Faculty and graduate student teachers who collaborate across lecture and linked discussion sections and labs face distinct challenges–and also enjoy special opportunities to collaborate and deepen student learning. Especially in fall 2020, when lectures and sections/labs may be taught across modalities (including asynchronous online, remote, and face to face for a single course) coordination is crucial.

The Setting Expectations for Teaching Teams sheet of goals and reflective questions offered here may help your group come to a more explicit and shared understanding of how they’ll work together. TEP will host a Coordinating Teaching Teams Workshop Friday, October 2, 10:30am-11:15am (Zoom: https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/99252870909). Email tep@uoregon.edu if you’d like to attend as a team and have a shared breakout room prepared for your group.[embeddoc url=”https://blogs.uoregon.edu/keepteaching/files/2020/05/Team-Teaching-Checklist_final.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

Tips and Considerations

Consider one Canvas site:

Having 
one Canvas site with the groups feature gives you: 

  • One gradebook (section and lab leaders can add grades, including attendance tracking, only for their students).
  • Homepages (microsites within the main course site), which allow for a shared student workspace, and the ability to set discussion fora for each group, while also joining forces across groups to discuss, view, and share in the main site 
  • Confidence that students have easy access and clear wayfinding to all course materials (for example, there is no need to import content from main site to section sites). 

This is our default recommendation, though we will certainly support you if having separate Canvas sites for sections and labs makes sense in your context. 

Consider student question triage:

  • Foreground technology support services so students know where to go (and you’re not fielding these questions). Example: Log into canvas.uoregon.edu using your DuckID to access our class. If you have questions about accessing and using Canvas, visit the Canvas support page. Canvas and Technology Support also is available by phone or live chat: 541-346-4357 | livehelp.uoregon.edu
  • Make it standard practice for section leaders and the professor to copy each other on email communication with shared students (except in cases of highly personal disclosure). 
  • Create a Q&A discussion forum for course questions so that these can be answered once for the good of all (and maybe even answered by other students, not just instructors). 

Consider “high value” communication labor sharing: 

  • Use regular course announcements that reflect on the progress of the course; or on how the issues under consideration are deepening/changing/reflecting current events; or on trends in student responseseven cite compelling student contributions. These could be done regularly, say, at the beginning or end of each week. The responsibility for writing them could rotate among teaching team members. They could be an alternative to posting lengthy responses to students in the discussion fora. (Related: Consider limiting word length of student discussion posts to make these more readable for the team and students themselves.) 
  • Use the “message student who gradebook feature. It’s awesome, feels personal, and the faculty leader can do it on behalf of the entire team. 

Consider how synchronous and asynchronous activities might mutually reinforce each other: 

  • In live sections, ritually begin w/ navigating to key parts of Canvas site so students grow familiar with wayfinding to crucial course materials. 
  • Have students take on critical inquiry roles in sections that extend across asynchronous postings (e.g. discussion boards or group chats, etc.) and synchronous discussions. 
  • Have sections take names (red section, blue section) and have professor or designated GE emphasize questions or contributions from live discussion (“the blue team challenged these assumptions when they asked x and argued y…”) in posted weekly announcements. 
  • Pose questions, scenarios, etc. in Panopto video lectures that signal what will be explored more in section or lab (same as posing things in a live, in-person lecture to help set up section/lab). 

Strategies if face-to-face sections and labs need to pivot: 

  • Our top recommendations are to have one Canvas site for the course and clear teaching team expectations, especially around essential learning goals, which will continue to guide you.  
  • Establish a culture of candid check-ins about workload. If you all have a shared sense of essential learning objectives, you are in a good position to make changes that center those objectives. (For example, if it is central to the course to give students opportunities to practices evidence-based, ethical dialogue, you might drop a planned writing assignment in favor of using faculty and GE time to comment on discussion board posts because that was the more urgent goal.)
  • The Graduate School encourages GEs to track their hours on a form like this. Teams might look at these together and discuss and make visible some of the invisible labor of teaching–like sending caring emails to keep students engaged or show concern.