3. Experiences and tips on remote teaching
More tips for planning remote teaching
Intended learning outcomes
Intended learning outcomes for a course are defined in the programme’s curriculum (course descriptions) and those are the same ones in contact and remote teaching. When planning remote teaching for your course, start with the intended learning outcomes and plan your teaching in a way that it is possible for a student to achieve the learning outcomes.
More about aligned planning of teaching:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/article/brief-guide-planning-teaching-and-materials
Assessment
We encourage you to pay attention to continuous assessment methods on your course. Here is one example of the continuous assessment on FYS1001 (Vuorovaikutukset ja kappaleet), autumn 2020:
- 65% from exercises
- approximately 1/3 of these from STACK exercises and 2/3 from pen-and-paper exercises (i.e. one STACK task is worth 1 point and one pen-and-paper task 2 points)
- feedback and a revision round for one task of the pen-and-paper tasks. NO feedback and NO revision for the rest.
- 20% for an applied pen-and-paper exercise set
- at the end of the course, one exercise set to revise the course content
- 15% for self-assessment
- 5% mid-course and 10% at the end
- Self-assesment tool DISA: disa.cs.helsinki.fi (you are free to look up the grading matrix)
- Students need to motivate the grade they give themselves
Final exams
Because supervised final exams are difficult to arrange remotely, we encourage teachers to use other assessment methods. Other assessment methods can be, for example, unsupervised remote exam / home exam, oral exams, a course project, or various combinations of the previous.
Pros and cons of supervised remote exams
+ the smallest possibility for cheating (compared to other remote assessment methods)
+ resembles a traditional exam and e.g. designing the exam problems is easy (note, however, the shorter exam time!)
– the workload of the lecturer and teaching assistants increases
– high requirements for students' remote connections; needs good instructions
– burdens students – does it measure learning reliably and fairly?
– in supervision, e.g. privacy of students needs to be taken into account (UH's lawyers can help with legal questions)
Programmes arranged a remotely supervised examination in June 2020 (Note! The exam lasted only for three hours). The instructions on exam arrangements can be read here in Finnish and here in English.
Summary of student feedback regarding exam arrangements in IV teaching period, spring 2020:
https://wiki.helsinki.fi/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=330389053&preview=/330389053/337733424/arviointijarjestelyt.pdf
Experiences and recommendations on remote assessment can be found here (in Finnish; written by Tommi Kokkonen, Elina Palmgren, Taina Ruuskanen and Kimmo Tuominen):
Instructions for assessment:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/assessing-learning-and-knowledge
Special arrangements:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/article/special-arrangements
Added on 9th November 2020:
Tietosuojaohjeet etätenttien valvontaa:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/ohjeet/artikkeli/miten-muutan-kurssin-tai-tentin-etaopetukseksi
Data protection instructions for monitoring remote exams – the English translation not yet there but will be added:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/article/how-can-i-modify-existing-course-or-exam-distance-teaching
Added on 13th August 2021:
Tips and tricks for making an Examinarium ("tenttiakvaario") exam (in Finnish; written by Elina Palmgren)
Teaching
Lectures
If you record Zoom lectures, change first the settings so that the recording is made to your local drive i.e. on your computer. This decreases the risk of losing your recordings due to some surprising corruptions. Zoom says that the recordings are saved locally, but that is Zoom’s point of view: automatic settings put the recordings to z-drive which is remote.
Lecture recordings are handy for students, and if they are made well, they can be utilized in teaching also after the exceptional situation. However, recording a live lecture can reduce student activity on the lecture, because they do not necessarily want to make comments or questions on a recording.
Note that there is a difference between a lecture recording and an educational video. An educational video is pedagogically designed and usually fairly short. Some recommendations can be found, e.g., here. A recorded lecture usually requires at least some editing to qualify to later use in teaching.
In ZOOM, recording a lecture is possible. However, cloud recording is not possible on UH’s license due to the information security regulations.
It would be good to activate students also on remote lectures. You can try to encourage students to ask questions, discuss and comment either orally or using e.g. Presemo or Flinga. In ZOOM, you can use breakout rooms for arranging small group discussions.
Other possible tools for lectures:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/article/educational-videos-and-streaming-your-lectures
Instructions for used systems:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/instructions-used-systems
Instructions on open teaching and copyright:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/article/open-teaching-and-copyright
https://avointiede.fi/sites/default/files/2020-02/Suositus-oppimateriaalien-avoin-julkaiseminen.pdf
Exercise sessions
In spring 2020, at least ZOOM, Moodle chat and Telegram were used in arranging exercise sessions. We have bad experiences of using Moodle chat, so we do not recommend using it.
Telegram divides opinions of students: some like it, some do not want to use it at all. However, in addition to some physics courses, many mathematics and virtually all computer science courses have had good experiences with Telegram groups, which supplement other teaching. Take into account that students cannot be obligated to create new accounts in services outside the university, especially if disclosing personal information is required to create the account. More instructions for using social media in teaching can be found here:
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/article/other-supporting-tools-teaching-activities
Neither a lecturer nor teaching assistants can be obligated to be available at all times. Agree in advance with students and assistants when teachers are available and answer questions. For assistants, it can be difficult to stick to their working hours if e.g. Telegram or WhatsApp is used for exercise sessions and they use the apps also in their free time, so make sure they know what is and is not expected of them.
Course page and communicating with students
Especially in the exceptional situation, it is of uttermost importance that all the course information is easily available for students. Remember also to give your own contact information to students so they can send questions directly to you.
On most of the courses, teachers use a Moodle page for distributing teaching materials. It can also be used for returning the exercise answer sheets and communicating with students. Also a separate course page or a wiki page can be a good choice, but we recommend using Moodle because of its versatility.
Instructions for creating a Moodle page:
https://docs.moodle.org/3x/fi/Ordering_a_new_course_area
Workload of the course
In the exceptional situation, it should be noted, that many student are stressed out because of the situation, per se. Remote teaching arrangements that change and vary from course to course also burden students – and this should be taken into account in the course workload. Under no circumstances, the workload of a course should increase! In many cases, even decreasing the course workload can come into question.
Some students may also need flexibility with course deadlines. We recommend teachers to be flexible in these situations. However, there are also limits for this flexibility, and a teacher does not need to agree to everything.
Instructions for designing a course workload (Note that the instructions cannot directly be applied on most of the physics courses!):
https://teaching.helsinki.fi/instructions/article/students-workload-and-study-credits