An inclusive solution for teaching and learning R during the COVID pandemic

Access the live stream: https://youtu.be/DQSFOaFLI0M

The COVID pandemic has shaken our teaching and learning approaches in many different ways all over the world. Nonetheless, it has also provided opportunities for bringing creativity into the classroom. In this talk, I will discuss how I have used RStudio Cloud in my teaching during the pandemic and how I capitalized on the opportunities that RStudio Cloud offers to deal with the crucial issues of software installation. Introducing RStudio Cloud in the units has allowed me to work effectively in an online environment to engage, motivate and empower students through their learning process while removing the troubles and hurdles of software installation which is generally particularly challenging in first-year cohorts without prior coding experience. I used RStudio Cloud in a data science introductory unit at Monash University and as a tool to present the usage of R and RStudio for reproducible reporting in another unit on Reproducible and Collaborative Practises. In the latter, I introduced RStudio Cloud during the first few weeks to get the students up to speed before transitioning to using R and RStudio Cloud in their own local machines while using the command line interface, Git, and GitHub as a version control tool for reproducible reporting. I will also discuss how I organized and managed the unit's RStudio Cloud account so that my research associates were also an integral part of the unit delivery to ensure the success of the units.