Preparation Checklist

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Last updated: Oct 15, 2021 by Amy Williford
4 min read

Your online course shell provides the flexibility to organize and supplement your instruction 24/7 and keep academic learning ongoing in case of your absence or emergency. It’s never too late to begin planning ahead. Resources and activities can easily be added to your course and made available to students at your leisure.

Key Tips:

  • Start planning early.

    • Your course shell is available 24/7 to you and your students. You can begin adding content at any time.

  • Next, keep your plan simple.

  • Finally, work with the technologies you know best.

    • MyCourses supports a variety of tools you may be familiar with (adding documents/PowerPoint, URLS, videos, assignments, quizzes, forums, gradebook, and even a live virtual classroom).

    • If any of these are new to you, visit the Online Transition Kit or reach out to Online Learning.

Course Communication

When transitioning from in person to online, communication with students is important prior to and during the transition. Students can easily become disengaged or fall through the cracks without such communication to help keep them aware of what is going on, what needs to be done, and by when.

  1. At the beginning of the semester, encourage students to:

  2. In case of an emergency or in preparation for one, it is wise to reach out to students using a variety of messaging options.

    • Within MyCourses:

      • Course Announcements display in your course and send an email directly to a student’s college webmail account.

      • Messages will alert students via the MyCourse’s environment, send an email to their college, webmail account, and indicate they have a message waiting via the Moodle or OpenLMS mobile app.

    • WebAdvisor Class Roster provides you with a student’s phone and non-Blue Ridge email address.

  3. Distribute emergency contact information to your class.

  4. Clarify your turnaround time for communication in an emergency

    • 24 hours? Preference for email, phone call, text?

  5. Manage your communication load.

    • Some faculty create a Frequently Asked Questions page or a Course Q&A discussion forum to centralize inquiries.

  6. Use Collaborate (a live virtual classroom) or Chat to host virtual office hours.

Course Materials

  1. Share your syllabus with students in digital format (PDF or HTML)

    • Include a statement about academic continuity and how you plan to handle potential disruption to the course.

  2. Convert paper-based materials or PowerPoints to digital format (PDF or HTML)

    • This helps to keep content mobile-friendly in case students only have access to portable devices.

    • Optimize the size of those PDFs so they are small and easy to read on a phone.

    • Your course is available 24/7 to your and students. You are encouraged to upload content as supplements throughout the semester. This will make your transition to online quicker in case of a sudden disruption.

  3. Provide enough content in your course shell so students could work independently for a short period of time – if needed.

  4. Identify and prepare at least one week of content

    • Record lectures or offer a live virtual class using Collaborate (Collaborate allows you to record your lecture and track participation/attendance).

    • Prepare PowerPoints for digital distribution.

    • Develop study guides.

    • Consider using supplemental resources (URLs, Videos, or Open Educational Resources) to help further explain your content)

  5. Consider having your students do 1-2 online activities to get used to this delivery format

    • Many face-to-face instructors use quizzes to reinforce students reading prior to coming to class.

    • Others have students submit their work through the LMS to keep a digital record of submitted assignments and to make grading easier.

  6. Consider using activity completion and or restricted access to create self-guided course content for students. This can help students stay on task and avoid skipping important content you deem vital to their learning.

  7. Prepare synchronous and/or asynchronous engagement opportunities that can exist outside the classroom.

    • Open Forum supports text-based discussions.

    • FlipGrid supports video-based discussions.

    • Collaborate is a live virtual classroom supporting video and audio synchronous meetings with the ability to present slides, your screen, interactive whiteboard, polls, chat, and breakout sessions for groups. All sessions can be recorded.

  8. Video content should be posted to your college YouTube channel.

    • Our LMS is not a video streaming service and is limited in file size and storage capacities.

    • Videos you record should be posted to YouTube from which you can link or embed within your course.

Remember accessibility:

  • Whenever possible, chunk your videos into 15-minutes or less and request captions from Online Learning.

  • Check the accessibility of your course materials with Ally (the gas-looking gauge that appears next to items within your course). Use the quick fix tools to remediate your content and let students know about the alternative file formats.

  • Set test time accommodations for individual students.

Best Practices:

  • Introduce the LMS tools early so you and your students become familiar and comfortable with them.

  • Cultivating presence with online learning tools is important. Communicate early and often to maintain presence when classroom continuity is disrupted.

  • Focus on course outcomes: Prioritize coursework that helps your students move toward achieving those outcomes.

  • Rearrange schedules and convert classroom activities to asynchronous activities that promote the same learning outcomes.

  • Specify file names to avoid receiving multiple copies of Essay1.docx — it will be easier to identify and grade student work when you have documents with a simplified naming convention (e.g., Jane_Doe_Essay1.docx).