Every Tuesday in OnCampus the Deputy Provost shares two articles with a read time of 10 minutes.

Welcome to the spring semester! As you know—because you’re in the midst of it—we have moved to two weeks of remote instruction to begin the semester. In coordination with Drake’s Office of Global Engagement, as well as Drake Online and Continuing Education, I want to share these six essential steps to making the first two weeks work well for you and your students.

1. Use Blackboard Learn Ultra. Our LMS allows you to easily distribute course materials, share your syllabus and course schedule, provide resources for support, communicate with students, and manage attendance. When we all use one common LMS, students know where and when their courses are and will experience less confusion these first two weeks.
2. Use Blackboard Collaborate or Zoom when you meet with your students synchronously. Both are available through Blackboard Learn Ultra within your course. Students simply click the appropriate link within the course to “attend.” Using these within the course will simplify your communication to students and lessen any complications to joining their course.
3. Create simple modules within Blackboard. Creating one or two simple modules for the first two weeks will help direct students to the right materials, readings, schedule, etc. Setting up a module in Blackboard is straightforward, once you know the steps. Drake Online has a quick video that can walk you through the steps if needed; ITS has a knowledge base article on building courses within the LMS.
4. Communicate with your students. Send an email to students to share your plan for the first two weeks. Include all information about where and how you will meet, about what your expectations are, and about your learning objectives. A good practice is to sign-post everything; another good practice is to over-communicate: have the same information in multiple places (in the syllabus, on the course Blackboard site, as part of your introductory comments in class, as an announcement that is emailed). And remember, clear communication isn’t haphazard—it isn’t useful to email students every time you remember something, rather, plan your communications.
5. Build engagement during these first two weeks. Blackboard, Blackboard Collaborate, and Zoom all have features that help build engagement and a sense of community.  Use discussion boards, breakout rooms, and other online activities that will help build excitement for your class and the semester. Even if you don’t normally have a group exercise, adding something small during the first two weeks will help our students interact with each other. A good example might be to have small groups find what they have in common as a “introduction” exercise. This is even more fun if you tell your students the commonality can’t have anything to do with Drake or their majors—but center instead on a favorite food, or a common popular culture reference.
6. Support your international students who are remote these two weeks. In support of Drake as global university and in the spirit of flexibility, faculty are asked to be mindful that during the two-week remote period, there may be international students joining your classes remotely from other parts of the world and therefore different time zones. In addition, some international locations may have less stable internet connectivity.  Please work individually with these students to ensure the right balance of synchronous or asynchronous learning.

Doing these things will help set up your semester for success during the first two weeks. They represent the minimum expectation of what we want our online and remote instruction to embody to ensure students are engaged and satisfied with their learning experience. Thank you for the work you do to make a Drake education an excellent education.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost