I’ll admit coming into this semester, I’m surprised we’re still dealing with the impact of the pandemic on our daily lives–especially our teaching. I thought it would be helpful if I shared some of my new semester setup.
As I plan my courses this semester, I’m focused on the following:
- Ready to switch to remote if needed (this is so much easier than the early days of the pandemic)
- Easy student connection, communication, and support
- Seamless grading system and process
Those goals were determined during my strategic planning retreat I took to help with semester setup.
With those goals in mind, I’ve kept many of my previous strategies. I’ve also tweaked or replaced a few of my previous tools. So, let’s jump in and take a look at what I’m using right now for my setup.
Flipped Classroom an essential ingredient for my semester setup
This approach has been working well for me. If you’d like to learn more about Flipped Learning I encourage you to read Dr. Robert Talbert’s blog or dig in with his full book on the subject. At its essence, a flipped classroom means that students do some of the lower level learning skills independently – before they attend class. Then when we’re in our class session together, we dig deeper and develop their thinking higher up in bloom’s taxonomy.
This does not just mean giving students a list of homework assignments and telling them to read the chapter before class.
I provide weekly guidance by telling students the learning outcomes they should achieve before they attend the first class session of the week. (Templates make this part of the semester setup a breeze.)
While they could achieve these outcomes in a variety of ways, I provide activities to guide them through developing the minimal competencies.
For example, in my Intro to Interpreting course, this may look like providing objectives, a list of resources, and then exercises explaining what they should focus on while doing some reading.
In ASL 101 courses, it often involves learning vocabulary and watching conversations before the class session. This primes students for what they’re about to learn when they enter the ASL classroom – since we don’t use spoken English in the classroom it helps students become comfortable with the topic more easily and then they’re ready to begin practicing conversations much more quickly than when I used to teach vocabulary during the class session.
Specification Grading
This has become an important tool in my setup in the last few semesters. While I’m not all in as some faculty members are, I find the specification grading helps me (and the students) focus on the skills and content they need to learn rather than just the points earned toward the grade. Here’s an example of what this looks like in my beginning level ASL course.
In some ways you may wonder how these represented specifications grading – this is just the final look at the end of specifications – the “how it all comes together.”
Each of those Core Skills Assessment has a list of key skills to perform. You can see an example below.
The assessment requires students self-assess against the specifications before submitting to help them focus on the specific skills required in the assessment. This is one of my favorite parts of my semester setup to support students in their learning journey.
I also have some courses that use an overall traditional grading approach based on points earned. In that course, I still use a flipped classroom, specifications for prep-work, and tokens to exchange for 24 hour extensions or revision of major assignments.
Software Tool Stack for this Semester
I use several pieces of software to help keep my system moving smoothly.
Learning Management System Setup
I use my university’s Learning Management System (LMS), Blackboard to house course materials, weekly lesson plans and activities, and grades. This is the central location that students need to access for the course. This combined with flipped learning provides an agile setup to move to remote learning fairly seamless.
Our institution has recently adopted a new official inclement-weather policy that moves instruction to remote instead of having classes cancelled for snow days (to some of my readers, calling off school for snow may be unheard of). In the first week of classes, I’ve already had unplanned remote learning days twice.
The LMS is not where I communicate with students. At my institution there isn’t an easy to use internal communication tool activated. And, to be honest, I prefer most of my communication with students to come to one location – so I can easily check course and student questions quickly.
My Campuswire Setup this Semester
For quick communication with and among students, I’m using Campuswire this semester. I’ve recently made the switch from another platform. So, I’m in the testing phase for this part of my semester setup.
So far students are still getting used to the idea of posting questions to a public form, rather than emailing me directly. I think the benefits to them will be seen as we move through the semester. In the first week of use, the platform seems more intuitive than my previous platform.
Private Student Communication Setup
Of course, sometimes students have needs that they do not want, nor should they, share in a public form. I use a decision path to guide students to the correct location to post their questions.
If the student needs something that is not public* (by public, I mean in the private Campuswire platform), they have two options. If they just need to send me information or if they need to ask a question and get an email response, they can fill out a request form – this is also where they submit to let me know they’re planning to use a token.
Any request submitted here, shows up in my task management system, ClickUp, as a new to-do item. The system tags me and sets the due date to day. This provides me a simple way to keep up with student requests without needing to look through email or copy the requests to a different system. I can make notes in the system, and I can email a response to the student directly from clickup. This allows me to easily track everything about the request in one location.
Setting up meetings
If a student needs to see me, they can click on my Calendly link to see my availability (that I pre-set) and schedule right to my calendar without an email back and forth. This also adds the appointment to their calendar. We can set the meeting via phone, videochat, or in person.
In addition to keeping track of student requests here in ClickUp (affiliate link; I get points if you sign up), I also keep tracking of all of the grading for each class. I aim to return student work with feedback within one week of submission. I set due dates so I don’t overlook anything inside Clickup.
Each class is listed as a task, and I have sub-tasks for each assignment of the semester. This includes weekly assignments that need to be checked (complete or incomplete), as well as larger essays, videos, and group projects. I set the start-date as the date it’s due for them, and then my due date as one week later. When I start a “grading” block, I open ClickUp to the view that shows what needs grading now.
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