Wow, what a semester we have had this spring! It has been a semester marked with change, uncertainty, but ultimately, adaptation and perseverance. Despite our sudden shift to remote work and classes, the Gator community has pulled through by adapting new technologies and techniques to continue our work toward student success. 

With online summer classes about to begin, and with the fall being uncertain, now is the time to adapt your course and pedagogy for the online environment in ways that will serve you even after the pandemic is over. We recommend adopting asynchronous delivery of your course content, in part or in whole, if your material is suited to this method. Asynchronous delivery of your course, such as sharing pre-recorded lectures, allows you to divide up your content into bite-sized chunks that you and your students can work on at everyone’s convenience. You could even record mini-lectures to answer students’ questions! You also do not have to worry about “Zoom-bombing” or class distractions when you are recording alone. Asynchronous delivery gives everyone the flexibility to maintain academic progress while working around the uncertainty and dislocation that we are facing during the pandemic.  

You might be asking, “But how should I pre-record my lectures, and how will I keep my students engaged?” Well, I am glad you asked! The Center for Instructional Technology and Training and e-Learning Support have a great selection of webinars and workshops that can help you solve your academic challenges in this environment, and our teams of instructional designers and technologists would love to (virtually!) meet with you to help you make your course a success. Check out our online schedule of webinars and other resources at the eLearning Keep-Teaching site, and you can contact CITT directly by emailing us at citt@ufl.edu. If you are looking to get started with asynchronous lectures, I recommend watching a stream of my webinar on Pre-Recording Your Lectures.  

Remember that we are all in this together, and we would love the chance to help you and your students achieve your course goals! 

Image Source: Felines are life-long learners too! Photo by Neringa Šidlauskaitė on Unsplash

Online Teaching, Technology, Web Conferencing, Flipped Learning