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As will be clear from the flurry of communications going out about Fall instruction over the past week, the instructional support group (CITL/OE/FITC), along with our collaborators in the Registrar’s Office, Health and Safety, ITS, and numerous other units, has been working hard in August in consultation with campus leadership preparing for the many dimensions of supporting Fall instruction. This Fall’s instructional landscape is considerably more complex than the comparative simplicity of transitioning an entire university to remote instruction in a week. It’s not as though there’s an instructional manual for any of what we’re preparing for: a return to in-person instruction in an ongoing pandemic, while supporting large remote, online, and hybrid courses, and developing measures to accommodate any number of possible interruptions to the modalities in which our instructors are scheduled to teach.
Our work on your behalf runs the gamut from testing and ordering microphones, to placing small bags of extra masks in classrooms, to figuring out how to integrate health and enrollment information systems so we can track which students are isolating or quarantined, to asking for policy decisions such as a ban on eating and drinking in classrooms. As we have done since the start of the pandemic, we spend our days in constant conversation with each other, checking up on the latest health guidance on the virus from the CDC and CDPH, anticipating possible scenarios, receiving and responding to queries from instructors and department staff, and combing the websites and social media of campuses with similar mask and vaccine mandates who have already begun their Fall semesters, including those in the UC. Our goal is to learn as much as possible from those colleagues so that we can be as ready as possible to help you keep teaching in these continually shifting conditions.
We’ve already begun revising the Keep Teaching website, with a brand new FAQ for Fall instruction out today, and buttons you can click to find resources specific to the modality you’ll be teaching in, including a special section for those preparing to teach in person this Fall called “post-remote teaching.” There’s an updated syllabus template that now also includes sample syllabus language specific to Fall 2021 and preparing students for in-person learning during COVID. We’ll continue to update both the website and our FAQs as new information comes to us.
There is an open Q and A for faculty and department staff with campus leaders and health and safety professionals on Tuesday, August 31, at noon. Please register in advance for the meeting here. There will be a similar meeting for graduate student instructors and teaching assistants hosted by the Graduate Division. Look for an announcement soon.
We’re getting ready for our annual two-day Teaching Academy for new faculty (in person), as well as for two half-days of virtual workshops (September 13 and 21) to help you get ready for Fall quarter, while finalizing a new workshop we’ll be offering multiple times starting mid- September on “Preparing for the first day of class,” with a particular emphasis on the first day of in-person instruction.
We want to hear from you if there are resources you’re not finding, questions that remain unanswered, or ideas you’ve heard from colleagues elsewhere that you think we should know about. In case you missed it, below you’ll find links to all of the guidance and resources that have gone out so far. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re looking for something you don’t find.
In closing, we’re sending compassion and deepest concern to all those with loved ones suffering from COVID or living in the path of fires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. If there is any way we can make Fall preparations easier for you right now, please let us know
– Jody Greene, CITL Director & AVP Teaching and Learning
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