Faculty Resources

Resources: In the Event of a Positive COVID-19 Case

  1. Video Excerpt:  Attendance Policy and Missed Classes and Possible Exposure to COVID-19 in the Classroom
    Julie Kornfeld, PhD, MPH, Vice Provost for Academic Programs addresses the attendance policy and missed classes in the event of a positive COVID-19 case in the classroom (@ 22:37 minutes).
  2. Video Excerpt:  Contact Tracing and Notification and Communication
    Melanie Bernitz, Senior Vice President and Medical Director, Columbia Health provides an overview of the contact tracing and notification and communication process in the event of a positive COVID-19 case (@ 31 minutes).
  3. Document:  If You Test Positive for COVID-19 Through the Columbia Testing Program
    This document outlines the steps if you test positive for COVID-19 through the Columbia Testing Program. 

Ensure students can hear you
Since acceptable face coverings (see University guidance on PPE and Face Covering) may muffle sound, try to speak slowly, loudly, and enunciate your words. Coupled with the use of a classroom lavalier/lapel microphone (that clips to your collar) to amplify your voice, clearly articulating your words will help ensure that students will be better able to hear and understand you. CUIT-managed hybrid classrooms are equipped with wireless microphones available at the instructor podium. CUIT provides replacement batteries and podium keys through their Walk-in Center

Ensure you can hear your students and they can hear each other

  • Ask students to state their name and to speak loudly and enunciate when asking a question or answering a question.
  • Repeat student questions and summarize answers so everyone can hear them.
  • In those classrooms that can support additional microphones, you could amplify student voices by passing around a microphone to students who are asking or answering a question. Passing a microphone around the classroom falls within the campus health guidelines. Where possible, the CUIT Classroom Support team ([email protected]) will continue to expand classroom technology that is able to support the use of additional microphones.  

Provide real-time digital solutions to ensure every student has a voice 

  • Invite students to post questions during class to a classroom digital space such as a Google Doc, Zoom Chat, Ed Discussion, or CourseWorks Discussions, and to respond to their peer’s questions in the digital space. See the CTL’s resource From Online to Face-to-Face--Keeping What Works for strategies that promote student engagement in the face-to-face classroom.  
  • For large courses, if applicable, you can partner with your teaching assistant(s) or course assistant(s) to help make sure all students can be heard by asking them to respond to questions posted in the digital space, and to interrupt you to point to specific questions that should be addressed out loud for the whole class. 

Support student learning in a masked environment

  • Provide written notes or guides in CourseWorks to help students stay on track and follow along to ensure that they do not miss what you are saying. 
  • Invite students or groups of students to collaborate on note-taking to fill in gaps individual students may have missed (see the CTL’s Collaborative Learningresource for strategies). 

Set guidelines for interaction in a masked environment
Create an environment in which students are invited to let you (and/or your TAs, if applicable) know if they cannot hear what is being said in the classroom. Communicate the desired behavior (e.g., invite students to raise their hand, to wave, or interrupt if they cannot hear you or their peers). Additionally, if using Columbia-supported digital tools for real-time classroom interaction (e.g., Google Docs, Google Slide or Jamboard as a whiteboard, CourseWorks, Ed DiscussionPoll Everywhere), communicate expectations of your students (e.g., students will need to bring charged mobile devices to the classroom) and what they can expect of you and your TA(s) if applicable.  

Check-in with your students
Regularly ask your students how the classroom experience is going for them and if they have suggestions for improving the guidelines for interaction or creative solutions to in-person learning challenges. Collecting this feedback can be done through hand-polling, polling using Poll Everywhere, or an exit survey (e.g., using a Google Form). These feedback strategies can also be used to engage students and check their understanding. 

CUIT has created a webpage on Hybrid Classrooms that contains guidelines for using the new technology. 
 

The web page includes:

  • How to turn on your microphone sound

  • How to adjust the camera view of the classroom

  • How to begin the Zoom session

  • Recommendations for lecture and seminar/discussion classes

  • Recommendations for classes without in-person students

The CUIT Classroom Technologies Team will be available Monday–Friday from 8am until 8pm. For in-person assistance, please contact them at 212-854-3633. You may also request a training session on your classroom's technology by emailing [email protected].

Columbia's Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) partners with faculty, students, and colleagues across the University to support excellence and innovation in teaching and learning.

The CTL provides a range of free services including teaching consultations and observations, and educational technology training and support; programs and events, including workshops, orientations, and institutes, and the development of digital innovations in teaching and learning. The Center offers programs ranging from standalone workshops and workshop series to immersive multi-day institutes and semester-long seminar programs. 

Columbia’s learning management system, CourseWorks, is at the center of many instructional technology activities.  CTL provides CourseWorks support for content and improving pedagogy.  

CTL also has resources to support online and hybrid teaching,

All DEES faculty are appointed in the School of Arts & Sciences (A&S).  Three Divisional Deans (for Social Sciences, Humanities and Natural Sciences) exercise supervision of academic departments, research centers, institutes and other major units in their division. This includes faculty business that consists of searches, hires, leaves and retentions. They report to the Executive Vice President of Arts & Sciences, Amy Hungerford.

The website of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences provides information on various policies on tenure and promotion, leaves, research and teaching. It also includes resources on funding support, awards and fellowship submissions, junior faculty support and work/life benefits. 

The Faculty Handbook details the organization and governance of Columbia University. It is the rule book for academic and research appointments.

A new DEES course proposal requires the submission of a one-page rationale, a proposed course syllabus, and course description for the bulletin. Find details of this process on our How to Propose a New Course page. 

Please see this webpage from GSAS on effective practices and expectations for faculty mentors and doctoral advisees.