In 2020, the College of Business and Economics responded to the challenges facing the ANU in pivoting to online education, both in Online by Design and Emergency Remote teaching, by convening the Remote Teaching Working Party.
As part of our remit, we produced a Recommendations Brief for our colleagues through evidence based evaluation of education standards, student and staff feedback, ANU data, and our own teaching expertise.
As a member of the Remote Teaching Working Party, and as a member of the Research School of Management’s Semester 2, 2020 Teaching team, I decided to practice what I preached. After all, a policy is only as good as the implementation.
The Guide is a short manual of ways to meet the requirements of the Remote Teaching Working Party – Recommendations so that we’re all starting from a common shared resource. In the name of academic freedoms, we’re all able to pursue our own course designs, and meet the needs of our pedagogy as we see fit, because that’s the ANU way.
To support you in the pursuit of teaching in Semester 2, I prepared a guidebook of basics, minimums, and threshold standards, borrowing from the philosophy of the Australian Business Dean’s Council Learning Standards. These recommendations are based on threshold task principle – minimum standards that anyone can perform, and everyone is free and encouraged to go above and beyond the threshold as suits their needs, course requirements, skill set and personal preferences. It’s a literal test of practicing what I preach – this is how I’m dealing with the recommendations from the RTWP Manual I helped write, so it’s also a little more informal than usual – it’s my experience, documented for our benefit.
As always, the aim of a guide like this is to give you a baseline to start from – it’s not about restricting what you can do, it’s about being the rising tide to lift all boats. If you need an assist with anything in the guide, not sure what I was saying, or have feedback, reach out and chat – @stephendann on the social media, stephen.dann@anu.edu.au, or contact me across Teams.