January 10, 2022
Colleagues,
We wish you a healthy, happy new year.
We know COVID-19 is impacting this teaching community and that you are managing so much: launching new classes, responding to new policy, and thinking about the well-being of all those around you. Today we feature simple how-tos, offers of direct support, and materials you can adapt and use in your own courses.
We hope this helps. Please be in touch about what you need in the days and weeks ahead.
Provost Winter Updates, New Academic Council Guidance
Recognizing the significant logistical challenges of teaching courses with high COVID-related absences, Provost Phillips announced that classes with around 20 percent of students absent can temporarily transition to online synchronous instruction in consultation among instructors, heads, and deans.
At the same time the faculty Academic Council bolstered its equitable access expectation: with more illness circulating, more students will need reliable ways to stay caught up. Lectures are now meant to be recorded and posted; when classes are highly interactive, other methods to capture live meetings—streaming, or make-up discussion forums, say—may be more pedagogically sound.
Here is an overview of the instructional adaptations UO faculty and GEs are making this term. There you’ll find:
- step-by-step guides to making simple recordings of your voice and presentation in any UO classroom;
- visuals and ideas for clearly communicating modality shifts to students;
- an attendance survey you can import into Canvas to direct student communications about absences to a single place that also links to key course and UO policy (adapted from Nicola Barber and Jana Prikryl, faculty in Biology);
- and the Remote Course Builder resource.
Technology Support from Information Services
Faculty and GE instructors who have questions or need training in advance of your teaching, please create a ticket at Classroom Technology Support.
Instructors who have questions during class should contact classroom support as they normally would for an in-room issue. Telephone numbers for classrooms are listed at https://classrooms.uoregon.edu/.
Large class instructors: IS has a limited number of undergraduate Video Production Assistants who can support you during class this term. Please let us know if you are interested and we will prioritize based on class size and complexity of the technological challenge the course faces.
Winter Invitations
Deadline extended to January 17 for Stipended Inclusive Teaching Groups
Trauma-Informed Pedagogy CAIT
Led by Professor Anita Chari
Provost’s Teaching Fellow, Associate Professor of Political Science
Difference, Inequality, and Agency CAIT
Led by Professor Alison Gash
Provost’s Teaching Fellow, Associate Professor of Political Science
Student Accommodations and Your Classes: Drop-In Q & A
Tuesday, January 11, 11:00 a.m.-noon
Hosted on Zoom
For GE Instructors: Grading and Feedback Strategies
Tuesday, January 25, 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Registration link Hosted on Zoom
Online Teaching Roundtable: Group Work
Thursday, January 27, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Registration link
DREAM Lab, Knight Library
For Faculty: Williams Showcase
with Professors Kathleen Freeman and Ed Madison
Friday, February 4, 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Registration link
Hosted on Zoom
Science Teaching Journal Club: What Inclusive Instructors Do
Thursdays, 9:00-9:50 a.m.
LISB 217 or via Zoom
Learn more
Teaching Toward Access Reading Group
Thursdays, 11:00-11:50 a.m.
Hosted on Zoom
Learn more