Faculty Info

A Guide to Teaching Online

 
Traditional, in-person classes are different experiences for both students and professors than their online counterparts. Many college resources, such as our LMS and Microsoft 365, have updated and expanded their applications to support fully online classes. To support faculty in this time, please review the following tips and resources available to help your students adjust to the transition.

Engage with Your Students

 
Online classes may present a few challenges. One of them will be changes in how and when students can interact and ask questions. You can help ease the transition by setting up consistent ways to communicate with your students. 
 

• Having set online hours. Just as you would have class time or office hours, you should set up a time that you will be online and available to your students. If they need to contact you outside of these hours, provide an email they can reach you at.
   
• Use discussion posts. You can set up "Discussions" or Forums as assignments, or just as a way for students to reach out about a topic. Check D2L's Best Practices for more info: Best Practices: The Discussion Tool
   
• Keep students up to date with announcements. You can quickly alert students to any changes, and add relevant information to your courses without putting it into a specific week.
   
• Pay attention to the language used in posts and assignments. By this point in the semester, students should know how you communicate, and the written voice that you use in assignments, slideshows, etc. Try to keep this consistent with what your students are used to: they will notice any changes. 

Use a Variety of Activities

 
We have the technology available to us to create collaborative and engaging classes online. You can blend traditional learning: readings, lectures (or slideshows with audio), with online content, like videos and activities.
 

D2L is the LMS that you and your students are already familiar with. D2L has been adding new features to assist with the transition to online learning. Through D2L, you have access to:

• polls,
• whiteboards 
• chat
• and more

You can also take advantage of Microsoft Teams, a digital hub to create collaborative classrooms - provided to you and your students though Sault College's Microsoft 365 access. Once you add your students to a "Team" in Microsoft Teams, you can:

• share documents to be edited in real time
• create posts
• chats
• share your screen for extra help
• and more

For help with using Microsoft Teams, please see the following articles and PDFs. (These can also be opened within the Teams application, under the "Help" section in the bottom left corner.)

• Create a class team in Microsoft Teams
• LMS and Teams: better together for distance learning​
• Microsoft Teams: Entire Help Section 

Providing Feedback

 
Teaching and Learning Online is a new skill set for all of us. Providing continuous feedback allows students to identify which skills need to be improved and provides an opening to express concerns.

Make Content Mobile

 
It's important to note that some of our students do not have a personal computer. Most cell phones can access "desktop" versions of websites, and D2L (LMS) is built to view properly on any device, be it a smartphone, iPad or laptop.
 

Take advantage of the tools D2L (LMS) gives you, and allow students to reach out if they're having difficulty completing learning modules due to technology. 
 

Copyright Basics for Teaching Online

1. Since the pandemic the Copyright Act has not changed so the legal concerns are the same, teaching online or in person:
   1. Please still follow fair dealing guidelines and chart below, including:
      1. Copying a short excerpt (less than 10% of the work, one image from an article)
2. If what you are doing in class was permissible under the Copyright Act before the pandemic it is still permissible now
   1. Please remember to always cite your sources
   2. When using a film it is best to use a title from our many streaming video databases and cite the video
   3. You can use YouTube videos in class as long as you are taking from the original owner, the person or organization who posted it.  Here is a video explaining this.  As always, you must cite this too
   4. Use WeLearn (D2L) for all handouts/assignments as this is a password protected site owned by Sault College
   5. You can use slides provided by publishers for Professors of textbooks that students are required to purchase, remember to read the Terms of Use and follow those rules set out by each publisher (they vary by publisher)
   6. Use persistent links for Sault College Library articles/streaming videos/ebooks, here is a guide on how to find those persistent (or permanent) links

For further copyright information here is a link to our copyright page.

If you have questions on copyright please email Jason Bird, Manager, Library Services (jason.bird@saultcollege.ca)