Valerie Bolger,  
Health and Fitness Department, 
SUNY Oneonta, 

There are many resources I utilize while teaching online higher education courses that engage students in their virtual learning experience. A side from course content, I ask the students to upload a photo of themselves into Blackboard. This way there is always a face to name during discussions. Reaching out to student’s and delivering course material in a variety of ways increases student learning outcome.  

How I do this, is by sending Announcements in the course on Blackboard and sending that same announcement via email. I also provide an Ask a Question discussion forum for the students and I to “chat”. With the support of the TLTC on campus, I utilized Screencast-o-Matic to deliver voiceover lectures. With the support of the Communications Department on campus, I recorded yoga sequences to delivery yoga classes online for the students. Top Hat and Faculty Focus are excellent resources regarding online pedagogy and effective online teaching strategies. I refer to these two resources often. Converting to Online Educational Resources has been a success. I no longer receive emails from students regarding, “My textbook has not come in yet” or “I cannot afford my textbook”. I offer online textbooks for two out of the three courses I teach. 

Communicating with your Department; let it be face-to-face, Zoom, Microsoft Team, phone calls, or Department Meetings is a valuable resource to stay connected with. For me it is the Health & Fitness Department and Continuing Education Department. Last but far from being least, the online trainings I have completed: Best Practices Level 1 and Level 2, Effective Online Discussions, Quality by Design, Instructional Design Program as lead my dedication for teaching to a deeper level of understanding and to the recognition as an OPEN SUNY online teaching ambassador. 

This is part of a series of posts collected by the TLTC and Faculty Center to share ideas and tools that have been helpful in the shift is teaching during the Spring 2020 semester.  If you are interested in sharing either a tool that you have found very useful or a method that you are now using in your courses, we would love to hear from you. Send your video or brief description to Chilton Reynolds and we will post it as a part of this series.