Coronavirus crisis brings out very best in AC faculty
Posted Thursday, May 14, 2020
The Coronavirus crisis descended as quickly onto Adrian College’s (AC) faculty as it did the rest of the planet.
On March 11, it was business as usual. The very next day, faculty learned they were moving to online/distance learning beginning March 15 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Faculty rose to the occasion, developing creative and innovative ways to migrate content from the physical classroom to the digital one but such a transition would not have been possible without help from staff like Christine Adams, AC business analyst and Blackboard administrator.
Dr. Sarah Hanson, AC professor of Geology, said Adams was a critical part of the process and called her efforts “heroic.”
“The executive board of ACAP [Adrian College Association of Professors] really appreciated everything she did in helping AC faculty and students make the rapid transition from in-person classes to fully online classes,” Hanson said.
As the semester wore on, the date to return to face-to-face classrooms was pushed back and finally the decision was made not to return to campus. Faculty continued to weave together curriculum initially intended for on-campus engagement and a digital counterpart that would challenge students intellectually, but maintaining compassion and understanding for the upheaval in the lives of students.
Hanson echoed the comments of many of her colleagues in reflecting on her experience this semester.
“I can’t say I have any magic bullet or super new technique that made everything work this semester,” she said. “I did not. Like many of my colleagues, I limped along, one step ahead of the students in rewriting much of my course material. What made it work was learning patience and empathy.”
Hanson said she had to work past the stereotypical unresponsive student, when in normal times, the student might be more interested in “sports, or partying, or anything other than my class.”
“But, this is simply not true in this chaotic and frightening time,” Hanson said.
Even some of her “good” students were not responding to emails and getting work done.
“I have read too many tragic emails in the last few weeks,” she said. “A heartfelt tribute to a young woman’s Nanna who lost a two-week battle with COVID-19; a young man who was having difficulty getting access to a computer because he lives in a Detroit suburb where his father, a firefighter, was quarantined at home after exposure to the Coronavirus; and a student with no internet at home and terrified about failing his classes.”
Hanson said it became clear the students couldn’t work on the same rigid academic schedule of in-person classes.
“So, I adapted,” she said. “Rather than holding a lab during the two-hour time slots, I made the material available for a week. I allowed students second attempts on completing lab material. I allowed late submissions with no penalty. And I responded to them at all times of the day and night, assuring them that I would help them get through the course material.
“It was not ideal, and the content of this semesters’ classes was less than usual. But, in the end, I think they learned,” Hanson said.
Dr. Deborah Field, a 19-year veteran professor at Adrian College, said she has developed a teaching style “based on building relations of trust and respect with students, inspiring active engagement in learning, and supporting students with extensive one-on-one work during office hours.”
She added, “Figuring out how to practice this kind of teaching in an online learning environment has been challenging.”
Meeting student needs also meant she needed to be more flexible.
“In my writing intensive class, setting up paper conferences was difficult because some students were working extra hours to help support their families and some were sharing weak WiFi connections with others in the house,” Field said.
She said she was able to somewhat replicate “lively class discussions” using Google tools.
“This hasn’t been a seamless transition by any means,” Field said. “But I think I can speak for colleagues as well as myself in asserting that online classes have succeeded because of the relationships established during the first half of the semester or in previous classes. These bonds are forged through intellectual engagement, trust, and care, and they are the basis for students’ education and their continued relationship with Adrian College.”
Dr. Theresa Stowell, assistant professor of Core, has had extensive training and experience teaching online classes.
She said she used an “asynchronous format” on the Blackboard course system which includes lecture notes, exercises and submission boxes. She also recorded video announcements and short video lectures which students could access quickly on the class site.
Because she had too many students without reliable internet, she elected not to have them be online at a specific time. She said she included some daily exercises to practice skills and for the CORE 102 students, they were required to record themselves doing speeches and are assigned partners to evaluate each other.
“This gave them an audience to consider when doing the speeches,” she said. “My CORE 102 students responded very well.”
Christy Mesaros-Winckles gave her COMM 422 students most of the credit.
“This is the capstone for Comm students,” she said. “They did the work, I just pushed them as a director would and they ran with what they wanted to do.”
Mesaros-Winckles added that since these are “passion projects,” the students normally do a fine job. But, she said, “this class did face numerous hurdles as the students worked to complete their senior capstone projects amidst the coronavirus pandemic.”
