Late Friday afternoon of spring break, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) team realized they needed a new plan for the faculty trainings that were slated to start the following Monday morning.
Barely a week before, CTL acting director, Professor Annie Murray-Close, and the rest of UVM’s faculty received notice that a shift to remote learning was possible, given the growing threat of the coronavirus. Charged with supporting faculty in the use of instructional technology, CTL focused on developing a resources portal to support faculty and to provide the trainings, mentors, and helpline assistance that would make this quick pivot to remote instruction not only possible, but successful.
The collaborations that ensued underscore the all-hands-on-deck moment that CTL—and the full university teaching and support community—were called to.
Many faculty sidelined their spring break plans to spend the week learning to migrate their classes online. Continuing and Distance Education stepped in to assist with CTL’s email inquiries, Enterprise Technology Services joined CTL in responding to faculty requests for help and served as technological support during the now-remote CTL workshops, and the UVM Tech Team stood at the ready to assist faculty and students with technical difficulties. Writing in the Disciplines director Susanmarie Harrington joined forces with the CTL team to develop a full suite of workshops. And faculty from across disciplines with experience in online teaching volunteered at the CTL help-desk to assist their colleagues.
“What continues to be impressive in such a challenging time is watching people who are already strained by moving their own classes online volunteering to help us assist their colleagues all across campus,” says Murray-Close.
That Friday of spring break—in the now routine end-of-afternoon CTL meeting to discuss questions that came up that day—it became apparent that continuing to work on campus would push CTL past the university’s 25-person gathering limit many times during the day. In a move now familiar across the workplace, the CTL team made an immediate pivot to fully online programs. CTL staff spent the weekend redesigning the Monday workshops, developing remote learning materials for online teaching using Screencast-O-Matic, Blackboard, and Microsoft Teams, and answering the steady stream of individual support requests.
It was a busy weekend for spring break, but a productive one. That first suite of workshops for effectively migrating to online teaching has now morphed into an ongoing series of trainings. More importantly, they created space for faculty to discuss emerging issues, like how to best support students with flexibility and compassion. While the university community looks forward to the eventual return to residential learning, the UVM spirit remains in full force behind the student academic experience, whether on campus or online.
Source: UVM News