Gathered here are some resources for teaching under the new conditions created by the coronavirus pandemic. There are a variety of ways that institutions and faculty are responding. TΦ101 recognizes that it is a stressful time as faculty scramble over the summer to rethink and revise their courses under still uncertain conditions (and probably off contract). I will update as more resources are developed. If you have suggestions for us, please let us know.

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Online Teaching

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Here is a short list of ten best practices from a leading educator on online teaching, Judith Boettcher.

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And here is some advice about designing online courses. Mary Burns at eLearning has a number of articles on designing better online courses.

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Here is a podcast from Teaching in Higher Ed on teaching more effectively online with Flower Darby. Darby's written a book with James Lang Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes.

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The American Philosophical Association put together a panel webinar on teaching philosophy online with Merritt Rehn-DeBraal, Kristina Grob, and Fritz McDonald. The APA Blog is also a source of teaching advice during this time. For example, Sabrina MisirHiralall has a post on the APA blog, "A Foundation for Online Teaching and Learning," with suggestions about how to transition in person courses to online. And Matt Deaton has a discussion about how to use collective feedback.

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Hybrid-Flexible

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Many schools are planning for a hybrid experience, where faculty will be expected to prepare to teach both students in the classroom and students who are present remotely. This is the plan at TΦ101's home institution and it is not clear how this is going to work. However, there are faculty who have been using this structure for a while now as Brian Beatty, one of the developers of HyFlex, explains in this overview. Scroll down for some testimonials.

 

Derek Bruff, Director of Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching, shares some ideas about active learning in a hybrid, physically distanced environment.

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And here is a more in depth look, in a shared google doc by Kevin Kelly, at what a class session in a hybrid-flexible format might look like.

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Block Schedules

 

Some schools are adopting a block schedule, where students take only one class at a time, in an attempt to limit exposure to the virus. Two schools, Cornell College and Colorado College, have been using the block schedules for decades.

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Pedagogies of Care

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Victoria Modelli and Thomas J. Tobin have put together a collection of resources called Pedagogies of Care - including interviews, podcasts, articles, videos - designed to address teaching during this time from a student-centered perspective.

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Topics include the importance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), creating a social and emotional presence, and suggestions for learning activities.

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Anti-Racist Teaching

In addition to changes because of the pandemic, faculty should be attentive this fall to the demands for racial equality coming out of the civic unrest which followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Philosopher Johnathan Charles Flowers encourages colleges to prepare for a continuation of these protests on campuses in an article (behind a paywall) for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) has developed a web site devoted to Best Practices for the Inclusive Philosophy Classroom. They have also collected some resources on Racial Justice.

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The Blog of the APA has collected their posts on race and racism under the heading Valuing Black Lives.

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Author: Emily Esch, June 2020