Dear OSU Faculty,
We are writing with guidance on fall teaching, to remind you that OSU’s Keep Teaching team is hosting workshops to help faculty prepare for remote and blended instruction, and to announce a new program under development in the Center for Teaching and Learning to support peer mentors who will be available to assist their faculty colleagues with resources and strategies for teaching in remote and blended modalities.
Teaching Guidance. With input from faculty and the advice and endorsement of the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, we have developed general guidance for OSU course delivery this fall. Found here, the guidance summarizes sources of support, defines different modalities and associated expectations for instructors, and provides recommendations for effective instruction and in-person activities. We encourage everyone who is teaching this fall to be familiar with its content.
Workshops. The Keep Teaching Team has developed workshops that strive to equip you with valuable tools and strategies for:
The following Colleges have elected to gather faculty for a workshop that includes online pre-work and a synchronous meeting; you may RSVP for your college’s workshop online up to three days before the synchronous meeting (https://beav.es/4vy). Please note that the first three of the workshops have already occurred, but you can still register at the link provided and we will send you a link to the Canvas site with the workshop content and the meeting recording.
In addition to the college workshops, you may also attend modality-specific workshops that will dig into more specifics for different kinds of teaching scenarios. These workshops are open to all OSU faculty regardless of unit. Registration is available now (https://beav.es/4vm).
Finally, there are ongoing opportunities for 1:1 consultation with colleagues in the Center for Teaching and Learning (https://ctl.oregonstate.edu/webform/contact-us) and Academic Technology (https://beav.es/4vW).
Peer Mentoring. Details of this program are still under development and we will update the campus community in the coming weeks.
We know your efforts to prepare for fall come during a time of great uncertainty, considerable worry about the course of the pandemic and its impact, financial stringency for the university and temporary salary reductions. We greatly appreciate your extraordinary work to help meet our students where they are this fall under these challenging conditions. We hope these workshops and other activities and resources will ease your workload, reduce your stress, and assist with your planning and decision-making around course design and pedagogy as you prepare for the upcoming term.
Sincerely,
Edward Feser
Provost and Executive Vice President
Alix Gitelman
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education