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The College of Liberal Arts and SciencesUndergraduate Educational Policy and Curriculum CommitteeMinutesSeptember 17, 2020Attending: Roxanna?Curto; Kathryn Hall (staff); Alan Huckleberry; Erin Irish; Andrew Kitchen; Rebekah Kowal; Brian Lai; Cornelia Lang (Chair); Jennifer Rogers; Christine Shea; Shaun VeceraThe minutes from September 10, 2020 were approved as written.Cornelia Lang, Chair of UEPCC and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, announced that the last day for all undergraduates to drop a semester length course with a W (and without the Dean’s permission) will be on December 18. The usual date is in early November. Students will submit the drop form in the usual manner. The P/N choice in place of a final grade will not be an option. Instead, this late drop deadline has been instituted. Associate Dean Lang then told UEPCC members of these changes in the academic calendar, approved by the Iowa Board of Regents for all Regents’ institutions:Winter SessionThe Winter 2020 session begins Monday, Dec. 28, 2020 and ends on Friday, January 22, 2021 (i.e., lengthened by one week). Spring Semester?Spring 2021 will begin on Monday, January 25, 2021, with the last day of classes Friday, May 14, 2021. There will be no Spring Break in Spring 2021.Summer SessionsThe summer 2021 session will begin as scheduled on May 18, 2021.??Additionally, the Registrar has recently redefined course modalities for Spring 2021, as follows:Face to Face (F2F).Hybrid (Web, F2F) without students rotating through F2F experiences, i.e., the classroom assignment will be based on the total student enrollment in a course.Hybrid (Web, F2F) with students rotating through F2F experiences, i.e., the classroom assignment will be based on this subset of students coming to the classroom.Web, a combination of synchronous and asynchronous elements, but with each course assigned an online meeting schedule (day/time each week).Individualized Experience (by arrangement and may be F2F, Hybrid, or Web).UEPCC reviewed the Registrar’s deadlines for modality changes:The Offerings Planner will be open Monday, September 2 through Monday, October 5, 2020 until 11:59 p.m. for departments to update modalities. These must be entered by the time the planner closes. Please add descriptions to the Planner for course structure and components to help students choose courses if at all feasible.Classrooms will be assigned by the Registrar on Tuesday, October 6 through Thursday, October 29, 2020, with the planner closed for modality changes.Publication of the schedule is planned for November 1. Early registration for undergraduates will take place after Thanksgiving Recess.UEPCC next discussed a draft of CLAS guidelines from the optional UEPCC meeting for choosing modalities for Spring 2021. Hybrid courses provide a high level of structure, allowing students to have F2F experiences; at the same time, they also provide flexibility in the curriculum if and when needed to ensure safety. Courses offered in the hybrid mode can help undergraduates to stay involved and engaged, with some students needing this structure. Still, departments and instructors know what modality best fits a course and its audience, and faculty working with departmental leadership and with the unit as a whole must decide course modalities. Overall, choice is essential for instructors and students alike and is important for creating a positive classroom experience. This also allows for varied offerings at every course level, giving students choices. Some students prefer or need online courses, and this too must be kept in mind when deciding on course modalities. Likewise, it can be a smart strategy to schedule some sections of larger courses online and others in a hybrid or F2F modality, with seats added when there is a demand or as feasible. UEPCC also commented on the possible duration of the ongoing pandemic, which could continue for an additional year or two, and thus there could be an attendant and abiding need to continue experimenting with how to best offer undergraduate education in these circumstances. The overall health of the institution depends on this collective learning. Assuming that COVID-related concerns will continue, committee members commented that additional testing, as provided for athletes, would boost morale and safety for instructors, students, and staff while helping to reduce anxiety which interferes with both learning and teaching. Additional testing could also improve morale, supporting instructors, students, and staff as valuable members of the UI team. The committee hoped that the reputation of online courses could be improved and the assumptions people make about their inferiority to F2F modalities could be replaced by more accurate knowledge, especially as instructors continue to help students understand how to learn online. In fact, in the current COVID-dominated circumstances, virtual education can work best for some courses as well as for certain audiences, underlining the need to empower instructors through additional training and support, which is essential. A key CLAS goal is to provide a mixture of excellent offerings with a high level of student engagement in whatever modality is chosen. These choices must be made available across the curriculum, with opportunities for F2F components or with other tactics for student engagement at every course level. Likewise, DEOs must ensure that responsibilities for offering certain modalities are distributed equitably and do not fall to any one group of instructors. Additionally, face-to-face courses could have slightly smaller enrollment caps to ensure greater safety while online sections could add more enrollments, if feasible. The committee strongly recommended that current instructors ask students through an anonymous mid-term course evaluation what is working well and their recommendations for improvement.The final version of course modality guidelines from UEPCC for Spring 2021 are below.Spring 2021 Course Modalities: Guiding PrinciplesCLAS UEPCC RecommendationsSeptember 18, 2020?Guiding PrinciplesThe quality of an academic experience does not rest on course modality alone, and?neither in-person nor online instruction automatically results in a high level of student achievement or satisfaction.?Student agency and responsibility, the course?design, and the experience, dedication, and enthusiasm of the instructor all shape academic success.?Faculty members and their departments are experts in course content and the related pedagogy that increases student achievement and engagement. Thus, faculty should work in collaboration with their departments to choose the best modality for each course, with some content and instructors working better in one mode than another. Departments should also consider the students’ need for social and personal learning experiences when selecting course modalities.??Course Modality Options for Spring 2021Departments should offer a range of quality experiences for their courses from this list of options:?Face to Face.?Hybrid (Web, F2F) without students rotating through F2F experiences—i.e., the classroom assignment will be based on the total student enrollment in course.Hybrid (Web, F2F) with students rotating?through F2F experiences—i.e., the classroom assignment will be based on this subset of the total student enrollment in the course.Web—a combination of synchronous and asynchronous elements, with the course assigned an online meeting schedule (day/time each week).Individualized Experience (by arrangement—i.e., may be F2F, Hybrid ,or Web).?Additionally, course modalities may need to change if an emergency occurs for an individual instructor and as overall health and safety concerns evolve on the campus. The above recommendations will be relevant as CLAS plans for Spring 2021, Summer 2021, and potentially into the Academic Year 2021-2022.?Health and Safety ConsiderationsIt is imperative that students and instructors feel as safe as possible during F2F class meetings so that a positive learning environment exists. To this end, we recommend that the campus continue the following best practices:??Require students to self-report COVID-19 positive tests and exposure.Require instructors and students to use face coverings and social distancing at all times on campus and especially in the classroom setting.?In addition, we recommend that the campus consider taking the following measures so that instructors and students feel safer and more confident teaching in a F2F modality:??Expand COVID-19 testing on campus for students, instructors, and staff.Expand DEO/Instructor access to institutional level self-reporting data dashboards.Decrease density in classrooms further (as close to 6’ distancing as possible between students) to support safety for students and instructors.?Respectfully submitted,Rebekah Kowal Professor and DEO, Department of Dance Secretary for UEPCC ................
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