Remote Teaching Checklist
Due to the campus closure and fully remote operations on Monday, faculty are encouraged to review the Remote Teaching Checklist to prepare for a temporary shift to online instruction.
Posted in: Announcement
Due to the campus closure and fully remote operations on Monday, faculty are encouraged to take a few minutes to review the Remote Teaching Checklist to help prepare for a temporary shift to online instruction. As part of your preparation, we also recommend reviewing our Planning for Disruption resources, which outline strategies for maintaining instructional continuity during unexpected disruptions.
The Remote Teaching Checklist includes quick, actionable steps for communicating with students, posting a clear plan in Canvas, setting up a Zoom session if needed, and preparing online activities or assignments so your course can stay on track with minimal disruption.
Table of Contents:
- Communication
- Zoom
- Syllabus Modifications
- Prepare Online Activities and Assignments
- Collaboration Tools
- Providing Accessible Materials
- Instructional Technology Tools
- Training and Support
- Online Self-Help Documents
- Additional Online Teaching Resources
Communication
The Canvas announcements feature is an effective way to communicate with all of your students in your class. Students will receive the announcement in their Montclair Gmail as well as be able to see your announcement in your Canvas course. Learn more about how to post announcements.
Zoom
Zoom is a platform for video and audio conferencing. All members of the campus community have access to Zoom “Licensed” which does not restrict the length of meetings. You will be able to access Zoom via SSO using your NetID and password.
Please visit the following pages for more information:
For help with Zoom, please reach out to the IT Service Desk at itservicedesk@montclair.edu or (973) 655 – 7971, option 1.
Syllabus Modifications
Depending on how your syllabus is prepared, you may need to make adjustments to accommodate a shift in instruction. Due dates, grading policies, and modes of communication, are examples of changes to consider. It is also advised to include a proactive statement in your syllabus that advises students what to do in the event of an unexpected shift in instruction.
Example syllabus statement:
In the event of an emergency, course requirements, deadlines and grading percentages are subject to change when necessitated by revised course delivery, semester calendar or other circumstances. Information about changes in this course can be obtained in the Canvas course web page or by contacting my email address: xxxx@montclair.edu or my office phone/cell xxx-xxx-xxxx. If the course is not able to meet face-to-face, students should immediately log onto Canvas and read any announcements and/or alternative assignments. Students are also encouraged to continue the readings and other assignments as outlined on this syllabus or subsequent syllabi (Pace University, 2015).
Prepare Online Activities and Assignments
Designing your course with online-ready elements helps ensure that any unexpected interruption causes minimal disruption to teaching and learning.
Examples:
- Online Discussions
Canvas discussions provide an easy way for instructors to create and facilitate interaction amongst students. Online discussions encourage active participation from students and help replicate discourse that may occur in a face-to-face classroom. Discussions can be created as an assignment for grading purposes (which is integrated with Canvas Gradebook), or simply serve as a Q & A to answer students’ questions, or a forum for students to share information. Group discussions may be set up so that small groups of students may converse. Learn more about how to create a Discussion.
- Assignments
Canvas assignments are used to accept submissions by students, such as files, images, text, URLs, etc. Assignments can be created for everyone in the course or differentiated by student, section, or student groups. Learn more about how to create an Assignment.
- Quizzes
The Quiz tool is used to create and administer Online Quizzes and Surveys. They can be automatically graded, depending on the question type. A column in the grade book is created for each quiz where you can manually enter a grade for quizzes or exams taken on paper. Learn more about how to create a Quiz.
- Record and Share Lecture Videos
Panopto is an all-in-one video platform that not only provides faculty with desktop lecture recording and automatic captioning services, but also offers pedagogical features to add learning interactions within a video. It is seamlessly integrated within Canvas.
Take a look at our documentation for both the PC (Windows) and Mac (Apple). Students can also create Panopto recordings in their Canvas courses. For more details, please review our documentation for student use of Panopto.
Collaboration Tools
Canvas Groups
Canvas groups are a small version of a course and used as a collaborative tool where students can work together on group projects and assignments. Effective group work and collaboration are important to facilitate a social learning environment. Working in groups assists students in developing problem-solving, communication and critical thinking skills, and provides them opportunities to work and learn from their peers. Learn more about setting up student groups/teams.
Google Drive
Google Apps for Education is a suite of communication and collaboration tools for learning anywhere, anytime, on any device. All faculty and staff have access to this suite of tools through your Montclair email address (netid@montclair.edu). Google Docs, Slides and Sheets are useful in extending the classroom to an online environment. Collaboration features include: sharing, editing, commenting, suggesting, and chatting on documents online. These may occur in real-time, during a scheduled work session, or asynchronously, at different times. Learn more about Google Applications.
Providing Accessible Materials
The accessibility of all materials is a crucial component of any course. During an unexpected disruption, the shift to other modalities can present challenges to students’ access to course material. Make sure to review your course(s) to ensure all materials are accessible.
A good place to start is to think about the diversity of materials provided to students. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a helpful framework to guide your approach to accessibility. UDL focuses on three main components:
- Multiple Means of Representation: Learners differ in the ways they perceive and comprehend information.
- Multiple Means of Action and Expression: Learners differ in the ways they can navigate a learning environment and express what they know.
- Multiple Means of Engagement: Learners differ in the ways they can be engaged or motivated to learn.
There are a number of helpful resources to help you create accessible materials for your students. To get started, view the ITDS Designing Accessible Learning Environments webpage and the ITDS Universal Design & Accessibility Canvas page for more information.
Instructional Technology Tools
Some helpful instructional technology tools to consider implementing in your course include the following:
- Padlet– An online collaborative bulletin board that allows participants to interact by posting text, links, images, videos, and more.
- Social Annotation Tools- Allow students to collaboratively annotate readings with their peers using a digital text. Montclair subscribes to two social annotation tools: Perusall and Hypothes.is
For a full list of all instructional technologies, please visit our Instructional Technologies page.
Training and Support
- CTAI offers year-round Training Workshops, primarily for faculty.
- In addition, we have a self-paced Canvas course with resources and how-to guides:
Montclair State Canvas Faculty Orientation - Our ITDS resource page contains helpful information regarding instructional design services, faculty development support, and teaching and learning strategies.
- If you would like direct support with a particular assignment or would welcome suggestions, please feel free to contact John Yi, Director of Teaching and Learning at CTAI, at yij@montclair.edu. He would be happy to assist.
Online Self-Help Documents
You can also reach out to the University Service Desk at x7971 for support or set up a one-on-one appointment with a member of ITDS using the ITDS Appointment Scheduler.
Additional Online Teaching Resources
All Montclair faculty have access to ACUE Commons, an invaluable resource that offers practical, evidence-informed teaching tools for immediate classroom use. If you need assistance with logging in, please email support@acue.org.
References
Pace University. (2015). Academic Continuation Plan. https://www.pace.edu/sites/default/files/files/ITS/teaching-learning/academic-continuity-plan/Academic%20Continuation%20Plan%20-%2010-2-2015.pdf.