Team effort invaluable to bringing remote learning on board in fall term

Faculty members representing a wide span of disciplines, working behind-the-scenes and in conjunction with Fredonia’s Online Learning team during the summer months, prepared the groundwork for remote learning that will take place in the fall semester.

Prior to the campus shut down in March, Online Learning had begun working with the Provost’s office to outline possible supports. This plan was used when the campus began to pivot to a remote learning model that would be in place for the rest of the spring semester due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We were very lucky to have a plan in place about what we could offer to assist people; the biggest issue was having enough individuals to support it,” said Lisa Melohusky, Online Learning coordinator.

But that wasn’t a problem. Seven members of the Digital Instruction Support team came forward and volunteered in the weeks leading up to spring break and beyond to assist the Online Learning staff with getting faculty on board with distance education. Three consecutive days of face-to-face training generated a robust turnout among faculty. Virtual training on a variety of topics continued for faculty throughout the semester.

After the spring semester ended and it became increasingly likely that remote learning would be the exclusive model in both two summer terms and, in some fashion, in the fall term, the DIS team again rose to the occasion. Throughout the summer, DIS members worked in conjunction with the Professional Development Center to support their colleagues in their remote learning transition.

Team members included Dr. Michael Dunham (Physics), Dr. Kathleen Gradel (Education, Grants and Sponsored Research), Dr. Michael Jabot (Curriculum and Instruction), Dr. Susan Spangler (English), Dr. Angela McGowan-Kirsch (Communication), Senior Lecturer (Mathematical Sciences) and Professor Paul Mockovak (Theatre and Dance), along with Laura Shrader, Online Learning instructional designer, and Ms. Melohusky.

“Throughout the summer, we offered two-to-three different sessions each week. Those sessions were mostly about pedagogy – how to run good online discussions, how to design authentic assessments, how to redesign your course that had always been face-to-face and is now remote,” Melohusky explained.

Tools were offered in these workshops, but Melohusky indicated that the team wanted to offer a more holistic approach, because they knew it was a big challenge for faculty to transition an entire course to remote learning.

The team built a public website, “Choose Your Pathway: Faculty Support for Remote Learning” that was adapted from an OER (Open Educational Resource) produced at another college. It consists of six course design modules – course shell, seven principles of effective teaching, backward design, assessments, engagement and active learning, and the community of inquiry model – and began operating in July. In conjunction with this public site there are additional supports in OnCourse through the Remote Learning Roadmap.

To continue this work in the fall semester a blog, Partners in Design was launched last week and will tackle a new topic each week.

“It will be a mix of things faculty will need, such as early posts about getting a class set-up,” Melohusky said, “and what to do in the first few days of classes. It will be very timely, based on where we are in the semester.” Topics for the future blog will also be generated from faculty input.

“I am so amazed at the work that’s been done, the creativity from each of the members, as they developed workshops, websites, blog posts,” Melohusky remarked. “It just seemed like they always had something else to give. Many of the individuals taught courses in the summer as well. This work could not have been done this way without the individuals from this team.”

The DIS team will continue to offer workshops and supports, along with the blog posts, throughout the Fall semester. 

The Professional Development Center helped to manage the release of the content, assisted with scheduling and planning, and also built and managed the website using content provided by DIS members.

“Many of the members are experienced online instructors, so they have the background moving course content from face-to-face to online that is pretty deep. They are among some of the very best we have on campus,” Melohusky said.