Colleagues,
On Monday of next week, we will begin hosting all of our classes fully online. I do expect that you’ve spent time over the past week preparing for this monumental shift. And I want to thank the staff of the Teaching and Learning Corner for doing such a fantastic job of building resources and hosting training sessions to help ease the transition for all of you.
I expect that you have:
- Used this time to take a deep breath and prepare for the next few weeks. Transitioning a course to fully online is a monumental undertaking, especially when we attempt to do it on such a compressed timeline. Recognize that now is not the time to be striving for perfection or to be chasing best practices; now is the time to be flexible, to be understanding, and to give it ‘the old college try’!
- Communicated to your students. Your students are undoubtedly feeling anxious about this transition (as I know many of you are as well). Please reassure them that you will be flexible and understanding. Remind them that “we are in this together” and we’ll figure it out. Err on the side of overcommunication.
- Developed a plan for delivering remote instruction. This should involve using Moodle as the central gathering point for your students. You may be planning to deliver pre-recorded lecture content. You may be planning to assign readings and facilitate class discussion via an online forum. You may be planning to meet ‘live’ by distance during your normally scheduled class time. All of these are acceptable.
For those faculty planning to record and/or stream live from their classrooms, you will now find the wireless lapel microphones located at the podium in the classroom. At the end of each session, please POWER OFF and leave it at the podium. This will ensure availability for the next recording.
If you haven’t developed your plan yet, please avail yourself of these resources now. I anticipate that the staff of OIT will be overwhelmed with support requests on Monday, so DO NOT WAIT to build your plan and test it.
Lastly, a new request: You may have seen that the state of California issued a shelter-in-place order last night. I want you to think about how you might be able to conduct your course if such an order, however unlikely, were issued for New York. If your teaching plan involves coming to campus, do you have a backup plan in the event that travel becomes impossible?
I know that these are challenging circumstances, but I also know that the Clarkson Community is made up of smart, resilient individuals who care deeply for their students. We will overcome this challenge and come out the other side as a stronger community. Thank you for your dedication to educating our students and your flexibility in adapting to these odd times. Lets go Tech!
Robyn Hannigan
Provost
Joshua A. Fiske ’03, MS ’04
Chief Information Officer and Emergency Response Coordinator
PS – If you’re still scrambling, the TLC is offering one last live webinar today at 10:00am.
