Adapting or designing your course for planned remote teaching

Key considerations when moving your course to planned remote instruction
As you transition from your previous mode of in-person instruction to a planned remote approach, this page will be a guide to help you make decisions about your course based on your current approach to teaching. It will help you adapt activities and assessments, and to set up your course based on feasibility and technologies supported by the university.

Consider realistic goals

Before you begin adapting your current course material to a remote platform, you will need to determine what is feasible in a planned remote setting and adapt your syllabus to reflect those changes. 

To make these decisions, you will want to:

1)  Identify your best approach for planned remote teaching based on what you would have done had the course been held face to face. See our supporting page where we have provided some scenarios to help guide your decision.

2)  Identify your teaching and learning practices, such as lectures, discussions, or group projects and consider which remote teaching tools you could use and how you will utilize.

3)  Review the webpage on planned remote course assessment and final exam options. Consider how you may need to adapt your course activities, assessments, and final exam within the current constraints to assess your learning outcomes.  

4)  Make a plan to communicate with your students. Some students are likely to have questions about what is happening with their courses for the spring and summer term.  Make a plan now for how you will:

  • Contact each student in your course (Blackboard is a great tool for this).
  • Hold remote office hours and be reachable by students with questions.
  • Support students with AES designations.  Important: Students registered with AES will still require academic accommodations in a planned remote environment. For some students, the inability to access campus spaces, assistive technologies and other resources may actually increase the impact their disability has on their academic performance. For more information about how to best to meet the duty to accommodate please see the Access and Equity Services page.
  • Communicate the importance of students actively developing academic skills and be supportive to their success. Connect with the University Library to include library access information and key resources on academic supports available.

5) Use this checklist to help you ensure you have considered everything to successfully start building your planned remote course.