A Life Sciences Educational Initiative
Co-sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
OUT OF
THE BOX
REIMAGINING THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM
IN FALL 2020
You are invited to be part of a community of Life Sciences Faculty who are leaning into virtual teaching, striving to achieve outstanding learning outcomes for students, and creating inclusive classrooms this Fall.
Receive guidance, feedback, and resources to help you create a new and improved teaching plan. Attendance can be highlighted in your dossier to be recognized for your next merit promotion.
Full participants will receive $1000!
+
Eligibility
All Life Sciences faculty and instructors teaching undergraduate courses with 30 students or more or undergraduate laboratory courses with 10 or more students (193-199 courses not included).
Instructions
How can I incorporate INCLUSIVE, evidence-based strategies to help all my students succeed, in these challenging times?
Register for Out of the Box & CEILS Workshops by Sep 13
Attend 5 CEILS workshops (~2 hrs each; 10-20 hrs total). Work with experts and colleagues to improve your virtual classroom.
Submit your materials and check-in mid-quarter.
Everyone will benefit from this effort! You will receive $1,000. Participation counts towards your next merit review.
Guiding Principles
(developed by Karin Gosselink, Yale University)
Being reflective and flexible helps you adapt to your students’ needs; being transparent clarifies often unstated expectations; and building community fosters connection students are missing and the critical sense of belonging that students need to persist in STEM. Using all of these principles as an overarching guide will lead to the transformation of your curriculum to being more equitable and inclusive.
Include time to REFLECT, for yourself and for students
Reflect on your teaching: How do you want to revise your course, accounting for the circumstances AND your own time limits?
Reflect on student feedback: Survey students before class about anticipated challenges with Remote Teaching.
Check in every week: What is working in this learning environment and what is not? For you and your students.
Be FLEXIBLE, especially about hardware, internet, timing, etc.
Be flexible with yourself: Remember that you have NOT gone through training to develop a perfect online course.
Be flexible with your students: Show them you understand there are many more uncertainties in many lives now. Provide multiple ways to participate and indicate contingency plans if something goes wrong (e.g. during an exam).
Be TRANSPARENT and communicate expectations
Send out weekly (or more frequent) check-ins to update students on assignments, grades, resources etc.
Reach out to students who are not participating to find out if/how they need support.
Explicitly build COMMUNITY among students
Foster in-person connections (with instructors + peers).
Assign groups that can meet up during class or on their own time. Provide resources or platforms where students can easily connect.
Connect material to students’ lives and society.
Timeline
We will support you in achieving four outcomes, with interactive workshops for you to spend time learning and implementing these outcomes in your own course. For any workshops you cannot attend, we’ve included relevant resources to provide you with the necessary knowledge and skills needed in order to make the requested revision and achieve the learning outcomes.
Each of the outcomes is aligned with one of the four guiding principles and an artifact that you will create or revise based on what you learned in the workshop.
| Sep. 13, 2020 | |
| Sep. 14-23, 2020 | CEILS Faculty Workshop: work with others to transform your courses
Use the workshops and resources to revise your syllabus to incorporate most of the outcomes indicated below. (This should take 10-20 hrs, including time for workshops and to implement.) Full workshop descriptions and schedule are here: https://ceils.ucla.edu/fall-teaching-forum-2020/ Revise your assessments, rubrics, project descriptions, teaching statements and/or diversity statements to incorporate any other relevant outcomes. The intention is that any revisions you make are for your students or your future merit review – not just for this submission. |
| Sep. 30, 2020 | Share transformation: Submit cover letter, syllabus and other artifacts
In a 1pg cover letter, describe how your revision addresses each outcome, referring to the workshop or resource that your revision is based on. For example: “To help my syllabus be a guide for students from all backgrounds on how to succeed in my course [Outcome 1a], I used ideas from the USC syllabus toolkit to add a “Tips for success” section on p. 3 of my syllabus; I will ensure students read this by including it in my Wk1 syllabus scavenger hunt assignment.” By addressing these four outcomes, you are incorporating the four guiding principles to help make your course more equitable, inclusive and effective in a remote environment. |
| Oct. 26 – Nov. 6, 2020 | Mid-quarter check-in: Get support to troubleshoot challenges |
| Nov. 6, 2020 | Target date to provide $1000 to recognize your participation in “Out of the Box” |
| Late Fall 2020 | Final celebration of the end of fall quarter. Awards for special achievement in virtual teaching. |
| Late Winter 2021 | Winter Awards Ceremony |
| Late Spring 2021 | Spring Awards Ceremony |
Learning Outcomes & Resources
Please click a project outcome tab on the left to reveal more information.