The number of resources for high quality remote instruction is exploding. We’ve gathered just a few of the best, most appropriate resources for instruction and meeting design here. If you know of additional resources that would be helpful to include, please send links and a short description to downs@nceas.ucsb.edu.

Content Resources

Understanding research. This series of short (3-4 minute) videos was created by Visionlearning to introduce undergraduate researchers to the process of finding and working with a mentor, digging into literature, planning and undertaking a scientific study, and negotiating the scientific community.

Data Nuggets provides free activities, developed by scientists and teachers. Data Nuggets use science stories to bring contemporary research and authentic data to K-16 classrooms. Activities based on LTER data can be found at http://datanuggets.org/lter/.

DataSpire works with educators and administrators in grades 3-16 in informal and formal educational settings to work towards a more data- and science-literate society. They offer a series of mini-lectures and articles about how to teach data literacy and resources for finding suitable data to teach.

Techniques

The Mozilla Foundation has developed a variety of best practices for what they call “working open,” more conventionally described as effective collaboration. The techniques are pretty straightforward, but they are best learned in active practice.

A previous version of the course is available at The Open Leadership Series and they are about to launch a new version focused on Movement Building from Home. The free series runs from April 14-May 7, 2020.

The Chronicle of Higher Education put together a nice summary of 8 Ways to Be More Inclusive in Your Zoom Teaching. Lots of the techniques are also relevant for zoom meetings — whether you’re teaching or not.

Equity and inequity in the digital realm

In some contexts, technology is a great equalizer. Remote meetings make it possible for researchers from developing countries or those with caregiving responsibilities to participate in meetings that otherwise wouldn’t be an option for them. In other cases, the use of technology as a primary communication medium only exacerbates existing inequities. An April 2020 New York Times article explores which students are being left even further behind by remote instruction.

The National Alliance for Inclusive and Diverse STEM Faculty (ASPIRE Alliance) offers an extensive set of resources for how to teach and mentor equitably as we all adapt to virtual learning environments.