Faculty Resource Center for Online Teaching: How To Support Faculty During Emergency Remote Teaching and Beyond

Presented by:

• Jennifer Kienzle, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Online Learning, City College of San Francisco
• Alex Hosmer, Senior Trainer, City College of San Francisco

Speaker Bio:

• Jennifer Kienzle, Ph.D., served as DE Coordinator from early 2020 to late 2022, then switched over to administration as Associate Dean of Online Learning. She have always been furiously passionate about online environments and communities thrive in online spaces. Her Ph.D. is in Interpersonal and Intergroup Communication, specializing in how emerging media impacts identity and message construction in anonymous spaces. Jennifer’s goal as Associate Dean is to improve online paths for students and to continue to provide faculty with the best online training resources we can provide.
• Before coming to CCSF in the Fall of 2017, Alex taught ESL for 25 years. As a teacher, he enjoyed working with students and supporting their learning through the innovative use of technology. What started as an interest in using technology with my students developed into managing an LMS to support student language learning for all ESL students at my university and training other faculty/staff to use educational technology to enhance their teaching. At CCSF, in his role as Senior Trainer in the Educational Technology Department,  Alex continues to help instructors use an LMS more effectively with students.

Session Info:

The Faculty Resource Center (FRC) is a Canvas project that provides and promotes online and remote teaching resources for all faculty on campus. Because most faculty have moved to some form of online or remote teaching since March 2020, the demand for resources and support has skyrocketed. In this session, we will cover: (a) topics covered in the FRC, (b) how various departments and offices across the college have contributed to the FRC, (c) how communication is managed to and from faculty in the FRC, and (d) lessons learned from using the FRC since 2020. The FRC is an ongoing interdepartmental collaboration led by the Office of Online Learning. Topics covered include accessibility, equity, regular substantive interaction, noncredit specific material, course setup, library resources, using Zoom, and federal and state guidance on distance education. We presented information utilizing a homepage with direct links to the most used areas of the FRC. We also chunked material using modules and page chunking. Faculty can easily communicate with others right in the Canvas shell by contributing to the Q&A forum, setting up individual appointments, and joining live webinars. The FRC support staff also utilize the announcements tool to set up recurring weekly announcements that highlight major topics, upcoming webinars, and remind faculty how to connect with others for assistance and collaboration. We have learned many lessons about what worked and what needs adjustment in the FRC. We will discuss how we managed communication with faculty and information overload. Based on survey data, we know that faculty desired more guidance in video creation and reaching their students. We will share how we plan to utilize the FRC post-pandemic as faculty slowly return to in-person classes yet continue to use Canvas as a place and toolset to enrich student learning.

Session Outcomes:

• Identify different types of faculty support material for online and remote teaching.
• Recognize at least one successful tip for presenting faculty support material for online and remote teaching.
• Identify different communication strategies to connect with faculty regarding online and remote teaching.

Session Resources:

Faculty Resource Center KIENZLE