Teaching News

September 23, 2020

As you look toward fall teaching, the Teaching Engagement Program and UO Online offer many resources to support you.

This newsletter highlights resources to demonstrate care for students; access building blocks for your course; teach in these turbulent times; and coordinate teaching teams. You also will find a link to request a consultation with us and an opportunity for national professional development.

Demonstrating Care: A Forum on Fall Teaching

Friday, September 251:30-2:50 p.m.https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/94673112349

Featuring
Yvette Alex-Assensoh, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion
Lynn Fujiwara, Associate Professor of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies
Jimmy Howard, Assistant Dean of Students
Mariko Lin, Counseling Services Outreach Director and Senior Staff Psychologist
Celena Simpson, Assistant Director of PathwayOregon & Degree Progression Specialist

Join us this Friday before classes begin to consider how we can demonstrate the care and the support for their well-being that our students may need. We’ll discuss principles and concrete steps you can take to acknowledge emotions, support mental wellness, and teach from the heart, including ways to focus your efforts on practices that build community, empower students, extend flexibility, and refer students to campus partners who can help.

More Resources on Demonstrating Care

The UO Counseling Center encourages instructors to show they care by asking students who appear to be struggling how they're doing and giving them a space to feel heard with empathy and compassion. Ask follow-up questions (e.g. "how can I support you?”) and connect students with resources based on their circumstances. Learn more strategies from UO Counseling Services and see a syllabus statement you may use. Find out exactly how to refer students for a range of academic and well-being supports.

Building Blocks for Your Fall Teaching

  • Check out these FAQs about policies, key practices, and how-to's for fall term. We will keep updating these—please keep asking such good questions.
  • The Remote Course Builder identifies key building blocks for fall courses, including an adaptable “starter syllabus” and Canvas welcome module.
  • UO Online has prepared step-by-step documentation for commonly used Canvas tools which is available on the Canvas Instructor Resources site (requires log in using your Duck ID).
  • Change to Zoom: Starting September 27, Zoom will require either a passcode or a Waiting Room for every meeting. If you don’t want to use Waiting Rooms—which can be unwieldy for large classes—be sure to enable passcodes for all your new and existing Zoom meetings. Otherwise Zoom will enable Waiting Rooms for you. (If you add a passcode to an existing meeting, you’ll need to provide that code to the meeting participants.) More information is available in Zoom’s FAQ about this change. See also UO’s guide to preventing Zoombombing.

Turbulent Times, Challenging Content, & Difficult Discussions

As we teach and learn through the COVID pandemic, intense action toward social justice, and the runup to an important, divisive U.S. presidential election, TEP offers new advice on bringing our context into our classes, especially considering remote and online modalities, with its Teaching in Turbulent Times Toolkit. Please mark your calendars for a workshop drawing on the toolkit:

Engaging Challenging Content and Difficult Dialogues Online
Wednesday, October 7
3:30-5:00 p.m.
https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/96778648755

Coordinating Teaching Teams

Friday, October 2
10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/99252870909

Especially this fall, when lectures and sections/labs may be taught across modalities—including asynchronous online, remote, and face-to-face for a single course—coordination across faculty and graduate student teams is crucial. Join us for advice about setting explicit expectations, defining roles, working together, and managing new tools and contingencies.

Email tep@uoregon.edu if you’d like to attend as a team and have a shared breakout room prepared for your group.

In addition, you can read TEP’s ideas for coordinating with your teaching team here.

Consultations & National Resources

TEP and UO Online are here to support you in your teaching. Request an individual consultation. Also, ‘drop-in’ consultations hosted via Zoom are scheduled through October 2, Wednesdays 9:00-11:00 a.m. & Fridays 3:00-5:00 p.m. To join us live, simply click here.

National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity
Did you know that the Division of Equity and Inclusion hosts and facilitates a UO membership in NCFDD, opening a rich array of professional development resources to our faculty and graduate students? Learn more.