A lesson is not just what happens during your time in-class together, but also what pre-class work students do and after-class work students do. You can build on top of preparatory pre-class work to make a richer in-class experience for students. After-class work can help students synthesize and solidify the content for the lesson. Linking all three—pre-class, in-class, and after-class—helps you build a complete learning experience for students. Along with providing feedback on student work, lessons are your most direct way to engage your students in learning.
Planning lessons is done throughout the term. The actions to take section is divided into what you need to do when building your course and what you can save for preparing each lesson.
Actions
to Take
(Building
Your Course) | - Sketch a timeline (or make a calendar) for when different topics will be studied during the term. Reflect back on your plans for assignments to arrange content and skill practice to fit in with your planned schedule for assignments.
- Determine what pre-class work will allow students to come to class prepared. This work could be regular (e.g. daily reading) or sporadic (e.g. preparing rough drafts of essays for peer review).
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Actions
to Take
(For Each
Lesson) | - Set an agenda for each class session. Share the agenda and lesson-specific learning objectives with students at the opening of a class. Provide sign-posts in your lesson when moving between agenda items.
- Interleave active learning methods within segments of lecture. Research shows gains in learning and student satisfaction when they are given time to reflection on, discuss, and apply ideas introduced in class.
- Wrap up each class session by reflecting back on your agenda.
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Questions
to Consider | - What pre-class assignments or activities can you assign to help your students come to class prepared? Asking student to voluntarily do pre-class reading may not be as effective as asking your students to complete an assignment based on the reading.
- What post-class assignments or activities can you assign to help solidify your student's learning for a class? For example, consider an exit ticket as described on our student engagement techniques page.
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Rather than re-explaining a concept to your students from their pre-class reading, why not let them practice explaining it to their neighbors? After laying out evidence all class, could students spend a few minutes writing about the conclusion they would draw from it instead of listening to your conclusion? Both are examples of active learning – letting students do things and think about the things they are doing. Research shows that active learning activities greatly support student learning and UO students agree!
One method, discussions, are an essential space for learning and community, one where all students ideally feel they belong and actively contribute. But they don't always live up to this aspiration. Effective discussion—the kind that invites all students in--is intentional, relational, and transparent. Active learning is a great way to build community within your class!
Consider these two quotes from UO students. Which you would rather hear your students say about your course?
“The professor is kind and wants to make sure we all understand by asking us questions, doing polls, and working to understand what we are having trouble with.”
“I believe this class if possible can become more of a discussion with students rather than just slides”
Actions
to Take | - For each class session, choose a few activities for students to do during you class. These don't need to be assignments turn in for a grade, just something that gives students a chance to pause, think about the content, and apply it to answer a prompt. Our page on student engagement techniques offers many types of activities you can choose from.
- Use transparent design for in-class activities. You can simply state the elements when introducing students to the activity, write them on lecture slides while students work on an activity, or include them as part of a digital or printed activity's instructions.
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Questions
to Consider | - If your student tells a friend what they did in your class that day, how would they describe it?
- Are your in-class activities supported by pre-class work, material from earlier in the term, or concepts from prerequisites?
- How does how your teaching style, class size, and classroom environment might lend themselves to different types of activities?
- Are your activities transparent—have defined learning goals, instructions, and criteria for students to judge their success?
- Can students earn credit for their work? Are they graded on it? How do they get feedback on their performance?
- How do your active learning techniques support later assignments in the course? How do they help students prepare for later evaluations?
- Are students comfortable working in groups? Do they need support or a structure to organize around?
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Universal Design is an approach to designing environments (whether physical, digital, instructional, etc.) so that they can be accessed by all, "to the greatest extent possible," without requiring individual modifications. Humans are variable--there is no "average"--and it is both possible and desirable to design for our variability. Adopting practices that support disabled and/or neurodivergent students help improve the learning experience for all students.
Consider these two quotes from UO students. Which you would rather hear your students say about your course?
“The subtitles and audio transcript that is available when the instructor uploads lecture videos has been extremely helpful. As someone with ADHD, this helps me to write my notes and keeps my focus better.”
“I would have loved to see captions on the lectures as this is an online course. As someone with auditory processing issues, I really struggled at times to understand course material.”
Actions
to Take | - When creating digital course materials (such as documents, slides, or Canvas pages), build in digital accessibility from the start. To learn how to make your online content accessible, take the take the Digital Content Accessibility Training. Making content accessible from the start takes much less time that trying to fix it afterwards.
- View your Pope Tech dashboard in Canvas to help you find and correct accessibility issues in Canvas pages. Learn how in our Pope Tech Dashboard and Accessibility Guide.
- Follow student accommodation letters from the Accessible Education Center (AEC) and if you're concerned about how to implement the accommodation or about the student's use of it, contact AEC right away. While individual accommodations are different than universal design, both are needed, and AEC accommodations are part of a legally-protected process under civil rights laws.
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Questions
to Consider | - Do you have a sense of the percent of incoming undergraduates who have disabilities (46.5%) or the most common disabilities? If not, review the results of Student Wellbeing and Success Initiative (SWaSI) survey from the Division of Student Life's Assessment and Research page.
- What implicit requirements--ones that aren't connected to learning objectives--might be embedded in your course activities and assignments? For example, to participate in class, would students usually need to be able to read a low-contrast PDF scan; be able to swiftly hear, comprehend, and recall discussion questions the instructor says once, aloud; be able to sit/stand repeatedly or raise one's hand and keep it up for an extended time as part of participation?
- What's one thing you can add to an activity, assessment or other component of your course that would give students one more way to get there? For example, writing down discussion questions in addition to saying them aloud, asking people to participate by standing or raising their hand. Making incremental changes is real progress.
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The university offers a lot of avenues of support for students. Many students know of them, but not all do. You are a great resource to help connect students with resources on campus and also to normalize and encourage seeking support. One example of taking a universal design approach to this would be to remind your class, both at the beginning of the term and midway through the term, where they can find student resources (such as by pulling up the One Stop Student Resource page in class), and to frame seeking support when needed as a practice that's important for success.
Consider these two quotes from UO students. Which you would rather hear your students say about your course?
“I felt that I was put in a very uncomfortable situation in terms of disclosing my disability related barriers. There were multiple times that I had missed class (almost all of which were because of my disability) and I felt that they didn't quite understand how accommodations work.”
“I have accommodations through the AEC, and this instructor is the first instructor in 2 years who actually made an effort to make the classroom accessible to me.”
Actions
to Take | - Build a page in Canvas outlining academic support resources for your students including your office hours, study groups, department resources, and campus offices. Consider also including well-being resources. Try our Student Support and Wellbeing resource that you can import into Canvas and our Course Canvas Templates have pre-made support pages for you update with your course information.
- Learn how to log into and use AEC Connect. Once your classes begin, it will have accommodation letters submitted by your students for your class. Reach out to AEC for support in implementing accommodations if needed.
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Questions
to Consider | - Does your home department or unit offer study groups, help sessions, or other resources for students taking courses in your discipline?
- If a student expresses struggling with anxiety or depression, do you know where to suggest they go for support on campus?
- What support does UO offer for students to purchase course materials, have enough food to eat, or prevent eviction after missing rent payments?
- How is your course structured to help students still succeed in your course if they miss time due to illness or to care for an ill loved one?
- Are there common accommodations that you could build into your course for everyone?
- How will you share accommodation information with other members of your teaching team?
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Support
Resources | - The One Stop Student Resource page highlights resources across campus to support students in a very wide variety of ways. Share the page with students to remind them of all the support available to them.
- Review our Student Well-being Toolkit which is grounded in data about the impact of student well-being on learning and academic success. It supports instructors in applying doable well-being practices in their teaching in support of learning goals.
- The student-facing University Course Policies page includes information on student well-being and campus student support. While it is automaticlaly linked in call Canvas sites, we encourage faculty to show it to students and be famiilar with its content.
Our page on Trauma Informed Pedagogy (TIP) offers definitions and context, why it might be useful and tips for implementing it in your classroom. - A list of common accommodations from the AEC website.
- Our page on Illustrations of AEC Guidance highlights AEC guidance to commonly posed questions about accommodations.
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