Kiana Basiri

When Ryerson shifted to virtual learning in March 2020, Kiana Basiri redesigned her courses in a way that encouraged participation and communication.  

When the pandemic hit, Kiana was asked to think of different ways of establishing final grading for her courses. However, she was adamant on keeping group projects as part of her curriculum. This also meant that she had to facilitate her students in finding their groups and giving them enough time to work on projects together. 

To do this, she decided to break down the three hours of weekly classes into three parts. During the first hour, students were expected to watch pre-recorded lectures . The second hour was  a live meeting where she discussed the lecture material with her students and engage them in different activities. The third hour was reserved for group projects.

During this final hour of the class, groups were given time to meet in breakout room, which she would visit periodically. She also used the time to have one on one meetings with students. The meetings were voluntary and each student had the chance to talk to her for approximately five minutes. 

This method turned out to be so successful that Kiana  plans on applying it to in person classes when the time comes.