University at Buffalo (UB)
Empowering Instructors | Supporting Excellence
UB supports a variety of teaching methods, including remote (or online) teaching. The resources listed below will help you implement the best practices to ensure an equitable and comprehensive learning and teaching experience for all involved.
Remote teaching occurs outside of a physical classroom, and generally takes place online. Typically facilitated through technology, such as video conferencing software, discussion boards or learning management systems, instructors are separated from their learners in both time and distance. This type of teaching may be synchronous, where students watch instructors deliver their lectures live over streaming services such as Zoom, or asynchronous, where students watch lecture recordings at a later point in time.
Best practices for remote teaching include: providing ongoing feedback, making assignment guidelines clear, and making effective use of online resources.
When desiging and teaching a remote course, it is important to consider how not only the overall design of the course, but how the situational factors around learning, accessibility, and student motivation all contribute to a successful online teaching and learning experience. Another important step is to review and improve your course quality and accessibility with a course design rubric, such as the OSCQR Rubric.
When desiging and teaching a remote course, it is important to consider how not only the overall design of the course, but how the situational factors around learning, accessibility, and student motivation all contribute to a successful online teaching and learning experience. Another important step is to review and improve your course quality and accessibility with a course design rubric, such as the OSCQR Rubric.
| Course Design | Following a design process can help ensure course quality while reducing the time and effort it takes to develop a highly effective curriculum. |
| Situational Factors | Considering situational factors at the start of the design process can lead to more effective teaching choices that can positively impact students’ learning experiences. |
| Equitable and Inclusive Teaching and Learning | When designing courses with inclusivity in mind, they should reflect diversity of varying viewpoints, opinions and perspectives. To achieve equity within the learning environment and beyond, designing a course that creates an authentic environment and offers autonomy is intended to influence students’ success. |
| Unit Planning | Consider how you will build the structure of your units in your LMS. Follow the steps provided on this page to begin planning how you will build your units in UB Learns. |
| Building Accessible Content | Because of the diverse needs of your students, course content must follow certain formatting guidelines to be accessible to everyone. |
| Feedback | The types of feedback, their specific goals and levels of focus apply to all delivery modes and learning environments. Many educational technology tools help faculty provide feedback more efficiently, particularly in a hybrid and online course. |
| Group Work | Collaborative online learning activities allow students to support each other by asking critical questions and clarifying misunderstandings. Students can learn to listen thoughtfully and value the contributions of their peers. Using appropriate and intuitive technology tools helps create an engaging and supportive learning community. |
| Multimedia Learning | Multimedia learning describes learning through the use of pictures and words. Examples of multimedia learning include watching a PowerPoint presentation, watching a pre-recorded lecture or reading a physics textbook. |
| Student Motivation | Motivation is the drive or reason to do something. When teaching online courses, it is important to ensure students are motivated to complete coursework and participate. |
| The OSCQR Rubric | The SUNY Online Course Quality Review Rubric (OSCQR) is an openly licensed tool to assist instructors and instructional staff in reviewing courses for quality and effectiveness. It can be used both as a guide to enhance existing courses and to develop new ones. |
Teaching remotely, when utilized to its full extent, can be a positive experience for all involved. It can provide flexibility in learning, improve technology-related skills, and promotes autonomy and accountability in learning. UB has a wide range of software and third party add-ins that can be implemented in your remote course to ensure a successful semester.
| Course Tools | UB offers a wide variety of tools and software to enhance your remote course. This page helps in identifying and leveraging the right digital tools for your course. |
| Proctoring Tools | Proctoring tools can help minimize academic dishonesty during exams. Learn more about how Respondus LockDown Browser, Respondus Monitor and Zoom can help. |
| Instructional Video Production Resources | There are several university resources to help you record and edit instructional videos, such as Panopto, video recording equipment loans, and editing stations. |
| Cognitive and Technical Considerations | When creating content for instruction, several cognitive and technical best practices can improve your message. |
| Affordable & Open Educational Resources: Creating OER | Open educational resources (OER) are any teaching, learning, or research materials, in any format, that reside in the public domain, or are made available under an intellectual property license permitting free use or re-purposing for educational purposes. |
| UB Learns for Faculty | UB Learns provides faculty with an online environment to create, deliver and manage their course content, as well as monitor participation and assess performance among learners. This help website is a quick-start guide. |
| UB Learns Support | The Learning Management System Support website has additional information on the features and functionality of Brightspace, as well as training videos and workshops designed to help you create the most effective online learning environment for your students. |
When teaching remotely, accessibility practices and principles must be adhered to, to ensure every student has the opportunity to learn barrier free. This includes creating equitable and inclusive content, creating equitable an inclusive learning environments, and incorporating universal design into your instruction.
The University at Buffalo Office of the Registrar's policy on tracking course participation in all courses. In order to ensure compliance with financial aid regulations, the University at Buffalo must confirm eligibility requirements for each student at various times throughout the semester. When determining the proper grade to assign, faculty should consider whether and when students participated in any academically-related activities. For more information on how to grade participation, visit the Office of the Registrar's Participation Tracking page.
At the time of grade entry, faculty will be required to provide participation information for all students to whom they are assigning an F grade.
For more information, visit the Office of the Registrar's F-Grading Participation Tracking page.