1. Create your course framework

Remote teaching and learning guidelines for USask instructors

Designing your remote course and the intended learning experience is particularly important in the remote environment where last minute adjustments to content, learning activities and instructions can be challenging to make due to the often asynchronous nature of remote courses.  This can be alleviated by reflecting on what you have done in your face-to-face course and creating a course framework for how you will introduce, deliver, and communicate your course, content, active learning experiences, and assessments remotely.

Key Points

  • Take inventory: Gather and reflect on your teaching practices, learning & lecture materials, and the learning activities you used in your face-to-face course. Also consider your assessment plan and how you provided feedback and connected with learners.
  • Confirm your course outcomes: Review the learning outcomes in your existing course. Ensure these clearly articulate the things you want students to be able to do at the end of your remote course.
  • Create a clear and consistent structure: A structure that can easily be delivered remotely using Blackboard or Canvas includes segmented sections of content broken into chunks called learning modules.  Each learning module has its own module outcomes, assessment/feedback, and learning activities that should align with, and be explicitly tied to, your course learning outcomes.

Create the Frame

A guided reflection process to help you take inventory and create a clear and consistent structure.

Start Here… Pick two - a good place to start!  A brainstorming activity to help you determine what is essential as you plan your remote course redesign.

Tools and How-to for Remote Teaching - a table of common face-to-face teaching and learning practices with suggested tools to implement these practices remotely.

Writing Learning Outcomes/Objectives (Article)

The CORAL Collection: Concepts as Online Resources for Accelerated Learning  (Article)

All Aligned - Outcomes  (Educatus post)

Each of these aspects has it’s own dedicated page, which has additional tools and resources for you to consider when planning your course.

Designing Learning Modules for Asynchronous Delivery - a Video Resource

Learning Modules - An example and template for creating learning modules.

Building Your Remote Course in Blackboard - a step-by-step guide for moving your course to remote instruction

Building Your Remote Course in Canvas - a video tutorial showing how to start and manage a new course in Canvas.

Prepared for Online Teaching Checklist

Double check you have considered everything to successfully deliver your online course.

Learn More

A collection of resources designed to give you more information.

USask Winter 2020 Student Feedback

When he adds textbook diagrams and further explains them in his slides is very helpful. He also chose a format that works extremely well (in my opinion) with students! He chose a live classroom format which allows students to comment and questions as class is going on. I find this super helpful and it made learning the material online less stressful.

Both prior to, and after the pandemic, I found the lecture capture was an absolute lifesaver. Knowing that the lecture was being recorded stopped me from panicking about not being able to catch up.

Having lectures that were narrated was especially effective; I wish all my classes had that! Posting interactive exercises which were instantly graded was also a good way to practice course content.

The slides were very clear and additional videos helped a lot. The lecture material also meshes well with the textbook so learning from home was very easy.