Presentation of Tony Bates for EDEN's new Education in time of pandemic webinar series on 'How to start teaching online' - 30 March 2020, 17:00 CET More info: https://www.eden-online.org/eden_conference/how-to-start-teaching-online/

2. From panic to peace of mind:
transitioning to online learning
Dr. Tony Bates
EDEN Senior Research Fellow and
Senior Adviser,
Chang School of Continuing Education,
Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

3. Overview
• What to do in an emergency: triage
• Immediate actions for moving online
• Medium term (over the next few months)
• Long term: reaching a stable state

4. Immediate actions for moving online
Talk to the professionals first:
online is different
No professionals:
• think before you start; go
online
• spend a day researching best
practices (e.g. University of
Illinois online course-in-a-box);

5. Immediate actions for moving online
Do I need to change my course?
Problems with lectures online
• Too long (boring; bandwidth)
• No interaction
• Ignores ‘affordances’ of online
• Ignores how students will learn
online
Need a month at least to change

6. Immediate actions for moving online
Same course: move it online
Choose appropriate technology:
• Ask professionals (IT; LT)
• Use a VLE/LMS: Canvas, Moodle,
Blackboard: your online campus
• Instructions for students

7. Immediate actions for moving online
Same course: move it online
Within the VLE/LMS:
• Weekly structure
• Recorded lectures
• Required reading
• Other student activities,
discussion forums;
• Assignments

8. Immediate actions for moving online
Same course: move it online
• Watch the student workload
• 30-40 hours a week for all
courses
• 8-10 hours a week for one course
• ALL activities including
assignments/tests/exams
• Reduce/shorten lectures

9. Immediate actions for moving online
Assessment
• ‘Objective’ testing: LMS computer-marked assignments
• Formative assessment: grades for online work/activities
• Large classes: group projects (track online
contributions)
• Use e-portfolios (e.g. Mahara): tracks student work

10. Medium term (for Fall semester)
Institution
• Hire (more) online course designers;
web/media support staff NOW
• Adopt online course on how to
teach online
• Create standard online course
design templates in LMS
• Upgrade technology (bandwidth, servers,
LMS, video recording/streaming)

11. Medium term (for Fall semester)
Institution
• Develop student policies
(expectations; accessibility; access)
• Online assessment strategy
Instructors
• Collect feedback on emergency course
• Rethink/adapt/redesign course for
fall

12. Medium term (for Fall semester)
New course design:
• All content is now online and free
(in English….)
• Guide students to find, evaluate,
analyse, organise information
• Topic or problem-based: focus on
skills development
• Online collaborative group work

13. Long term: reaching a stable state
Institution
• Develop digital learning
strategy
• Centre(s) for Learning
Technologies/Digital Learning
• Plan for instructor training/
development
• Emergency plan for remote
learning

14. Conclusions
Can’t go back to where we were
Online learning now an integral part of higher
education teaching: blended learning + fully online
Teaching methods need to change
Need to rethink the campus
This will happen again: need to be better prepared