Colleagues,
As you know, there is a high likelihood of teaching being online this Fall (a final determination has yet to be made).
That said, the university is still considering the possibility of teaching a limited number of very small courses on campus, should provincial guidelines allow for this possibility.
For this to happen, the following criteria would need to be met:
- Small class size, likely 15 students or less (or a class that can be broken up into small sub-cohorts)
- Appropriate physical space available to accommodate required social distancing (likely a room of capacity 50 or larger) and appropriate entry/ exit procedures
- Classes provide opportunity for students to master / demonstrate particular learning outcomes that are not easily provisioned for via online instruction
- Whole cohort is present and able to participate in instruction, or alternate instruction / arrangements provided for remote students so as maintain the quality of the cohort learning experience
- Faculty members willing and able to teach (ie risk of exposure)
- ‘Plan B’ for continuity of learning exists, if restrictions are tightened and class needs to move wholly online
For scheduling purposes, we would like to get a sense of how many Fall term classes could potentially be taught in-person. To that end, could you let me know if you think your class(es) can meet the above criteria, and if you would be willing to teach in-person (please ignore the second bullet – we will think through that one). If so, please also let me know how frequently the class would meet and for how many hours (on a weekly basis).
Apologies for the quick turnaround, but if possible, could you please send me your responses by end-of-day Wednesday? I will take no response to mean that your class(es) cannot meet these criteria.
Many thanks,
Rob
