IMPACT Plus Ownership #1: Creating a Learning Environment

The IMPACT document describes three areas of faculty OWnership: creating a learning environment, taking an active role in course design, and becoming a reflective practitioner.

This week I would like us to reflect on ‘creating a learning environment’ as we teach during a pandemic. The blog post linked below was written by a colleague here at OSU. In Oregon, we are on a quarter system, and my colleagues and their students are currently preparing for finals. We had an entire term of remote teaching. This provided an opportunity to survey both students and faculty about their experiences with Remote Teaching and Learning and learn from these experiences. This blog post, Practical Solutions to Remote Learning Issues, shares some of the findings from the data of students’ experiences (the issues) and strategies to address these issues. There is also a link to a helpful ‘infographic’ that lists additional strategies to address three remote learning issues.

Let’s return to faculty ownership. The blog and infographic provide strategies to address the remote learning issues students told us they are facing, but we have to ‘diagnose’ these issues in order to address them.

What are techniques you use to diagnose the challenges your students are having in a remote space? How successful were these techniques? What would you do differently to assess students’ learning challenges?