Overnight Transition to Distance Teaching? GSA Members and Partners Provide Tips and Resources

By CEO James Appleby, BSPharm, MPH

Among the many ways GSA members are navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic is the almost overnight transition from a typical classroom environment to a virtual distance teaching format. Many GSA members are educators and the Society has mobilized to support their ongoing success.

On the GSA Connect online networking platform, people are using the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) section’s community to make the transition a little bit easier. Check out these threads: “Teaching Resources to Use, Share, and Build,” which features a list of resources prepared by AGHE’s Academic Program Development Workgroup, and “Tips for Transitioning to Online Teaching.”

I also encourage you to explore this post showing resources made available by Epigeum, which is affiliated with GSA’s long-time journal publisher, Oxford University Press. The courses available include “Teaching Online, “Blended Learning,” “University Teaching: Core Skills, Planning and Preparing Learning Activities,” and “University Teaching: Core Skills, Addressing Barriers to Student Success.”

If you’re not part of the AGHE community already, it’s easy to get access. GSA members who select a section as either their primary or secondary when updating their member profile are automatically added to that section’s community on GSA Connect. Members of other sections can choose to add themselves to any of the section communities that are not either their primary or secondary section. (Also note that in mid-March we created a new GSA Connect community specifically focused on COVID-19, and more than 70 posts have been made so far.)