General Resources

There are thousands of resources out there about virtual/blended/flexed instruction. Here a few that we found useful. Please note that we’ve also included links to many of the workshops that have taken place at W&L!

7 Guidelines for Effective Teaching Online

This article is from a few years back and asks four scholars who’ve authored books about online instruction for their top tips. It’s a quick and informative read, offering some ideas that might also apply to face-to-face instruction.

A Broad Range of Materials

Assembled by the Great Lakes College Association/Global Liberal Arts Alliance, this link covers everything from course design to assessment and assignment design to syllabus planning to using Zoom. Feeling like a beginner (and all of us do, sometimes)? This might be the place to start.

Creating Experiential Courses in a virtual environment, Part 1

This site covers fields in every discipline, and gives examples of how research can be crowdsourced online.

Creating Experiential Courses in a virtual environment, Part 2

This site states explicitly that it’s for the humanities, but the ideas here–visualizing complex subjects, curation, question roulette, learning through teaching, etc.–are powerful learning tools in all fields. I would strongly encourage faculty to give the practices here some careful consideration, when they have the time.

Five Low-Tech, Time-Saving Ways to Teach Online During COVID-19

A short article by Flower Darby.

Finding and using open sources

This resource, from Emily Cook, explores ways to ensure that our students have access to the materials they need when taking our courses.

How to Recover the Joy of Teaching After an Online Pivot

This piece by Flower Darby in many ways is applicable to online instruction in every situation.

Online Pedagogies Repository

Created by the University of Central Florida, this repository organizes resources by Content, Interaction, and Assessment.

Online Teaching Toolkit

This site, developed by the Association of College and University Educators, gives useful advice and resources on setting up your course, developing a sense of community, and communicating effectively.

The Pandemic Pedagogy Handbook

A UK Historical Society provides tips on inclusion, community-building, lecturing, providing feedback, and much much more. Applicable to a variety of classes.

Seven Questions for a Pandemic (Or Any Other Time)

Mathematician Francis Su’s brilliant essay. A must-read, seriously, for any field.

SMALL TEACHING ONLINE

Flower Darby’s online workshop entitled “Small Teaching Online: Practical Strategies to Enhance Learning in Online Environments”. In this session, she covers eight tips–most of them fairly easily implemented–for deepening student learning. If you can spare the hour or so, it’s worth a look.

Spring Term Course Design Workshops at W&L

Four videos and related powerpoint from our pre-Spring Term workshop on how to put together an experiential course. Particular topics include:

Creating Effective Course Goals;
Structuring Our Courses;
Building Community; and
Managing the Course to Maintain Our Sanity.

Student perspectives on what makes virtual instruction work

This short article is invaluable in helping guide our work in the virtual classroom.

W&L Summer Academy Workshops

All of the recordings and resources from W&L summer workshops.

Resources

About Us

Faculty and Staff

Stay in the Know!

Sign up to receive our faculty newsletter!

Get helpful advice—like practical classroom tips, upcoming events, professional development resources, and more!—delivered directly to your inbox.