This guide walks you through the tactics you'll need to teach a class fully remote. This guide concentrates on the tactical efforts to make your class successful without rethinking the entire thing. For a much more in-depth look at teaching an online course, please read the Planning an Online Course article which covers the pros and cons of the different kinds of remote classes, managing the class, and more.
This guide concentrates on four key areas:
Setting up your Teaching Space
Given you'll be teaching remotely by definition you won't have access to any on-campus spaces. Give some thought to what you'll need ahead of time:
- Which space will you use to conduct your remote class?
- Do you have the proper equipment?
- Do you have a reliable internet connection?
You can find a list of recommended equipment here. Some basic technology recommendations (like using a wired connection to the internet vs. wifi) are available to help you set up your space.
Also give some thought to how you'll appear on camera. This article has some tips about the optimal settings in which to record.
Using Zoom
The foundation of any remote class at Wharton is Zoom. You'll need to create a Zoom meeting for your class and share the meeting information with your class (and TAs). There are two recommended ways to set up your Zoom session:
- Set up your Zoom session though Canvas (Strongly Recommend). If you have Zoom enabled in your Canvas site already, follow these directions. If you don't, reach out to your Wharton Computing representative and they can help enable it.
- To set up a Zoom session outside of Canvas, follow these directions. Please be aware that you will have to ensure that the Zoom session is recorded and manually upload that recording to Canvas.
Recording
Check Record the meeting automatically, regardless of which method of Zoom scheduling you use:
- Using Canvas: The checkbox is located in the Meeting Options section.
- Using Zoom: Click on Advanced Options and you'll see the Automatically record meeting option. Check it.
Once the recording is in Canvas (which happens automatically for Zoom sessions scheduled with Canvas, and requires manual uploading for anything scheduled outside of Canvas) Wharton Computing will handle the student availability of the recording based on your submitted preferences.
Informing Students
With your Zoom meeting setup, you'll have the meeting information to distribute. If you've scheduled the meeting in Canvas, students will access it via your course site, but we recommend posting an announcement letting the students know.
If you've created a Zoom meeting outside of Canvas, be sure to share the meeting login information via whatever method you usually use to communicate with your class - email or Canvas.
Preparing Classroom Tools
Depending on your plan for the class session, a varying degree of additional preparation may be required.
The In-Person to Remote Instruction grid maps typical in-person classroom activities to remote equivalents. We recommend you consult this grid ahead of time as many of the remote counterparts require advanced setup.
Some of the more common activities have articles with detailed instructions: