As you probably know by now, in mid-March post-secondary institutions across North America moved courses online to protect students, faculty and staff from the spread of COVID. Every university handled this process a little differently, and how professors chose to transition their class to an online format varied.

I think that from both a teaching and learning perspective there is a big difference between a class that is designed from the start to be taught and taken online and an offline class that has to be moved online due to unforeseen circumstances. In addition, for both professors and students, the transition to an online learning environment was also impacted by other factors. Among other things, I had students living in residence that were required to move, students from other countries trying to get back home before borders closed up, and students dealing with other effects stemming from the virus (including loss of employment, sick loved ones, and even children or siblings home from school that they had to care for).

I took all of this into consideration when transitioning my course to a virtual environment. Let me walk you through what I did!