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Managing disruptions to teaching and learning

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Overview

This page provides guidance and support for managing disruptions to teaching and learning in line with government advice.

Short-term absences of individuals or localised groups are far more likely than systemic disruption. The resources below provide just-in-time information to navigate the scenarios most likely to arise.

We have collated some key resources below. If you can’t see what you need you can browse the full archive of resources.

Planning for the continuity of teaching

The central role of unit coordinators and other teaching staff is to maintain continuity of teaching. Wherever possible all teaching will remain consistent with the Unit description in Handbook. Take the following steps to plan ahead:

  1. Consider each learning activity

    Determine whether each will be:

    1. Taught by another staff member
    2. Provided online
    3. Postponed
  2. Prepare your teaching team
    1. Discuss contingency plans for each learning activity (see above).
    2. Identify teaching buddies for essential activities in both on-campus (e.g. labs, tutorials, clinical sessions) and online units. Check the buddies are added to the relevant CANVAS site.
    3. Check that staff are ready to use the Virtual Classroom if required. In Canvas this is Teams. If you plan to make recordings or content or demonstrations, see this guide for recording content using Panopto.
    4. Ensure the team is familiar with all the supports that they can refer students to. Explore the Support Services
    5. Take home key teaching equipment each day, including laptop.
  3. Prepare your students
    1. Post this message as the first Announcement in each unit site to provide reassurance that ECU is ready and able to manage any disruptions.

What to do if teaching is disrupted

In the event that teaching is disrupted, inform students of the disruption and the alternative arrangements. Use the following Teaching Disruption Scenario – Announcement Scripts as a guide. Advise students to closely monitor emails for updates on the return to normal teaching. In addition, include the following information where relevant:

  • Use intentional strategies to Monitor student engagement and Keep students engaged with their learning materials and assessment tasks.
  • Practical guidance for adapting teaching and assessment to an online environment will be provided depending on the nature of the disruption, including designing equivalent invigilated online tasks, maintaining learning outcomes, and ensuring assessment integrity. They help staff quickly implement suitable alternatives (e.g. online tests, discussions, video submissions) when in-person activities are not possible.
  • Respondus can be used in an online pivot to maintain academic integrity by locking down the assessment environment - preventing access to other websites, applications, or copying during quizzes. It can also record students via webcam using Respondus Monitor, allowing instructors to review behaviour and verify authenticity of assessment attempts.
  • Support diverse students with online learning This document provides some suggested strategies for ensuring that students with disabilities and diverse needs are provided with content and support suited to their needs. View the Access and Inclusion support page and the Access and Inclusion support for students page.
  • Point students to resources for learning successfully online, with links to the SLIDE and ECU Learning Online resources. You can use these Online study support slides for Unit Coordinators to share these messages.
  • Refer students to the Academic Skills @ ECU site or to an ECU Learning Advisor should they need support.

If you need to move learning activities online, help is available from the Centre for Learning and Teaching at elearningtraining@ecu.edu.au

Use the following resources as a guide:

Who are the teaching and learning support staff for my School?

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