CASE themes addressed: Consistency

Providing students with a weekly checklist with embedded links to the material they need to prepare (e.g. a checklist on Moodle) can help students to organise their time and help you reflect on the amount of activity that you're expecting students to complete.

For more, read our advice on developing a course-wide weekly plan.

CASE themes addressed: Consistency; Engagement

A weekly ‘office hour’ or 'drop in session' will provide a clear forum for students to ask questions. Answers can be collated and put in a FAQ section on your Moodle front page. Together these approaches can reduce the need for multiple individual email responses to common concerns, especially around assessment points.

CASE themes addressed: Scaffolding; Engagement

Signpost key points in lectures or give gapped handouts to help students note key content and information.

With the opportunity to go over recorded material, many students are spending considerable time reviewing lectures to make detailed notes. Whilst there are benefits to this resource availability, there are ways we can help students to note key content during its initial delivery, making more effective use of both live session and independent learning time.  Consider what the key material is in each session - this might be content-based, or skills, or related to wider issues such as employability - and ensure that this is clearly signposted in lectures or other materials.

CASE themes addressed: Engagement

Problem sheets and directed tasks can help to facilitate student interaction and prevent material from being duplicated between recorded and live sessions. Building tasks which reflect the assessment points supports resilience in staff and students. Consider whether students can work through answers during the session; whether there is opportunity to make use of peer marking and feedback; and check student understanding of the assessment criteria.

https://teachinghub.bath.ac.uk/the-bath-blend/essentials/tips-and-tools-for-synchronous-learning/ 

CASE themes addressed: Engagement

A quick check-in question or quiz can help you to see how well learning is taking place, encouraging engagement and giving you evidence of progress ahead of summative assessment. A simple method uses a traffic light model, asking students: do we need to stop and recap, pause for reflection, or can we move on? You might even insert an occasional multiple choice question on a key issue to reveal a picture of learning progress across the cohort.

For more, read our guidance on embedding feedback in blended learning.

CASE themes addressed: Consistency

Outline the roadmap for how you intend to use IPT and LOIL time. This will help to set clear student expectations and avoid duplication between sessions. Students will benefit from knowing clearly whether sessions will be live or recorded, when there will be opportunities to ask questions, whether their tutor(s) will be present throughout, whether there will be self-directed or group tasks, and whether there are pre-readings or worksheets to complete.

CASE themes addressed: Engagement

Use the engagement tools on Moodle to see who has looked at particular core activities. Moodle can create a list of ‘inactive’ students to enable quick intervention. Do they need extra support? Can you signpost them to Student Support Services? Where/when is the opportunity to recap on missed work? Are there access needs? Digital poverty issues?

Contact your instructional designer for help and support in using Moodle engagement tools, email tel@bath.ac.uk 

https://teachinghub.bath.ac.uk/the-bath-blend/essentials/developing-community-online/ 

CASE themes addressed: Accessibility; Scaffolding; Engagement

Ask groups to create a timeline for their project/activity and to minute their initial meetings can provide you with a quick check on who is engaging and who might need support.

Live sessions also provide an opportunity to model good practice, making this explicit to students as you do so. For instance, how to scaffold work; using case-studies; setting boundaries for timings, workload, and inclusive behaviours during group work.

For more, see our advice on engaging students online.

CASE themes addressed: Accessibility; Scaffolding

Shifting the pace can re-energise a session without losing learning time. Ask the students to switch off cameras for a few minutes and provide an active task. For example, creating a diagram; writing a short press release for an idea; making a report on what they have learnt; learning a sign a key concept; creating an acrostic for a key term.

CASE themes addressed: Accessibility; Engagement

Reflect on what has worked during the Bath Blend and how it has changed the way we teach and learn.

The burden of rapid operational responses made during the COVID-19 pandemic have made teaching more accessible for learners.  It has embraced new ways of delivering material and increased skillsets. These innovations will feed into developing your transformed course which will be more sustainable.

For more, see our guidance and resources to support your course-wide planning and development.