message aux profs : 2020-03-14

Profs : mars-avril 2020

(Check-in du samedi soir)

(Email in English and cc Bri Orr-Álvarez, Stephanie Spacciante, Robert Miller, Soline Milet as coordinators of multi-section courses in French and Spanish are working together, especially to support TAs together. Message adapted from Stephanie’s one earlier today.)

UPDATE 2020-06-28: post edited to remove identifying information for any students including graduate student TAs; there’s otherwise nothing confidential here, and no reason not to make it public. It might help other colleagues in planning. It might be of nostalgic or historical interest later. It might provide amusement.

Dear colleagues,

I hope you are all doing well. 

1) Per Joël’s email, we all are going to take this Monday 16 March off from teaching new material to prepare the rest of the semester for our “onlinised” classes and exams.  

2) Test 2 will be an open-book take-home online, and a different kind of test
FREN 101: 

  • as scheduled, end of next week
  • for all sections, the test will open on Friday 20 March 

FREN 102 

For both courses I’m preparing you a simpler low-tech version plus instructions for you and instructions for students.

Instructors who wish to do so may set up their test as a “proctored quiz” using Proctorio. More information will be available at https://keepteaching.ubc.ca/assignments-assessments/#proctored on Tuesday 17 March.

You will receive this test from me on Wednesday 18 March.

3) A&D Students: I contacted Hiral in Accessibility on Friday to say that we’re moving online, I’ll contact her again on Monday morning with the new test information. 

4) Quick version of lesson plans for next week:  

FREN 101: 

  • Monday: dossier 3 Cultures (textbook p. 68-69) + locate the places mentioned in the video – find images of them – use the images as a base for dossier 3 communicative, lexical, and grammatical competences
  • Wednesday: DELF 3 (textbook p. 71) and Bilan 3 (workbook p. 44-45)
  • Friday: online test opens

FREN 102 (except J.C., you’re in a different situation):

  • Monday: students work on DELF 7 (textbook p. 143) and Bilan 7 (workbook p. 100-101)
  • Wednesday: short movie day! (Send me your suggestions, free online; I’m preparing an Open Online French Filmclub (OOFF™️) list using openculture.com 
  • Friday: online test opens

In class (ex. 102 on Monday), students can work independently or together. 

In my class, I’ll use Canvas > Discussion and use that for text-based chat. Students can also use it among themselves. For how to set up Canvas Discussion, see https://keepteaching.ubc.ca/discussions-communications/ . Screenshots of how I’ve set that up:

5) New Syllabus:  This week I will modify the original syllabus including changes to how to check students’ Cahier and the in-person attendance policy. (I’m using participation in Discussions for that, and keeping Discussions open after class, not setting any closing day and time on them.)

6) As I said to fellow coordinators: “Remember academic freedom for faculty. No-one can be forced to teach in the same way, including on Canvas and including lecture capture (and storing it there).”

Ex. I will be using Canvas as my students are used to it, but I will be posting video elsewhere (UBC Blogs, YouTube, etc.; short videos taken on my phone or tablet, punctuating student work in Canvas discussions), with such videos as external links.

Robert prepared a lesson on Word and will send his students a simple email attachment with his information prepared there. Simple, yet efficient. 

7) For the week after next onwards, I am mainly concerned about our newer TAs, C. and N. and plan to send them a copy of my outline for each instruction day. Colleagues teaching FREN 102: please considering sharing your lesson plan & activities with them as we want them to receive as much support as possible from ALL of us! Email is probably easiest.

8) Office Hours: I would recommend holding office hour(s) at the same time as usual, but they’ll now be online. Make sure you tell your students how they can contact you. The simplest may be using email or setting up a Canvas Discussion, and using it as chat. Some other options: 

If you are considering using external tools (many people in other universities and countries are using Zoom and Skype), please check that they comply with Canadian and BC privacy law before doing so; especially if you are a TA. Colleagues elsewhere who are using Skype have set up a new work account using their insitutional email rather than using their personal Skype account (= for family and friends). 

9) Message for Students:  Last but not least, I will prepare an email for our students summarizing the relevant parts of the points from their point of view.  You’ll be able as usual to edit that and send it out to your group. For my own students, to make sure that the proposed set-up works, I’ll also be sending them this questionnaire: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qxv832iyase2bt1s8qdnm/19W-FREN101-102-online-class-student-consultation.docx?dl=0&rlkey=6100r2pyabzx8hj1fb4ii8cpt (you can download this, adapt it for your own students, etc.; please keep the original credit to Dr Danya Glabau at the top)

This message will be in my next email to you. Please email your students on Monday morning (FSC or FSC and Canvas Announcements).

10) I’ll also be adding a new “communal space” area in our shared Dropbox where you can add any teaching materials that you wish—in addition to the existing areas inc. the “banques d’idées”—making sure to add your name for copyright. (More about that on Tuesday. Coordinators, we can open this to others too or move it or make another elsewhere.)

Thank you all for being patient!  We will get through this together, but remember that there will be hiccups but it isn’t necessary to worry as Bri, Stephanie, Robert, Soline, and I are very flexible and will help everyone deal with any problem if/when it arises.

Take care,

Juliet