David Gaertner, Assistant Professor of First Nations and Indigenous Studies in the Faculty of Arts, specializes in Indigenous new media and in his teaching practice sees community as a verb rather than a noun. Gaertner has discussed the opportunities that digital projects and open practices offer to students to think outside the limitations of the classroom, engage in public dialogues with care and accountability, and interrogate cyberspace as a landless territory (Open Dialogues: How to engage and support students in open pedagogies and A landless territory: How do we articulate cyberspace within the discourse of Indigenous Studies?).

In the rapid transition to taking his courses online as a result of COVID-19, Gaertner wrote a blog post (#covidcampus) summarizing a few key principles and suggestions, including:

Make strategic choices about synchronous and asynchronous learning.
Be mindful of your students’ contexts, wellbeing and access to resources (including internet bandwidth).
Consider using asynchronous discussion groups and text-based break-out groups as accessible, low-barrier methods to sustain classroom community.

Dr. Gaertner also created a transition plan for his students, based on the rapidly changing circumstances of the time. The documents for FNIS 220 and FNIS 300, kindly shared by Dr. Gaertner, provide suggestions for ways that faculty can frame this conversation with their students.