Technology Disruption Readiness Plan: A Best Practice for the Social Work Classroom

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on May 20, 2022 | 0 comments

In social work education, one lesson we can take away from the COVID pandemic has brought many lessons to social work education is to be ready when a crisis or disruption requires an instructor and students to quickly shift an entire course, a class session, or even an assignment. In today’s world, this typically means understanding when and how to adapt our learning environments to incorporate or adjust for digital technologies, both hardware (i.e., portable devices, laptops, WiFi access) and software (i.e., learning management systems). A social work educator can prepare for future disruption in their classroom by developing a course-level Technology Disruption Readiness Plan. Such a plan aims to thoughtfully and systematically think through how one will manage disruptions due to technology to the educational process and then share this information with students. This approach is recommended in the NASW Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice under Standard 4.06 Technological Disruptions, which focuses on what to do when technology fails with online teaching, such as a power outage or a laptop failure. It is easy to transfer this idea to other forms of educational disruption, including situations unique to an individual  (i.e., serious illness and military deployment) or community-level crises such as natural disasters. Further, the disruptions occur with instructors as well, and having a plan to hand off one’s class to another instructor can make the transition less traumatic for you and your students. 

There is no right way to establish a Technology Disruption Readiness Plan for your classes. Your institution may already offer guidance or have policies established – please check with your administrators, online learning specialists, and offices of disability services. Additionally, each learning environment is unique, so understanding the broader contexts of your students and the communities where you teach can be helpful. For example, you may teach in a rural community where WiFi access is spotty or easily disrupted. Finally, as an educator, you may have times when your own technology is offline or breaks down. Being prepared with backup technology or knowing how to communicate quickly with your students is vital in times of disruption. As you start thinking about your plan, here are some questions to consider:

• What are the possible situations for technology disruption? For example, think about field trips, a single class session, the entire course, etc.
• What would you do if your course data was lost or somehow compromised?
• What are alternative modes of communication?
• What are the resources to contact for assistance?
• Who can help me with this plan?
• Where, when & how is the plan shared?
• What are the institution’s policies that address technology disruptions? For example, consider inclement weather, disability services,  information technology,  and COVID policies.

Here are some things to include in your plan:

1. Have an alternative location for your course materials. Make sure you have backup copies of course materials that live outside of your learning management system, such as copies of PowerPoint slides, class readings, and hyperlinks to videos. These digital materials should be well-organized so that you can locate and share the content with your students in a timely manner.
2. Define and share your preferred channels of communication for your course. This should include communication between you and your class and ways for students to communicate with each other. Venues to consider include your institutional email system, social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Remind (FERPA compliant), video conferencing software, and even updating your outgoing voicemail greeting to include class updates. Make sure to include this information on your course syllabus. 
3. Consider the learning needs of students with disabilities. In their blog post about supporting students who are deaf, Beth Counselman-Carpenter and Matthea Marquart share how they planned for technology disruptions with live, online classroom sessions. 
4. Provide a list of institutional supports. For students, consider including contact information for such groups as the library, informational technology, your LMS help desk, disability services, and student affairs. You might even include a map of the local WiFi spots on campus. Include non-academic supports as well, such as the campus food pantry and student health services. For yourself, you might want a list with contact information for your colleagues and your human resources office. Make sure you have a hard copy of this list or can access it on your computer; do not rely only on your institution’s website.
5. Incorporate trauma-informed teaching and learning principles into your plan. Set regular times to check in with students or build choice into your plan, so students have options for how they complete assignments. See this helpful one-page handout on trauma-informed teaching and learning principles by Johanna Creswell Baez and her colleagues for more ideas. 

For more ideas to consider, please check out the Technology in Social Work Education: Educators’ Perspectives on the NASW Technology Standards for Social Work Education and Supervision, which offers other interpretations from 26 different social work educators.

Next, start by writing your plan down.   This doesn’t have to be complicated or even something you share with your students; instead, your goal is to have a written plan of what you will do when the technology used for your course is not working. For example, write down what you will do when there is a technology disruption for the following situations and any other that will affect your course:

• Individual assignments and learning activities, including exams
• A single class session
• The overall course
• Students with a technology disruption
• Your own technology disruption

Finally, think about how you will share and communicate with others about your technology disruption plan. Here are some possibilities:

• Include information in the directions for assignments. For example, if you have an online exam in your course, include information about what a student should do if the power goes out while taking the example.
• Have a statement on your syllabus. Here is some possible wording for your statement:
  • Technology Disruption:  The technology (i.e., Canvas) used to support learning in this course may be disrupted for various reasons: power outages, software glitches, internet outages, offline websites, etc. If Canvas is not available, students can access course materials here (Cloud Drive). In addition, suppose a student experiences disruption with their own technology, such as an internet outage or laptop crashing. In that case, they should reach out to the instructor as soon as possible, using the instructor’s preferred communication channels, to determine other possible accommodations.
• Have prepared statements for the signature line of your email, the out-of-office features of your email, or your outgoing voicemail message that you can use in the event of a disruption that affects the entire class. This is similar to notifications you might set when you are on vacation or traveling for work. 

After writing your plan and putting it into place, do not forget to monitor and update your plan. At the end of every semester or academic year, reflect on how your plan worked and if you need modifications. Additionally, think about ways to discuss and model technology disruption with your colleagues and administrators in your academic unit. They might have additional ideas for you. Further, by talking about this issue, you can begin to advocate for departmental or program-level policies, creating a culture of sensitivity to and consistency about technology disruptions in your social work program. 

What other things would you include in your Technology Disruption Readiness Plan?

How to cite this blog post:

Hitchcock, L.I. (2022, May 20). Technology Disruption Readiness Plan: A Best Practice for the Social Work Classroom. Teaching and Learning in Social Work. https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2022/05/16/technology-disruption-readiness-plan-a-best-practice-for-the-social-work-classroom/