situation especially for students with poor network connectivity and other personal challenges. Asynchronous and self-paced learning activities in place of synchronous lectures can help lessen the burden for some while still meeting the student learning outcomes. She offers the following learning activities and active strategies that go beyond passive listening for your consideration:
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Distance delivery and FERPA: I received feedback that Zoom has worked well for some faculty. There are others who have resorted to social media platforms such as Facebook Live to deliver their lectures. While Facebook Live may be a good platform for a faculty member in Extension who is delivering a noncredit outreach workshop to community members, it is not a good choice for faculty who are teaching for-credit courses to registered students. With social media platforms, it is easy to forget or mix the boundary between a closed class space and open public space, which inadvertently leads to FERPA violations. And that is only one of the complexities. Please avoid using Facebook Live, and contact anyone from the eCampus Faculty Support team if you have questions or would like to speak to someone about alternatives.
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Support services: If you observe students struggling or they have not been active in the course since the change in delivery, you can issue an alert through Nanook Navigator or you can contact the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities (uaf-studentrights@alaska.edu). If students have COVID-19 related financial concerns, they can apply for assistance.
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CSRR is a resource not only for students but also for faculty when problems arise and when they need help. Accessibility will most likely be the most challenging aspect for students and faculty, so please focus on being flexible and reaching out for help for yourself and your students. I want to give a shoutout to faculty and staff at the department level who have self-organized to help each other out. As an example, I just heard that the Biology and Wildlife Department has virtual peer support meetings, and the English Department has a new Slack group for peer group conversations!
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— Anupma Prakash, provost and executive vice chancellor
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Photos by UAF photographers unless otherwise noted.
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