Professional Development
Crash Course Offers Roadmap for Quick Transition to Online Learning
The Flipped Learning Global Initiative (FLGI) has launched a free online course to help instructors and institutions that need to make a quick move to remote learning. The one-hour program, "Rapid Transition to Online Learning" (RTOL), bills itself as a quick-start guide to maintaining continuity of teaching and learning in a crisis.
"Though many schools and universities have plans to cover short-term closures, we realized that we are in uncharted territory with coronavirus," noted Errol St. Clair Smith, FLGI's director of global development. "We knew from experience that making a transition from traditional to distance learning is challenging under normal circumstances. Clearly, shifting to remote learning overnight would be more difficult (and there would be much to consider.) So we started with the question: If a school had just one hour to prepare to teach remotely, what are the most essential things the school leader, IT managers, and teachers would need to know and do?"
The RTOL program is based on the flipped learning framework as well as educator best developed under the guidance of the Academy of Active Learning Arts and Sciences (AALAS). Topics covered in the course include:
- Pedagogy for remote teaching;
- Communications;
- Planning;
- Individual assignments;
- Online group sessions;
- Adapting assessment;
- K–12-specific challenges;
- Online learning spaces;
- IT infrastructure;
- Student feedback;
- Evidence-based strategies; and
- Just-in-time professional development.
Participants receive step-by-step transition plans, checklists for administrators and IT managers, a video tutorial for teachers, as well as access to a "Rapid Response Support Team" of experienced distance learning educators.
For more information and to register for the course, visit the AALAS site.
