By Tim Podkul, Director, NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub
During this ever-evolving situation, we know there are many challenges facing institutions/organizations and everyone at this time with closures, slow-downs, and interventions coming to a halt.
The Coordination Hub wanted to use this community as a space to share some tips and strategies that members are using or could use to address and mitigate some of the challenges you might be facing and to support your target populations at this time.
One network member shared the following information in an Affinity Group:
With so many things moving online, now might be a good time to think about accessible online learning. Check out: 20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course.
Some basic tips shared and practices the Coordination Hub also follows are below:
- Encourage participants to state their name and institution each time they speak.
- Ask participants to limit the background noise as much as possible and mute themselves when not speaking.
- When URLs or other resources are mentioned, have someone designated to type them into the chat window – or follow up with participants after the meeting.
- Allow folks to ask questions either by (1) using a hand raising function and asking verbally or (2) by typing in the chat.
- Encourage folks to look at their name in the participant list and change it to their First Last if it defaulted to something else.
- When possible, have someone manage the chat and another person lead the meeting. Depending on the size of the meeting, it can be challenging to do both.
Understanding that our network members are often conveners of cross-institutional partners, the Coordination Hub also attended a webinar hosted by Knowinnovation aimed at sharing the tips and tricks learned in the past decade of prototyping virtual events. A link to that hour-long webinar titled “Rescue your Workshop” can be found here.
Additionally, here are some other resources which might be useful to explore.
- Blogs on making transitions to virtual classrooms and online learning
- NSF’s news and reports on the situation, a list of lessons and web-based classroom resources, and the NSF blog on supporting research to address the Coronavirus Disease.
What are some tips and strategies that you are using to help students (or your institutions) cope with this change? Any resources that you have found useful? Please share your ideas in this discussion post so that we can all learn from one another during this unprecedented time.
Thank you all for continuing your critical work in whatever ways possible during this time of uncertainty, when vulnerabilities and inequities can be exacerbated. The Coordination Hub is committed to working safely and confidently as we move through and emerge from this together.
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Tim Podkul
Director
NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub