Thanks COVID-19, but you can leave now…

As it did for all teachers, starting mid-March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic changed how I interacted with the learners in my courses and the learning environment I was able to provide for them. Although different each successive semester, these changes carried forward through spring 2021. In the following paragraphs, I briefly describe the pandemic's impact on my teaching and the pedagogical changes I made each semester.

General themes

There were a few overarching themes during the last year that are not specific to any one semester. During this time, I recorded a higher percentage of incompletes for learners, especially for the spring 2020 semester. All students ultimately completed the course work in a timely manner. I discovered the possibility of conducting “office hours” via Zoom, as opposed to meeting with learners in my physical office on campus. This opened up the possibility of being much more flexible about my availability to offer help, as I could do it from “anywhere.” This is something I carried forward, even after distancing restrictions were lifted. I have become much more compassionate and considerate of learners’ life circumstances. One example of this is providing flexible due dates for assignments and projects. I also had a higher percentage of learners absent than usual, due to illnesses and their need to quarantine after being in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID. I accommodated them with a more flexible attendance policy. I discovered that Zoom breakout rooms are a reasonable substitute for small group discussions in the classroom, and that they are even better when I use the random room assignment to mix up discussions..

Spring 2020

With Ball State’s pivot to emergency remote learning (due to the pandemic) effective March 16, 2020, I suddenly shifted from teaching four face-to-face, in-person courses, to having all of them online. Although I had previously taught a few sections of CS 110 (Introduction to Computer Science and Web Programming) asynchronously online many years prior, this was a substantial change in course delivery for me.

I decided to meet synchronously with my three sections of CS 120 (Computer Science 1) via WebEx each Monday during the normally scheduled class time to orient the learners and make sure they understood what I expected of them for the week. I quickly learned that—because of my use of a flipped learning environment—this course would transition fairly well to emergency remote learning. The class time previously consisted of learners working in pairs to complete a programming task (with myself and teaching assistants present to answer questions), so they were already used to working somewhat independent of direct instruction from me during class time. I recorded very brief videos introducing each remaining activity (which I made available through Canvas, our learning management system), that replaced what I would have delivered in person at the start of class. I also transitioned the in-class chapter quizzes and exams to quizzes/exams in Canvas. Normally, these would have been closed-book, but since I had no reasonable way to enforce that, I chose to make them open-book, but timed-limited. I’m sure a few learners benefited from the open-book policy, but I did not observe a significant increase in exam grades.

My HONR 296 (Computer Science and Algorithms to Live By) course was a bit more challenging to transition, due to half of the time previously being discussion-based and the other half hands-on activities during class time, usually in small groups. I chose to meet with the learners synchronously via WebEx each week for half of the class time to facilitate discussion and provided detailed written instructions for them to follow on their own to perform what would have normally been the in-class activities. All things considered, this worked fairly well, given the circumstances.

In all courses, there was a very small number of learners who were not able to meet with the class during the scheduled synchronous meetings. I made accommodations, as needed, for these learners. I also made myself very available for online “office hours” via WebEx, meeting with learners whenever they had a need, provided it fit in my schedule, which it generally did. I received comments from many students that my courses had transitioned the best of any of the courses they were taking that semester.

Summer 2020

BSU required all summer courses be taught online during 2020, with the expectation that they would be delivered asynchronously. I requested that I be able to teach CS 222 (Advanced Programming) synchronously online and was granted a waiver to do so. I had concerns about how the course would translate to online delivery and considered the synchronous online delivery to be as close to in-person, on-campus delivery as possible. As it turned out, due to the heavy use of small group activities (which translated into breakout rooms reasonably well) and scheduled team work days, this approach worked better than I expected.

Fall 2020

During the fall semester, I taught two section of CS 222, my immersive learning course (Computer Science for Muncie (and Surrounding) Schools (CS4MS+)), and HONR 296. I taught both sections of CS 222 synchronously online (again, I had to request for a waiver to do so), while the other two courses were taught in-person on-campus. Since I had taught CS 222 synchronously online during the summer, I simply made some minor adjustments to my delivery of the course, based on my summer experiences. Even though CS4MS+ and HONR 296 had social distancing requirements in the classroom, instructional spaces were available for me to use so that the entire class could meet at the same time. I made minor adjustments in delivery of these two courses so that learners could maintain social distancing requirements.

Starting fall semester, the university provided us access to Zoom, as well as WebEx. I chose Zoom moving forward.

The major impact the pandemic had on the courses I taught fall semester was that the CS4MS+ learners were not able to physically meet with the community partner teachers and students. Although not ideal, we managed fairly well utilizing Zoom meetings to meet with the school administration and teachers but did not have any opportunities to interact with the students.

Spring 2021

Similar to the previous semesters, spring 2021 continued to bring changes. I taught two sections of CS 120, two sections of CS 239 (Social and Professional Issues), CS4MS+, HONR 296, and mentored an Honors College learner on their honors thesis. All courses were taught in-person, on-campus, with the exception of the honors thesis and HONR 296, which was delivered asynchronously online at the request of the Honors College administration. Similar to fall semester, instructional spaces were available to accommodate all learners in the course at the same time.

So the room could be utilized at its normal capacity, we installed clear protective barriers between the computer work spaces in the room where CS 120 met. Normally, CS 120 heavily utilizes pair programming, where two learners share one computer to develop solutions to daily in-class activities, but this was not feasible with COVID protocols. I still had the learners work in pairs, but on separate computers. Thus, it was more of a consultant role than pair programming, but still seemed to work acceptably well.

I normally use small group discussions in CS 239 and was pleased to find the learners could still hold discussions even while maintaining the appropriate distance from each other. Once again, the CS4MS+ learners were not able to physically meet with the community partner teachers and students, although they did arrange for a few Zoom presentations with some of the middle schools’ students during their classes.

HONR 296 was the major change for spring semester, as it was the first time I delivered the course asynchronously online. Since I finished HONR 296 online during spring 2020, I had previously reworked a few of the in-class activities. I updated the rest of them so that they could be completed individually, or with roommates or family members, etc. I also shifted what would have been in-class discussions to Canvas discussion boards. Not being able to have the learners present their final projects to the rest of the class is my only major disappointment. In retrospect, I could have had each learner record (audio or video) their presentation and shared the recordings with all other learners. I believe the course is better taught in-person in a classroom, but the asynchronous online delivery worked much better than I expected it would. I am willing to teach it in that modality again, if needed.

In summary…

The last year of teaching has been an interesting, tiring, exciting, and learning experience. I did not experience any failures but did discover a few things I could do better if I were to do them again. Not that I want to experience another year like I just did, but I am thankful to have had the opportunity to learn from it.

Were it not for the fact that I had to do some things differently, I likely would not now know that holding office hours via Zoom is very viable, and perhaps even better than sitting in my office waiting for learners to show up. Nor would I have realized that I can deliver a course online by using breakout rooms to facilitate what would have been small group discussions in the classroom. I was forced to further explore the use of Canvas discussion boards and modules and now understand their use and worth, especially for asynchronous on-line courses, but have thoughts about how I can use them in other modalities as well.

But the most significant impact the pandemic had on me is that I am now a much more compassionate and understand human being, teacher, and mentor, and am willing to try to better understand the life experiences of my learners so I can do what I can to make the learning environment more equitable for them. So, thanks COVID-19 for changing me. But you can leave now. Please!

What was your experience teaching during the last year? Share them in the comment area below. 

P.S. The above photo is a picture I took of my office the last day I was on campus in March 2020, before being exiled to my home. I used it for my Zoom virtual background to make it look like I was sitting in my office. It was one small way I could provide a bit or normalcy for those I was meeting with, although it did confuse a few people who know that I should not be in my office at the time. Included in the picture is the container of lemonade mix I mentioned in my Of lemons and lemonade on Friday, the 13th of March, 2020 post.

The teacher becomes the learner: Reflections and wrap-up

Concluding my intentional path to explore what I can learn to become a better teacher in a remote synchronous online learning environment, here's part 6 of 6. I participated in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) sponsored by the Division of Online and Strategic Learning of Ball State University. I have periodically posted my reflections in this blog to document my progress, and to serve as a resource for a future me, as I come back to review these posts. Perhaps there will be something of use for other readers that aren't me.

Module 6: Reflections and wrap-up

This module focused our reflection on our experiences during the fall semester. The following reflections summarize my experiences and observations.

At the start of the semester…

I felt pretty comfortable and ready to teach remote synchronous classes. Having finished spring semester, and then summer semester teaching in remote synchronous modality, I was not a newbie at the start of fall semester. Zoom was something new, as I had been using WebEx previously. Although I had participated in many Zoom meetings during the spring and summer, I had not initiated or hosted those meetings, so there were a few things to learn.

Now that the semester has completed, I feel…

I had a very successful semester teaching two sections of what is usually a very challenging course for most learners--CS 222, Advanced Programming--in a remote synchronous mdaility. This was the same course I taught in the summer, and both semesters it seems to have translated well to remote synchronous modality. I do believe it is a bit better taught in a physical classroom, but it worked better than I thought it might when I was preparing to teach it last May.

After reviewing and reflecting on the course evaluations learners provided at the end of the semester my perceptions of a good semester were affirmed. In fact (assuming you believe there is merit in these evaluations), the combined "overall rating of instructor" I received for my two remote synchronous courses (two sections of the same course) were higher (4.6 out of 5) than when I taught the same course a year ago in a classroom (3.6 out of 5). I believe the learners may have been a bit forgiving of the circumstances in which we all found ourselves. I also wonder how much of the difference was that I was teaching in a remote synchronous modality, as opposed to the rest of their courses being asynchronous modality. Maybe I was the lesser of two evils, and looked good, by comparison!

I struggled…

My biggest challenge was building community within the class. This course heavily uses group projects for most of the semester. My sense is that most of the groups formed a community, but the full class, not so much. Due to most of the learners leaving their cameras off, I do not know what most of them look like, and thus will not recognize them when I see them in the future. This will be interesting during future semesters. I have always struggled to learn names but am decent at remembering faces. If I have a learner from this semester in a future course, I will likely not recognize them, nor know their name!

I was pleasantly surprised…

The use of Zoom breakout rooms can actually be better than small group discussions in a classroom due to the ability to randomly assign learners to a room, and thus have learners talk with different people. In a classroom, learners are not likely to get up and walk across the room to talk with a “stranger”. A downside is that for short discussions it is not possible for me to visit all of the rooms, while I could easily walk around a classroom and hear their discussions.

I was able to use the chat window before class started to have learners respond to a “fun” prompt in an attempt to build community. Sometimes the prompt was related to the course, but most of the time it was not. This was a substitute for me talking with a few learners while we waited for the start of class. I will have to think about how I might replicate that in a classroom, but it did generate some interesting interactions amongst the learners.

The ability to meet learners using Zoom meant that I did not have to be in my campus office, yet could still meet with them. This provided for very flexible meeting times for both me and the learners.

Some observations...

I should pay attention to the following when teaching in a remote synchronous modality (although it won't hurt to do it for all modality).

• Intentionally work to build community
• Extra communication and feedback is critical
• Be flexible
• Expect the unexpected

The impact moving forward…

I do not think there is much I will do differently the next time I teach in remote synchronous modality. I do think I will continue holding many of my office hours virtually regardless of my modality of teaching, however. I also think any changes I made to make the course better for remote synchronous modality will be left in place, as they should make an on-campus version of the course better as well.

And the bottom line is…

I will seriously consider teaching in a remote synchronous modality in the future. I still firmly believe courses taught in-person, in a classroom provide the best learning opportunity for most learners. However, remote synchronous learning provides a close substitute, and does provide the opportunity for learners (and the instructor) to attend class without physically being present on campus. A year ago, I would not have believed this course would translate to an online modality as well as it did. I believe the course being taught synchronously, as compared to asynchronously, made the difference. Thanks to COVID-19, I had the opportunity to find out.

The teacher becomes the learner: Self-care

Continuing my intentional path to explore what I can learn to become a better teacher in a remote synchronous online learning environment, here's part 5. I am participating in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) sponsored by the Division of Online and Strategic Learning of Ball State University. I will periodically post my reflections in this blog to document my progress, and to serve as a resource for a future me, as I come back to review these posts. Perhaps there will be something of use for other readers that aren't me.

Module 5: Self-care

This module focused on our self-care. The following notes summarize what I gleaned from the module.

From Self-Care Strategies for Faculty: How to Care for Yourself & Others During COVID-19 (Hitt, 2020), I gleaned these practices for mental, physical, and spiritual health.

• Mind
• Limit unnecessary screen time
• Journal, write, blog
• Comforting workspace
• Be creative
• Body
• Stay hydrated
• Healthy snacks
• Exercise
• Spirit
• Meditate
• Spend time in nature
• Connect to community organizations

 Other things to consider from COVID-19: Resilient Educator Toolkit.

• Stay calm
• Be informed
• Self care
• Stay healthy
• Create a plan—routines
• Maintain balance
• Stay motivated
• Think positively
• Embrace change
• Move forward

A step in time…

When I was in my twenties and thirties, I enjoyed jogging. Then, for a few years, I didn't exercise much. For the last decade, I've taken up speed-walking. My goal for the last five years has been to walk at least as many miles as the year number. That means for this year I need to walk 2020 miles to meet my goal, or 35-40 miles per week. 

 

When COVID19 hit in mid-March and the recreation center closed, I didn't do as much walking as I was used to. I missed it, but not enough to convince myself to go outside and walk in the cold. Once the warmer weeks of May arrived, I spent much more time walking, and felt more myself. As I write this, I have 116 miles to go to reach my goal, and 14 days to do it in. COVID19 set me way back; previous years I've been 250-500 miles over my goal. 

 

Speed-walking has obvious health benefits, and is a great stress-reliever, but I find walking also provides a time for my mind to wander and think about things it might not otherwise think about.

My happy place (one of them)

Starting as a teenager, I've been to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in extreme northeastern Minnesota—way up in the little point on the Canadian border—at least six times for multi-day trips. It is one of my favorite places to be. Unfortunately, it's been seventeen years since my last trip. As a way to de-stress a bit (as I write this, I’m in the midst of finals week and learners are submitting their work which I then need to evaluate), I decided to take some time to look through photographs I took during my last two trips to the BWCAW.

I thoroughly enjoyed looking through my many photographs to select fifty images to include in a photo essay. The joy came partly because I enjoyed looking at the images and remembering when I captured them, but also because they were two weeks I spent with my son when he was a teenager. It was good to relive those wonderful weeks, and I now have a resource I can look at whenever I want to go to a happy place to de-stress. I've provided a few of the images here, but you may view the full PDF, if you wish.

 

A final thought

Remember that self-care does not mean you have to do it all yourself. Talk and interact with others. And if you are experiencing challenges beyond what you can address, contact someone you trust. For immediate help, call 911 or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

The teacher becomes the learner: Student engagement

Continuing my intentional path to explore what I can learn to become a better teacher in a remote synchronous online learning environment, here's part 4. I am participating in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) sponsored by the Division of Online and Strategic Learning of Ball State University. I will periodically post my reflections in this blog to document my progress, and to serve as a resource for a future me, as I come back to review these posts. Perhaps there will be something of use for other readers that aren't me.

Module 4: Student engagement

This module focused on student engagement. The following notes summarize what I gleaned from the module.

General observations...

• Having a template for a variety of class formats can be helpful.
• There are lots of things that can be done to engage students online. One resource is Iowa State University's extensive page of tips. Another is University of Massachusetts' page of tips.
  

Small group engagement... 

From Improving Student Collaboration in Remote and Hybrid Learning 

• Ensure individual accountability
• Empower teams to...
• Set norms and expectations
• Own the project management process
• Own the communication process
• Empowered teams still need check-ins

Large group engagement... 

From 8 Strategies to Improve Participation in Your Virtual Classroom

• Spider web discussion (I've read a short book about this, but never implemented it. Maybe I should.)
• Using chat to check for understanding (Short response or emoji response.)
• Flip your classroom to stimulate deeper discussion (I've been using flipped learning for years!)
• Think-pair-share to Zoom (I've been doing this; works well.)
• Show-and-tell (Write/share about your response to something shown.)
• Online forums create back-and-forth dialogues (I've done this a bit using Canvas' discussion board feature, but also have used a Google document, as well.)
• Seeing and critiquing peer work through virtual gallery walks (I've had teams share comments in a Google document after reviewing another team's programming code posted in GitHub. Generally has worked well, if I set expectations about how to do the review.)
• Station brainstorming (This one is new to me. I need to investigate a bit more.)

Summary

Student engagement approaches I've used in a physical classroom which have translated well to remote synchronous learning include think-pair-share, small group discussions, flipped learning, peer review, staying after class to answer questions, and soliciting mid-semester course feedback.

The biggest challenge I've experienced is being able to "read the room." I do not require learners to leave their video on (for a variety of reasons), and thus am not able to see their facial expressions and body language. A very few students do leave their video on, and I depend heavily on them, hoping they are representative of the whole.

 

On the positive side, I'm discovered a few activities which work better in the remote synchronous modality! The ability to create small groups randomly by using Zoom breakout rooms is much easier than trying to get learners to create small discussion groups with others they do not know in a physical classroom. Displaying a fun prompt (during the class gathering time) to which the learners respond in the Zoom chat window has been a great way to get to know learners, build class community, and get learners to informally communicate with each other. Being able to conduct office hours away from my office, with the ability to screen-share has been much more effective that sending a series of email messages.

Over all, my face-to-face student engagement approaches have translated well to remote synchronous learning, with a few struggles and pleasant surprises along the way. I am thankful I've been using a learner-centered approach for years; it made the transition much easier and more effective.

The teacher becomes the learner: Assesment

Continuing my intentional path to explore what I can learn to become a better teacher in a remote synchronous online learning environment, here's part 3. I am participating in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) sponsored by the Division of Online and Strategic Learning of Ball State University. I will periodically post my reflections in this blog to document my progress, and to serve as a resource for a future me, as I come back to review these posts. Perhaps there will be something of use for other readers that aren't me.

Module 3: Assessment

This module focused on formative and summative assessment. The following notes summarize what I gleaned from the module.

Formative assessment...

From Remote Learning and the Formative Assessment Process 

• Remote learning means there is more student autonomy
• Distance learning relies on the formative assessment process for success
• The formative assessment process has four attributes:
• Clarify: determine what students will learn and how they will know they have learned it;
• Elicit: generate evidence of student learning, such as asking questions;
• Interpret: review evidence to determine students’ progress towards the learning goal(s);
• Act: take instructional next steps to move students from where they are to where they need to be, such as re-teaching using a different mode.

From Formative Assessment in Distance Learning

• Know your purpose
• Focus on feedback
• Peer feedback: Be kind; be specific; be helpful
• Leverage personal conversations
• Check in on SEL (social emotional learning)

Summative assessment...

From Alternative to Exams for Remote Teaching

• Online discussions
• Student created videos
• Group projects
• Peer review
• Blogs
• Creative projects

From Summative Assessment in Distance Learning

• What is “need to know” versus “nice to know”?
• Which standards are priorities?
• Move from one big assessment to a series of smaller ones

Summary

Overall, this was another reassuring module for me, in that it focused on a lot of things I am already doing, although I may not have known the names by which I should call them. I have not felt the need to make any significant adjustments to how I am assessing the learners in courses I am teaching in a remote synchronous modality, since I appear to already be doing the right things.

The teacher becomes the learner: Paving a strong curricular path and humanizing

Continuing my intentional path to explore what I can learn to become a better teacher in a remote synchronous online learning environment, here's part 2. I am participating in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) sponsored by the Division of Online and Strategic Learning of Ball State University. I will periodically post my reflections in this blog to document my progress, and to serve as a resource for a future me, as I come back to review these posts. Perhaps there will be something of use for other readers that aren't me.

Module 2: Paving a strong curricular path and humanizing

This module focused on paving a strong curricular path and humanizing yourself and the course. The following notes summarize what I gleaned from the module.

Paving the path...

• Failure is good provided you take the time to embrace and learn from it
  • This needs to be conveyed to learners as well
• Communication is essential
  • Do so regularly and consistently
  • Communicate expectations and due dates, etc.
  • Must be clear
• Community building is critical
  • A potential benefit of teaching synchronously online has been my ability to use Zoom’s breakout room random assignment feature. This has forced learners to meet and interact with many more learners in the class than they might have otherwise. if I had them form small groups in an on-campus class, they likely would just interact with those sitting around them, and since they generally sit in the same place every time, that’s the same learners.

Humanizing...

I've discovered in this module that I already do a lot of things to help humanize myself and the course. Here's a brief list of many of those activities.

• Welcome video: For some courses I’ve created an introductory video of myself and the course and made it available in Canvas.
• Introductions: During the first week of the semester, I ask the learners to each tell us a couple things about themselves, and then end that activity by allowing the learners to ask me anything they want, and commit to answering (virtually) all of them.
• Learner choice: In virtually all of my courses, I give learners choice. During the first week of the semester, I always allow them to help set some of the course evaluation criteria by which their final course grade will be determined. As often as I can, I allow the learners to make choices between possible assignments, or how to express their submission for an assignment.
•  Collaboration: I often provide opportunities for collaboration between learners, either in class or as outside of class assignments.
• Clear expectations: I’ve been using Specifications Grading for a few years. To do this well, I have to be very clear about the specifications, that is, what I expect of them for a given assignment.
• Instructional videos: I’ve created many short instructional videos for some of my course, and always include a video of myself in the corner, when capturing the screen.
• Breakout rooms: I’ve used breakout rooms in my synchronous remote sessions to facilitate small group discussions. Especially during the start of the semester, I randomly assigned learners to the room, and encouraged them to use the first minute of their discussion time for introductions, so they’d start to meet people in class.
• Music: For years, I’ve played music which I enjoy (AKA primarily from 1960s-1980s) while the learners gather at the start of class, and have continued this in my Zoom-based classes. Every semester, I receive a few comments from the learners that they really like the music, and that I’ve introduced them to a group of which they were not aware.
• Department video: This summer, I facilitated and produced a “welcome back” video for the department, featuring most of the department faculty. A link to the video was emailed, along with a welcome (back) message,  to all new and returning department majors and minors the week before classes started this fall. If you'd like to watch the video, you may.

Summary

Overall, this was a rather reassuring module for me. It helped me realize I am already doing a lot of things right, and don't need to make any drastic changes in this area.