Keep Teaching

Teaching & Assessing

Moving most courses online, remote and other approaches mid-semester nationally and internationally is unprecedented and is rapidly being implemented. The following provides resources on good practices created by our educational development community and others for teaching online, including rapidly moving to online, assessing remotely and discipline-specific approaches, as well as approaches for GAs/TAs.

Curated Resources

Thank you to our STLHE community for resource suggestions. This is not an exhaustive list of resources. To add resources or webpages, email edc_communications@stlhe.ca . Certaines ressources sont en français, recherchez «(en français)».

Educators – Rapidly moving to Online specifically

Educators – Teaching and Learning Community Discussions

Educators – Equity & Access (including teaching with limited internet access)

Educators – Teaching Online

Educators – Assessment Remotely

  • Thinking Through Your Assessment Needs, University of Saskatchewan (Practical step by step guide for educators, with specific options for final exams; policy at U of S does allow for syllabi revisions under a recently approved exception for COVID)
    • Thinking through section includes what is essential for students to know? How can I protect the integrity of my assessment? What about the exam schedule? What if none of these options work for me (after discussing with their dean, contact the distance education unit).
    • Possible alternatives to your final exam.
    • Academic Integrity (Recommended advice and why)
    • Template for an open book exam
    • Link to more best practices to promote academic integrity
  • Using Reflections on Learning as Assessment, GMCTE, University of Saskatchewan (includes a rubric and 3 questions used by Dr. Hayley Hesseln in her Agricultural Economics course)
  • Academic Integrity and Remote Teaching, University of Saskatchewan including links to the:
  • Rethinking Your Final Assessments, Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching, Ryerson University
  • Five Principles for Making Decisions about Assessment in Challenging Times, McGill University
  • Contingency planning: exploring rapid alternatives to face-to-face assessment (by Sally Brown and Kay Sambell; UK context; Open: Labeled by authors in email as “Please regard it as an Open Resource that you are free to modify and share”)
  • Portland State University’s Remote Exam Kit: Principles and details for D2L LMS.
  • Tests on Blackboard, Baylor College of Medicine (tips for tests on blackboard LMS)
  • Preparing for Alternative Course Delivery during Covid-19, Center for Teaching Innovation, Cornell University including:
    • Readiness Quizzes & Guides on assessing student learning online
    • Strategies and Resources on assessing student learning, including a table listing activities, tool and if synchronous or asynchronous based on Canvas (quizzes, grading problemsets, term papers and group papers) and Zoom (presentations), and Digication (portfolios).
  • Effective quiz practices, Moodle
  • Assessment Resources/tools being used (March 17th webinar)
    • Respondus Exam Builder, Lockdown Browser and Monitor
    • alternate modes of assessment / UDL
    • 24-hour take-home tests; take-home exams — need resources for students as well since this format may not be familiar to them; d2L limited time exams, with randomization and Faculty available on Zoom for any inquiries about the test.
    • Oral Exams using Zoom (small courses)
    • Listen to students 
    •  tools created by Cogneeto (peerScholar and mTuner) are available at no cost during this crisis
    • Portfolios
    • Peer Assessment (6 is the number for reliability…)
    • For seminars/group projects the students will be asked to submit 3-min voice-over PowerPoint presentations, with a graded discussion board associated with it for peer feedback.

Educators – Academic Integrity & Assessments

  • Academic Integrity Strategies (Video), Kristie Rae Dukewich, Teaching and Learning Commons, KPU
  • Summary: Several ways to reduce copying/academic dishonesty during an online or open-book exam are:
    • Time restrictions (also raises stress)
    • Randomization of the questions/answers/variables to prevent sharing answers, particularly shifting the values in a question.
    • Raising the level of Bloom’s taxonomy and requiring students to write answers (explain the difference between viruses and bacteria)
    • Changing the represent the information, such as creating a mindmap or verbally describing
    • Making expectations and what is allowed explicit
    • Open-book Exams: Provide the full list of concepts/formulas (so nothing to share) and randomize questions that require application or comparison with a reasonable amount of time. It’s possible to prepare for but requires preparing a very large document.
  • Open-Book Studying Tips for students:
  • A Guide for Academics – Open Book Exams, The University of Newcastle Australia (with example question stems)
  • Research on Open-book exams:
  • Best Practices for On-line Academic Integrity, Indiana University of Pennsylvania including
    • Use question sets to randomly generate quizzes or exams for each student. (with a guide for how to in Moodle)
    • Randomize multiple choice quiz or exam answers for each student. (with a guide for how to in Moodle)
    • Limit the duration, the number of attempts, and how the questions are delivered. (with a guide for how to do both in Moodle)
    • Limit the availability period of an exam. (with a guide for how to in Moodle)
    • Wait until the exam availability period ends before providing exam feedback. (with a guide for how to in Moodle)
    • Use “calculated questions” when constructing quizzes or exams that involve mathematical expressions with random values based on user-specified range that are automatically generated for each variable in the question. (with a guide for how to in Moodle)
    • Employ the use of browser “lock-down” software to reduce access to other software applications and data to prevent printing, copying, visiting websites and applications. (with a guide for how to in Moodle) (added note of caution: does not prevent phones or other devices from taking photos)
    • Adjust the weight of exams relative to the overall grade in the course, while increasing the weight of project and assignment activities. (with a guide for how to in Moodle)
    • Increase the number of open-ended or essay-style exam questions. (with a guide for how to in Moodle)
    • Increase the frequency of short notice (pop) quizzes. (with a guide for how to in Moodle) (added note of caution: pop quizzes could add stress and do not allow for scheduling child-care etc.)
    • Make students aware of Moodle’s tracking and logging abilities. (with a guide for how to access reports in Moodle)
  • Guidelines to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Classes (with a reference list) includes approaches such as:
    • defining what constitutes cheating (e.g., can they look at their notes, can they use excel…)
    • Present students with learning outcomes and make subject matter meaningful.
    • Provide detailed grading criteria so students know how they will be graded (e.g., to reduce the uncertainty that may lead to academic integrity issues such as checking with peers)
    • Demonstrate intolerance for academic dishonesty and take appropriate action when cheating does occur
    • Guidelines for High-Stake Assessments (Tests & Exams) including multiple assessments with high-quality question stems and alternatives, and utilize higher order levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy and give open-book exams
  • (provided by an EDC community member) Foster appropriate student behaviour by discussing academic integrity with your class and:
    • 1. Putting McGill’s academic integrity statement on assignment and exam cover pages: “McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures” (see www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/ for more information). (Approved by Senate on 29 January 2003)
    • 2. Asking students to agree in writing to an honour code is a recommended practice. Statements at the beginning of exams and assignments such as “I will be fair and honest in my coursework. I will neither give nor receive unauthorized aid on any assignments, quizzes, or exams” (Konheim-Kalkstein, Stellmack, & Shilkey, 2008, p. 3) have been shown to reduce the incidence of cheating. When students submit their work, you can ask them to sign a pledge, such as “I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this quiz/exam” (p. 3). 
    • Read more

Educators – Discipline-specific Approaches

Educators – Experiential Learning (including labs, internships)

Practicums, internships, Co-op, Work-integrated learning

Labs

Educators – GA/TA

  • Sample information posted regarding GA/TA (seeking) – The School of Grad and Postdoctoral Studies at Western University has messages (all listed at https://grad.uwo.ca/covid19gta.html) and have asked for the following language to be included in our supports for instructors:
    • “Workshops [and supports for rapidly moving courses online] will be open to GTAs, but course instructors remain responsible for the form and content of the online material, as well as for their GTAs’ hours of employment.  Under the current circumstances it is reasonable to substitute new duties not previously outlined in the Duties Specification Agreement, but they should not exceed the number of hours remaining in the contract. Supervisors should also be aware that attendance at workshops or any other time spent acquiring new competencies must be counted as part of the GTA’s workload.”

Educators/Researcher Free Access

Infographics

So you need to put your exam online?
So you need to put your exam online? by Giulia Forsythe CC BY
Online Teaching: Do this, Not That (Alison Yang)

Emerging topics

(Suggestions welcome, know we are working on. email edc_communications@stlhe.ca with specific questions or suggestions) Topics that emerged from March 17th webinar that we are seeking/compiling resources about:

  • Academic integrity, academic honesty
  • Data privacy, copyright
  • How to send/teach without internet access? (in the US Comcast and Spectrum/Charter services are offering free internet to students)
  • How to keep internet access (computer labs) open?
  • Final exam options/assigning grades based on aggregated mark to date
  • Accommodations and accessibility
  • Practicums including health practicums
info

This website will be constantly evolving as we add resources. To add resources or webpages, or to suggest an additional sub-page, email: communications@stlhe.ca or use the contact form.