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• 1 2020-07-28T14:23:44-07:00 Creating Adaptable Assessments, Assignments, and Activities 28 plain 2020-08-28T15:21:09-07:00 Now more than ever we need to be adaptable in our course design. To achieve this, we can think about the ways in which we approach assessment, activities, and assignments incorporating as much flexibility as possible. As you read through this content, think keep your purpose and learning outcomes in the forefront of your mind.
  
  How can you use your purpose and outcomes to design assessments, assignments, and activities for your course?
  

  
  Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

  Incorporating UDL into your online teaching can help you move toward a more engaged, equitable, and accessible classroom. It is not a panacea for challenges that arise in online learning; however, it does offer a framework for reducing barriers and maximizing learning for all learners.
  
  

  Reflect on the Qualities of an Adaptive Course and Course Components.

   
  1. What seems actionable?
  2. What are you already doing?
  3. What do you want to learn more about?
  4. How can you create a more level playing field for your students?
  5. What are the concepts students routinely misunderstand?
  Next, look at a current assignment or assessment, or think about one you’re going to design. Use the matrix to create an assignment that is both transparent and universally designed.
  

  Activity and Assignment Examples

  Strategies for Active Learning while Physically Distancing
  TILT Examples and Resources

  Further Reading

  • ADA Compliance for Course Design, https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/1/ada-compliance-for-online-course-design
  • Universal Design Learning Guidelines: http://udlguidelines.cast.org/
• 1 media/Why_Scalar Image 1-01.jpg 2020-08-19T15:55:56-07:00 Why Do Education, Learning, and Teaching Matter? 28 image_header 1011112 2020-08-28T15:05:15-07:00

  May we do work that matters. Vale la pena, it’s worth the pain.
  - Gloria E. Anzaldua (2005, p. 102)

  Teaching is a radical act of hope. It is an assertion of faith in a better future in and increasingly uncertain and fraught present. It is a commitment to that future even if we can’t clearly discern its shape. It is a continuing pedagogical practice rather than a set of static characteristics. Simply put, we teach because we believe it matters. -Kevin M. Gannon (2020, p. 5)

  Robert B. Barr and John Tagg argued twenty five years ago that a paradigm shift was taking place in higher education. This shift was from a teaching paradigm to a learning paradigm. Institutions of higher education would no longer be understood as existing “to provide instruction,” but rather as existing “to produce learning” (italics in original). This mattered to Barr and Tagg because they believed that the dominant paradigm of education confused a means for an end. In this current moment of crisis, it seems that we are reverting back to that dominant paradigm. What technologies do we need to teach our courses? Should my course be in-person, online, or hybrid? These are, of course, important questions, but they confuse the means for the end.
  
  If we are to teach courses that contribute to positive social change, we must focus on what we want students to learn, how we facilitate that learning, and what that means for us as teachers. This will then allow us to make better (both in terms of quality and efficiency) decisions about the specifics of our teaching modalities and tools.
  
  To get started, reflect on your views of education, teaching and learning. Use this exercise to identify what matters to you. This will provide you with a compass to guide your course when you get lost in the details, the worry, and the speculation.
  
  
  Reflect on your views of education, teaching and learning.
  Step 1: Consider another's educational compass
  Choose 2 or more of these short readings, audio recordings, or videos that interest you. As you read, listen, and/or watch, consider how the speakers’ beliefs and values could serve as a compass for designing a course.
  
  Step 2: What is your compass?
  Use this worksheet to think through what matters to you about education generally, and your discipline and course specifically. Note: While we think all these questions are useful to think through, you should skip any questions that do not help you. Regardless, read all of the questions to find the questions that will most serve you.
   
• 1 2020-08-25T12:29:30-07:00 Strategies for Trauma Informed and Healing Centered Teaching 11 plain 2020-08-28T18:31:54-07:00 Read more about these strategies in “A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus” from Teaching Tolerance and Four Core Priorities for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning from KQED.
  
  Something else to consider alongside healing is the idea of liberation or the idea of liberatory design and liberatory teaching in our classroom. This idea and process comes from the d.school at Stanford University. A part of this design process includes empathy. Empathizing in the design process helps you to “focus on understanding the experiences, emotions, and motivations of others” (citation). [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57c6b79629687fde090a0fdd/t/58c8319bb3db2b7f6a7a22f0/1489514961988/Liberatory+Design+Cards.pdf]
  
  Before moving on, reflect on the following questions:
  1. How does my identity and role in this project affect how and what people share with me?
  2. How do I maintain awareness of my biases and challenge them in order to see this community more authentically?
  3. What do people in this community identify as their needs?
  4. How do systemic oppression and/or privilege affect this community, and how does that relate to this project?
• 1 2020-08-25T10:46:08-07:00 Other Design Considerations 9 plain 1016488 2020-08-28T18:38:05-07:00

  Creating a Sense of Belonging, Connection, and Hope

  Learning is a social act through interactions between students, faculty, ideas, and increasingly, the community outside the classroom.
  
  Creating brave spaces for these interactions allows students to process, think, discuss, and explore ideas in new ways. This isn’t an easy way forward, though it is hopeful. As most of us know, teaching and learning can be stressful and challenging for both teachers and students in the best of circumstances. In our current times, we may find that we and/or our students may be experiencing something that can only be described as traumatic. Students who may have been struggling prior to the pandemic may be experiencing even more challenges now. What may help us all move through this time is thinking through “trauma-informed strategies”, or even more hopeful, “healing centered engagement.”

  “There is consensus in the literature about the benefits of a student’s sense of belonging. Researchers suggest that higher levels of belonging lead to increases in GPA, academic achievement, and motivation.” – Carey Borkoski, “Cultivating Belonging”

  Before you continue, reflect on the following:
  1. Identity: who am I/we as a teacher? Who are our students?
  2. Power: How are my students and I respectively situated (relative to opportunity, institutional power)?
  3. Context: What is our situation (this course) and our equity challenge this semester?
  4. Partnership: Given the above, how can we create a partnership that is liberating for all in the course?