Notes from Corona Campus

When I received the news that I had the weekend to take my classes online, I started out reading the tidal wave of well-meaning advice for teaching online and then promptly sat on my hands other than to complete step one below. I went to the grocery store to buy cheese and flour and alcohol. Then I went again to get beans and pasta. Then I baked bread and decided that I should probably stock up on more flour, so I went back, by which time the flour shelves were empty and I resigned myself to the fifteen pounds already on my shelves.

After a few days of doing nothing, I settled down and started prepping. Work with a clear purpose calms me, so I let myself get lost in the cycle of filming, emailing, teaching, and grading until getting caught up last night. Somewhere in this process I think I found a replicable routine to carry us through the rest of the semester. Research comes next.

These are not recommendations, but documentation of the steps I took for my classes at the two institutions where I work, each with slightly different mandates and instructions.

First, I contacted my students in every class, letting them know a few pieces of information: 1) that these are extraordinary circumstances and I will be as flexible as possible so that they can both take care of themselves and complete the class; 2) establishing a timeline for additional updates and expectations; 3) letting them know that I am available to talk, including about non-class things. Then I sent them a cat picture.

This is a step I have repeated frequently since, giving updates and reiterating that I am aiming to be as flexible and present as possible and that I have an unending stream of cat pictures. One of the problems with online education is that students do not feel connected to the class and lose motivation to keep up with the work, which is one reason that communication is so important. Consider this one a recommendation.

Second, I prepared my materials to go online. My classes are reasonably well set up for a digital transformation in that I already make extensive use of LMS platforms to distribute everything from assignments to handouts to readings to collecting assignments and use OER readings to reduce the cost to students. In some courses my students keep a blog. In other words, my usual workflow for the course made this part of the transition basically painless, though I have also been building up discussion boards and other functionality for asynchronous aspects of the course.

Third, I started filming. Until a few weeks ago my Twitter bio read “eagerly awaiting the pivot past video,” and while I still hold to this sentiment, I am learning to love looking at my face on the screen because any information I would provide in a lecture is being delivered by videos that the students can watch when they have time. My videos are still on the long side, usually running in the 20–25 minute range, with two videos roughly covering the material from one lecture class, and they are very much an emergency measure: aside from checking clarity I am not editing these at all and have barely modified content to allow activities in the middle of the lecture.

There are lots of tools available for making videos and I know some intrepid professors who have made Youtube channels for their classes. For my part, I am just recording a Zoom meeting with the slides shared, saving the video to my computer, and uploading it with the slide show and supplemental readings to the course site.

Fourth, I am still holding synchronous classes. I say this with some trepidation given the wisdom of the best practices pedagogy people online, but I am doing it anyway––and only in part because one of the schools where I teach asked me to do so. (I should also note that my largest class this semester is c.25.) Here is my rationale: my students didn’t sign up to take an online class and given the very real concerns about motivation to stay engaged, some of which my students brought to me, I think there is value in continuing to hold synchronous sessions for anyone able to make it. Keeping a regular routine is something that I know helps me.

However, these synchronous sessions are not the same as normal class. As noted above, I am pre-recording any and all lectures, because I cannot think of anything more boring than asking students to tune in to watch my face talk at them real-time and, as I said, my primary concern here is engagement. Instead, I am adding a couple slides to my presentations, one that has some discussion questions for the students to prepare and another with an activity with “big scavenger hunt energy” (with apologies to the person on Twitter who framed online courses that way).

In the synchronous sessions I can answer questions about the lecture, engage students with the discussion questions, and talk about what they found or created. In other classes I have been able to use a Zoom function (that is apparently not available for all accounts) of breakout rooms to let the students do activities in small groups before coming back to the main room to share what they came up with. In another instance, I was able to invite a guest speaker whose book the students read to come in and talk to them about writing, the book, and related issues, and I rather hope that I can do something like that again.

Is any of this ideal? Absolutely not, but I am hoping that for some students our time can serve as a pocket of normalcy amid the storm and allow them to feel connected to the course. Equally, if not more, important, this change to the workflow of the course gives clear pathways to alternate participation through submitting me their answers to the questions and their activities or participation on discussion boards. in the spirit of flexibility, I am aiming for a blended synchronous/asynchronous course with the purpose of maximizing engagement while not leaving anyone behind.

Fifth, and finally, although I am adding activities and supplemental material like videos, documents, and podcasts, I am not adding new assignments. (I have heard of professors doing this, presumably in a panic-move to “encourage” engagement.) Like holding the usual class sessions, my goal is to keep to syllabus while retooling the assignments to account for the changed circumstance (e.g. no access to library books). Once again, this is made easier because of the structure of my courses where I use regular, low-stakes, online, at-home quizzes where I encourage students to do retake the assessment until they are satisfied with their grades (which also means learning the material) and assign take-home rather than in-class exams. To account for the new circumstances, I am also maintaining maximum flexibility, turning due dates into suggested benchmarks rather deadlines and giving students until the end of the class to turn in any revised material.

None of this is perfect: these are emergency measures and many of the particulars are still in flux as I respond to requests and suggestions from students. That said, one week in, I am satisfied that I now have a viable workflow on my end that will help me meet my course goals and maximize student engagement under the circumstances.