Shared Programs Handbook
Teaching in Shared Programs: Pedagogy and Instructional Design Support
Instructional Design Support
Instructional designers are available to help with considerations and decisions regarding the best teaching mode and approach for shared programs courses. Penn State provides multiple opportunities to engage with learning design support at both the campus level and through University Park. As a shared programs faculty member, you have access to instructional design support dedicated to shared programs. You may also have local instructional designers at your campus who can also provide support. If you don’t have an instructional designer on your campus, please connect with a shared programs instructional designer.
Additional technology and teaching support can be found with our University partners, Teaching and Learning with Technology and The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence.
Teaching and Learning with Technology
The mission of Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) is “to innovate with technologies that transform teaching and learning in positive and enduring ways. TLT supports several initiatives aimed at fulfilling their mission including professional development opportunities, learning spaces, and research. One program that may be especially beneficial for shared programs faculty is BlendLT, which is guided redesign support for faculty interested in revising a traditional course into a hybrid course.
Media Commons is provided by Teaching and Learning with Technology, a unit within Penn State Information Technology whose primary mission is to provide expert guidance and support for the Penn State community as it strives to enrich the learning experience through appropriate and pedagogically sound uses of digital media technologies for teaching.
Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence
The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence (SITE)’s mission is to “advance and inspire excellence in Penn State’s teaching and learning community. The Schreyer Institute provides workshops, presentations, consultations, grant and research support, and course observations.
Course Content
Several shared programs and courses have organized course committees that collaborate to develop course objectives and other course materials. Many shared programs have a repository of course content available in Canvas. Please connect with a shared programs instructional designer to see if there is available content for your course.
Teaching Modes/Considerations
Shared courses may include students from two campuses or from ten campuses. Many factors should be considered when determining the best delivery mode for a shared course. An instructional designer can help instructors think through questions like:
- What is my teaching style?
- Is my course more lecture-based or more discussion-based?
- What does participation look like in my courses?
- How many students are enrolled at how many campuses, and how can I equitably engage all students?
- What technology do I need to be successful?
- What technology do my students need to be successful?
The answers to these questions will help guide you to the best delivery mode for you and your students. Use the following course instruction mode descriptions to determine your course offerings.
Zoom Synchronous Courses
During Zoom synchronous instruction, an entire class participates at the same time but from different locations. Advantages of this technique include the ability to instantly interact with others. This type of instruction is best for faculty and students who prefer direct connections and benefit from the social motivator of being prepared for a particular class time.
Instructors should provide for their students a list of available spaces on their campus from which they can connect in the case that their home environment is not available or ideal for joining class.
Lecture
Presentation-style lectures continue as normal.
Considerations
- Adopt a camera-optional practice for teaching through Zoom. A camera-optional approach respects student issues such as equity (e.g., some students may not have cameras on their devices), safety and security (e.g., some students may be deployed on active military service, or in need of safety or privacy), and religious beliefs.
- Employ polls, chat, and self-check questions to determine students’ understanding of the lecture. (Note: You will not have a visual of student expressions and body language to gauge understanding.)
- Record lectures and make these available for students who miss class.
In-Class Activities
In-class activities, completed individually or in small groups, continue to engage students.
Considerations
- Facilitate discussions through Zoom breakout rooms for in-class group discussions. The instructor circulates among rooms to check progress and ask questions to promote deeper thinking.
- Use screen sharing for hands-on components (e.g., labs, programming).
- Use Zoom annotation and white board tools to facilitate hands-on activities and discussions.
Assessments
Since students cannot be monitored while they are completing assessments, strategies should be employed to mitigate threats to academic integrity.
Considerations
- Consider multiple low-stakes quizzes/exams that can be done online or different assignment types that can also evaluate students meeting learning objectives.
- Assign students to submit pre-recorded videos of their individual assignments (e.g., talking through their coding assignment) to be assured of academic integrity.
- Use university resources to explore a variety of assessment techniques and resources
Group Work
Group work brings students together to meet various learning objectives during class or outside of class.
Considerations
- Facilitate student group formation, collaboration, and team building with assignments and technical tools (such as Canvas, Microsoft Teams, Box, CATME, Google docs, etc.).
Attendance
Participation in class activities supports overall success in the class.
Considerations
- Consider using online discussion forums, rather than daily attendance, to monitor participation.
Additional Resources
Zoom: Questioning Strategies to Increase Engagement: This handout provides you with questioning strategies to increase participant engagement in your meetings and webinars, and ways to execute these strategies using the tools in Zoom.
Classroom-to-classroom (Video Broadcasting (VC) or Video Receiving (VR)
Certain classrooms on each campus are equipped with technology that enables instructors and students to connect via Zoom. The classroom-to-classroom delivery mode has both advantages and disadvantages. If it is important to your course that students connect in person in small groups, this might be an ideal option for you.
Affordances: Allows the instructor to teach in-person from the video broadcasting room and the students joining from other campuses will join via Zoom. The students in the classrooms at other campuses have the opportunity to connect with one another in person.
Considerations: As an instructor, you should ensure that you are giving equal attention to the students joining from Zoom at another campus. Keeping track of chat, and student questions from those attending from another campus is challenging.
Lecture
Presentation-style lectures continue as normal
Considerations
- Set up a time to test the room / equipment prior to the first day
- Where in the room can students see you?
- Consider marking on the floor where students can see you on camera
- Consider marking on the whiteboard what the camera can see
- Consider using a tablet/stylus instead of the board
- Log in early to check your mic, audio, and visual and greet remote students as they come in
- Look at the camera from time to time the same way you pan a room (treat the video camera in the room as a student)
- Often when many students are joining remotely the thought would be to look at the camera more than when there is “one” student joining; however, this can be perceived as awkward from the student perspective
- A quirky way to remind you to look at the camera is to humanize the camera with a pair of glasses, a crafted classmate via colorful paper, google eyes, etc.
In-class Activities
In-class activities, completed individually or in small groups, continue to engage students.
Considerations
- Invite and solicit remote student’s participation / comments / questions on content on a regular basis
- Check the Zoom connection for chat questions and raised hands on a consistent basis
- Repeat questions from in-person students (if room audio does not pick up)
- Read out loud questions from chat for students in the room
- Consider using a TA or asking for a volunteer in class to help with the chat
- Use student response systems (in person students connect via their phones; remote connect either on phone or computer) to engage all students (Poll Everywhere, Nearpod, Padlet, Google Presentation Q&A)
- Consider bringing a laptop to connect to the Zoom room to easier facilitate remote students
Assessment
Since students cannot be monitored while they are completing assessments, strategies should be employed to mitigate threats to academic integrity.
Considerations
- Consider multiple low-stakes quizzes/exams that can be done online or different assignment types that can also evaluate students meeting learning objectives.
- Assign students to submit pre-recorded videos of their individual assignments (e.g., talking through their coding assignment) to be assured of academic integrity.
- Use university resources to explore a variety of assessment techniques and resources
Group Work
Considerations
- Include an Introduction Discussion in Canvas to help student connect across locations
- Create a Microsoft Teams space for students to communicate; could create pairs between in-person and remote students
Attendance
Participation in class activities supports overall success in the class.
Considerations
- Consider using online discussion forums, rather than daily attendance, to monitor participation.
Outside the Classroom
- Add any written instructions or handouts to Canvas so that remote students can easily access prior to or during class
- Hold online office hours to connect individually with remote students (offer an incentive/requirement to encourage students to meet 1:1 at least once)
- Continue in-class discussions in Canvas to allow all students to more easily contribute
- Clearly communicate expectations (how to communicate, how to participate, what to do if questions, tech issues, etc.)
Additional Resources
The following existing resources can also serve as inspiration:
- Mixed Mode Teaching Demonstrations
- Penn State’s Hybrid Teaching WebsiteFace-to-Face Strategies Focus on the Video-conferencing section of each page.
- Video-conference Course ConfigurationTips for teaching via videoconferencing that can be used for multiple different course configurations including classroom to student(s) computer(s).
Asynchronous Web (Online)
In these courses, neither the instructor nor the students are required to attend the class at designated time. Asynchronous courses offer students the ability to participate in the course at any time or location – completely online with no scheduled meeting times. Students are given weekly deadlines and expected to plan their time to achieve these milestones. The asynchronous remote structure works best with students who exercise self-regulated learning strategies. These courses are designed with an instructional designer to ensure Penn State Quality Matters® standards.
Lecture
Lectures are recorded in advance and shared with students.
Considerations
- Make recordings in your home or office with individual viewers (not a group setting) in mind.
- Add personal elements, so that students get to know you.
- Do not correct every instance of imperfect speech, as students appreciate familiar and natural, rather than formal, speech.
- Consider the following options:
- Use screen capture with audio narration.
- Script your presentation to create a succinct video that can be watched multiple times for initial understanding and further review.
- Break videos into chapters to keep the content focused and allow for students to easily find segments of your lectures. For example, one chapter might provide an overview of three main concepts; another might contain lecture material on the first concept, etc.; and another might preview the lesson’s assignments that follow.
Individual Activities
Individual activities allow students to engage with course content through knowledge checks, practice, and critical thinking.
Considerations
- Plant reflective prompts in the lecture video.
- Consider embedding a quiz in the video using Kaltura.
- Add reflective prompts to other assignments in the course.
- Assign practice problems or study questions (ungraded).
- Consider the order of operations when inserting individual activities (e.g., first read, then do individual activities, then meet to discuss group project).
Group Work
Group work brings otherwise unconnected students together to meet various learning objectives.
Considerations
- Facilitate student group formation, collaboration, and team building with assignments and technical tools (such as Canvas, Microsoft Teams, Box, CATME, Google docs, etc.).
- Encourage groups to meet synchronously to work on project deliverables.
Assessments
Since students cannot be monitored while they are completing assessments, strategies should be employed to mitigate threats to academic integrity.
Considerations
- Consider multiple low-stakes quizzes/exams that can be done online or different assignment types that can also evaluate students meeting learning objectives.
- Assign students to submit pre-recorded videos of their individual assignments (e.g., talking through their coding assignment) to be assured of academic integrity.
- Set deadline constraints with some flexibility built in for assignments and homework.
Attendance
Attendance is generally not required, as participation in the course is determined by completing assignments.
Hybrid
Hybrid courses combine asynchronous and synchronous classroom components to create a cohesive learning experience. Hybrid courses are an effective option for shared courses because they can take advantage of both online and in-person activities. There are several classifications of hybrid courses which are determined by the division of time between asynchronous and synchronous. An instructional designer can help you think through your course activities to determine which activities would best be completed asynchronously and which lend themselves to a synchronous class. TLT also offers a comprehensive program called BlendLT, which guides you through the process over the course of several months.
If you would like to explore more about hybrid learning, please check out the Hybrid Learning @ PSU website.
Student Engagement
Regardless of which mode your course is delivered in, student engagement is a top priority for shared courses. Here are some tips for engaging students regardless of mode. This page demonstrates how faculty can consider the impact of interaction in their teaching. The engagement examples will help to clarify the methods that you can use to engage students in interaction in face-to-face, hybrid, and online instruction, whether in the traditional formats or in a Remote Instruction context.
The Engaging Student Series (ESS) is a resource in sharing opportunities for participating in faculty development or viewing a variety of techniques, strategies and technology via an open educational resource for faculty to promote student engagement within their course.
Assessment
Whatever mode you decide to offer your course in, your assessment strategy will help you and your students measure their progress towards achieving the course learning objectives.
Please visit this page for guidance and resources for making academic integrity central to courses and adapting assessments for instructional modes.
Syllabus Considerations
While you may have a syllabus template that you have always used, sharing a course with students from multiple campuses presents several unique considerations. Your syllabus should clearly explain the nature of the shared course, including how and where students will connect. When teaching a shared course with students from multiple campuses, your syllabus should include resources for all students such as technology help, student disability resources, and counseling services. A shared programs instructional designer can connect you with campus-generic syllabus language. Additionally, you might consider including a statement about what to do in case of inclement weather and campus closures and delays (See ‘PSU Alerts’ below).
Weather Considerations
When the offering campus is closed due to inclement weather, etc., the class will be cancelled.
When a receiving site campus is closed due to inclement weather, etc., the instructor at the offering site should continue the class session with all open sites. Students at the closed receiving site will be responsible for making up work asynchronously prior to the next class.
PSU Alerts
To make sure you are aware of any campus delay or closure, sign up for PSUAlert so you can receive notifications by text, email, and/or phone. You might want to subscribe to your campus and to your instructor’s campus. To subscribe for PSUAlerts and manage your campus selections:
- Go to PSUAlert (Links to an external site.)
- Click ‘Manage My Alerts’
- Click ‘PSUAlert’
- Use the Alert Settings section to add a phone number for Mobile Alerts, additional email address, or phone number for Voice Alerts (click the yellow plus sign)
- Use the Campus Selection section to select all the campuses for which you want to receive alerts, then click Save
For more information, see PSUAlert: Frequently Asked Questions