Designing and facilitating remote, online learning

Although remote, online approaches to teaching and supporting learning may be new, familiar principles of good teaching still apply. Informed by Imperial teaching staff experiences and educational principles, we recommend approaches and technologies, and offer advice on how to apply them in your practice to meet your educational intent and your students’ learning needs.

Before getting started, it is important to acknowledge what’s happening around us: This is not a usual situation. Students are dispersed, and none of them are where they expected to be right now. They and their teachers may be working from improvised desks, with or without access to materials and resources or a good broadband connection. Some will be in a very different time zone. Many may have caring responsibilities or be stressed, anxious or sick themselves. None of us new to this planned to start online teaching in the middle of a global pandemic. Above all else the primary concern is for wellbeing and safety of the university community. For more information about the response from the College visit the COVID-19 updates and guidance page.

Please note that these guides occasionally refer to software packages that are unsupported by Faculty EdTech teams and ICT. Therefore, it is imperative that before you plan to use any software for teaching purposes you discuss your requirements with your Faculty EdTech team. They will be able to advise you of the support status of the software and, where necessary, will be able to suggest alternative supported software.