Overview
Educating students is key to our mission at Ƶ. The Remote Learning Taskforce (RLT) was formed to generate suggestions to offer faculty appropriate options for providing distance education in the event of class disruptions. The guidelines presented here are our suggestions concerning best practices for dealing with disruptions of instruction. Some examples of disruptions are: Community-related such as Coronavirus (COVID-19), weather-related, building closures, and long term instructor unavailability.
In the event of an emergency, the ability to teach courses on campus may be affected. The NYS Department of Education requires that for each 3-credit lecture class, 2250 minutes (or 150 minutes/week) of instruction be provided. The resources provided on this web page will help you to prepare for instructional continuity during a potential disruption of in-person teaching options. If our campus(es) need to move to remote learning for all of our active courses, there is an expectation of not canceling classes, and that students in your course(s) continue to receive instruction synchronously and/or asynchronously.
In the event that the University shifts all courses online, instructors are required to “initiate substantive communication with students, either individually or collectively, on a regular basis. In other words, an instructor could use email to provide instructional materials to students enrolled in his or her class, use chat features to communicate with students, set up conference calls to facilitate group conversations, engage in email exchanges or require students to submit work electronically” (Office of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education, 3-5-2020).
Multiple offices and resources are available to all faculty so that the transition to remote learning can be accomplished successfully and delivered adequately during times of prolonged absence.
Offices and Resources Available to Faculty
Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
As a campus community, we are committed to supporting teachers and learners throughout the transition to an online learning environment. Resources exist that can help us modify our courses and support continuous quality instruction for the remainder of the term.
Office of Instructional Design in the Center for Media Arts
You can sign up for a 1-on-1 appointment:
Need Help?
If you encounter a problem in adapting the remainder of your spring 2020 courses to a distance-learning format, please send your question(s) keepteaching@daemen.edu for the quickest response. In addition to Instructional Design and CETL team members, along with a number of faculty volunteers from across disciplines (members of QuOnEC, the CETL Advisory board, online teaching fellows) will be able to assist you.
Additional Resources
Useful Advice from the Chronicle relative to teaching online during the coronavirus pandemic:
We encourage you to become familiar with how to administer exams online
Respondus Lockdown Browser
This comprehensive training webinar is intended for instructors who plan to use LockDown Browser and/or Respondus Monitor with online exams. The session provides a detailed demonstration of both applications.
Effective Online Instruction
AASCU, ACE, APLU, CIC, NASH, and ACUE invite leaders, faculty and staff across higher education for focused and practical discussions on Effective Online Instruction. These one-hour, live webinars will include Q&A with participants and will be recorded and hosted by .