Alternative Forms of Instruction

Alternative Forms of Instruction: Teaching During a Pandemic

With the reported cases of the H1N1 virus increasing daily, we must consider the impact that a pandemic like H1N1 could have on our campus and begin developing contingency plans for instruction. To best plan for such an event, Educational Technology and Design is developing supports and services that will allow you to continue teaching when on-campus instruction becomes impossible.

This webpage was developed as a sample of the tools and strategies that are available to SRU faculty members for providing alternative forms of instruction. Click a link below to learn more.

Email | using email to deliver instruction and materials

Email can be a great tool for distributing instructional materials and for communicating and collecting assignments.

You also have the option to write a quiz in Microsoft Word and e-mail it as an attachment to your students. Instruct your students to edit the Word document with their answers, or type their answers in the body of their response e-mail.

Try This:

For each class, email your students a reading assignment from the textbook and a collection of reflection questions based on the reading. Instruct your students to use MS Word to respond to the reflection questions and email their response to you as an email attachment. When you are finished reviewing the students' answers, e-mail your feedback/grade to each student their grade. In leiu of the reflection questions, you could also write a quiz in MS Word and e-mail it as an attachment to your students. Instruct your students to save a copy of the quiz, answer the quiz questions, and email to you as an attachment.

Interested in this option? Check out the step-by-step instructions below:

Using Blackboard Email

Instructional Video | Instructional Handout

Using Rockmail Web Access

Instructional Video | Instructional Handout

Web Conferencing | using Wimba to facilitate LIVE learning events

Wimba Live Classroom is a Web conferencing tool that you can use to host live learning events such as class lectures or student - student discussions. As long as you have a strong internet connection and a computer microphone/headset, you can communicate live with your students.

Try This:

Host a normally scheduled class within the Wimba Virtual Classroom. Prior to meeting with your students online, email the reading assignment along with a handful of discussion questions. Instruct the students to prepare their responses to the discussion questions before class-time. In your e-mail also include the URL to the Wimba Live classroom and ask them to sign in at a designated time - usually the same time that your course normally meets, as they would already have that time blocked off in their schedules. Welcome the students to class, display your PowerPoint slides, deliver your lecture, and then facilitate a discussion based on the reading and the reflection questions your assigned earlier.

Interested in this Option? Check out the step-by-step instructions below:

Wimba for Students

Instructional Handout

Wimba for Faculty

Instructional Video - Basic | Instructional Video - Advanced

Instructional Handout

Online Classrooms | using Blackboard to teach

Blackboard, SRU's learning managment system, provides faculty members with a complete package of online instructional tools including: 500MB of content storage, online discussion boards, testing, a gradebook, and mass communcation tools.

Try This:

Use Blackboard to post a schedule of required learning activities for each week. Upload to Blackboard the weekly reading assignments along with a PowerPoint presentation. After completing the reading assignment, have the students use the discussion board in Blackboard to post a response to a question relating to the weekly reading. Also, require each student to ask one of their peers a follow-up question to their original post. Finish off the week a quiz using Blackboard's test manager.

Interested in this Option? Check out the step-by-step instructions below:

Instructional Videos:

Making Your Course Available and E-Mailing Students
Posting Documents
Building an Objective Test
Creating an online discussion

Instructional Handouts:

Posting documents to Blackboard
Checking for plagiarism with TurnItIn
Recording your lecture as an MP3 (Audacity)

Building a Test in Blackboard

Creating an online discussion