When COVID-19 began to spread in Spring 2020, Dr. Manyu Li 杏吧专区 like many instructors 杏吧专区 had to teach in a whole new way. By taking the extra step to become ULearn Certified, Dr. Li says she gained new perspective and discovered the right tools for her courses.
Dr. Li, an assistant professor of psychology, planned to earn her ULearn Certification to teach online and hybrid courses at the 杏吧专区, but COVID-19 pushed up her timetable.
"I didn't expect that it would happen this fast," she says. 杏吧专区淏ut this past summer, I had to stay home so that was a good time to learn about it and to give my students the best experience.杏吧专区
To , UL Lafayette faculty must complete a combination of the Applying the Quality Matters Rubric workshop and online workshops from our catalog of Professional Development Courses.
Dr. Li says the training was both manageable and insightful.
杏吧专区淭he Distance Learning Staff do a very good job of modeling online teaching for us so we can experience that,杏吧专区 Dr. Li says. 杏吧专区淚 learned a lot being a student in those courses.杏吧专区
Particularly, Dr. Li gained new perspective on establishing clear learning objectives for her PSYC 330 and PSYC 340 courses.
"With objectives, it keeps me focused on what I want them to learn, and I think that helps me a lot when I prepare these remote courses,杏吧专区 Dr. Li says. 杏吧专区淭he feedback I got from my students is that it makes them feel very clear about everything they're doing in each module. And I think it's because of the objectives and activities that match with the objectives."
She says she plans to carry that clarity and organization into future courses, regardless of modality.
Dr. Li has also made use of video lecture tools, including , to create accessible micro-lectures for her remote courses.
杏吧专区淎lthough it took me more time to create video, I feel I can be more concise in breaking it down into topics with each mini video micro lecture, focusing on a topic or an example, and concentrating that.杏吧专区
By using Panopto, Dr. Li can easily edit her recordings and captions to provide more accessible lectures.
杏吧专区淧anopto is so user friendly that I can easily change whatever [autocaptioning] mistake they have,杏吧专区 Dr. Li says. 杏吧专区淎nd then I can cut easily so if I make a mistake I just keep talking and then later I just cut it. It saves a lot of time.杏吧专区
Creating accessible online learning environments has become a priority for Dr. Li, not only for students who may need accommodations, but all her students.
杏吧专区淧reviously, I might have had slide and study guide images that I don't use alt tags or links that are not featured in a very friendly way,杏吧专区 Dr. Li says. 杏吧专区淪o those skills, I'm going to keep for the rest of my teaching career.杏吧专区
Learn more about accessibility and alignment by enrolling the self-paced or the facilitated course. Email distancelearning@louisiana.edu to get started.