2 Setting Expectations and Syllabus Development

• Prepare a brief welcome video message where you introduce yourself and give a short “teaser trailer” about the course content.
• Email students individually or as a group to welcome them to the course and to share your intentions for their learning and success, the course communications and expectations, and to ask about accessibility needs.
• Remind them of any required equipment/resources, ask them to look over the course Canvas page, ask them to read about Netiquette/online learning guidelines, ask them to post something on the class discussion board, if applicable.

• Instructor, TA contact info and information about Virtual Office Hours
• Territory acknowledgement and acknowledgment of the current situation with COVID-19
• Course prerequisites (content students are expected to know) and required/suggested resources/texts
• Overview of course goals and learning goals
• Overview of online platform and required/suggested technology
• Overview of course schedule
• Assessments and grading policies
• Overview of course etiquette (netiquette), respectful environment expectations, EDI statement, and commitment to academic integrity.
• Link to the Keep Learning website for students that compiles resources related to home set-up, UBC technologies, online learning, wellbeing, and seeking support/answers.
• Resources related to student advising, accessibility, academic concessions, academic integrity, counseling, and Science Peer Academic Coaching.
• In August 2020, the Provost and VP Academic’s Office asked that faculty include the statement below about potential restrictions to international students’ online learning within their syllabi. Including the statement in your syllabus is to raise awareness to the issue of international students being subject to the laws of their jurisdictions and if students are concerned by this, they can postpone taking the course or ask an academic advisor for support. As the instructor, you are not required to make accommodations within your course or to the content of your course. During this pandemic, the shift to online learning has greatly altered teaching and studying at UBC, including changes to health and safety considerations. Keep in mind that some UBC courses might cover topics that are censored or considered illegal by non-Canadian governments. This may include, but is not limited to, human rights, representative government, defamation, obscenity, gender or sexuality, and historical or current geopolitical controversies. If you are a student living abroad, you will be subject to the laws of your local jurisdiction, and your local authorities might limit your access to course material or take punitive action against you. UBC is strongly committed to academic freedom, but has no control over foreign authorities (please visit http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,33,86,0 for an articulation of the values of the University conveyed in the Senate Statement on Academic Freedom). Thus, we recognize that students will have legitimate reason to exercise caution in studying certain subjects. If you have concerns regarding your personal situation, consider postponing taking a course with manifest risks, until you are back on campus or reach out to your academic advisor to find substitute courses. For further information and support, please visit: http://academic.ubc.ca/support-resources/freedom-expression. 

You can also refer to UBC Policy V-130 that offers recommendations of specific elements to include in a syllabus.

• Students appreciate when instructors share their stories or examples of their situations (to normalize that people may have struggles or to share how people are coping).
• Doing so can help to build trust and openness with the students. It helps students to see that you are also affected by this situation and that you’re doing your best to mitigate/cope.
• Talk about how learning online will be the same or different, under these circumstances from face-to-face. Show that you are taking this into account in the design of your course in the following ways. Show them you have a plan and want to meet them half-way. You could also indicate you will try to make the process as inclusive as possible, but for students to reach out if they have issues/suggestions (e.g. an instructor created an anonymous Qualtrics survey for students to complete if they had an issue/suggestion. The survey can remain live for the whole course).
• You could also write a letter to students about the current situation and your goals as an instructor. See the sample letters that David Gaertner, Assistant Professor of First Nations and Indigenous Studies in the Faculty of Arts, sent to his students when the emergency shift online happened in March 2020 as a reference.
• You could highlight the Keep Learning website that was recently launched as a resource for students.

• UBC’s Point Grey Campus is situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the Musqueam people and including a territory acknowledgement is one way you can invite further conversations about our locations, relationships, and prior knowledge with the lands and people that we live, learn, and work with. The CTLT Online Teaching Program’s section on “Classroom Climate Online” provides suggestions and resources for how you can give a territory acknowledgement and centre Indigenous perspectives in your online course.

Review technology/equipment students will need for the course and assessments

• Being upfront about the technology and equipment that students will need to participate in the course will hopefully reveal challenges/issues early in the term and not just before a midterm or final.
• It would also be useful to indicate what resources/texts are recommended for this course. Many publishers have moved online but you’ll need to think of ways in which students can access required textbooks.

• Clearly review what blend of synchronous and asynchronous approaches you will use during the course and student expectations for engaging with these approaches.
• You could use screen share and walk students through some of the features of Connect or other online tools/mediums you’ll be using.
• Consider testing out an activity to help students to get to know one another and the online features. You could use breakout rooms, the polling options, or whiteboard.
• Review how students will engage with you, the TAs, and their peers throughout the term.
• Indicate what students should do if they experience technical issues. It provides some simple instructions that you could adapt for how to troubleshoot issues.

• Some instructors have asked students to post questions about course content and scheduling to an online discussion forum rather than e-mailing the instructors or TAs directly. This helped to mitigate overload of e-mails about common questions and reserved e-mail for individual student requests/needs.
• Within distance education, it is common practice for instructors to send students a weekly e-mail/announcement to review the major topics covered in the course thus far and to give a heads up about upcoming topics and assessment deadlines. See this Faculty Spotlight on Janice Stewart as an example of this.

• If you do not have time in the first class to review the syllabus (or want to have more time in that first class), you could create a syllabus quiz for students that highlights the important pieces that students often miss/ignore. Alternatively, students could work in groups to come up with the main points and could post their thoughts within a discussion board or homework activity.

• To emphasize the UBC Respectful Environment Statement, instructors have taken to creating classroom and communication etiquette policies with their students. It is an opportunity for you to share your expectations with students and for students to also share what would make their learning with you and their peers most inclusive.
• Given the online environment, it would be good to highlight aspects of Netiquette (online etiquette) as outlined in this document based on work by UTEP Connect, and the University of Florida.

• You could engage students in an online discussion/activity that builds community among the group. You could post a question in the chat box, discussion board, or within Canvas assignments and ask students to respond to:  What is one thing you want your prof to know about you?; Name one thing that went well for you during the transition to online learning and one thing that was challenging for you; and/or Write one thing you are looking forward to and one thing that is a concern for you right now.
• The following is an example of how Jennifer Klenz and Stella Lee used a virtual snowball fight in their online BIOL 234 course to get to know their students.