Faculty question #2 How did you reimagine learning and adapt your courses?

Bill Machold, MM,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, DIRECTOR OF BANDS

I treated each course differently. Each course has different needs, different methods of delivery, and each course lends itself differently to the options for online delivery. For individual music lessons I used a combination of meeting through Zoom or Google Meet and having students submit recordings of themselves for evaluation. Some academic courses “met” more often through online formats and others were more geared toward academic work and goals posted in Moodle. I tried to be realistic in my expectations as to not overburden students while still having expectations of learning and progress.

Brian D. Royer,
MS, LMHC, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Being sure I was able to teach things not in the textbook, or on powerpoints. I bring a lot of my experiences as a practitioner to the classroom and the challenge was to be sure and capture those concepts during a Zoom meeting, or cover them on a videotaped lecture.

Anna Shajirat, PhD,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

I approached my courses with an entirely new outlook, one that took into account the emergency conditions we all face in a global pandemic. My view is that students should not be held to the same standards of learning and performance that they would be in normal circumstances. Simply getting students through the semester with as little stress or strain as possible became my one goal for students and myself. I asked students to complete their work – to keep up with the reading, participate in online discussion boards, and complete their written assignments – but I was very flexible about due dates and did not grade with the same standard to which I typically hold students.

Minerva Cruz,
PHD, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
OF HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION

I adapted the course to the real situation that all were in during the pandemic. For instance, because some students were still moving out from their apartments/dorms to go home, I redesigned the syllabus for deadlines to be more realistic and for students to be able to meet those deadlines. In addition, I created videos of myself about the class and posted them via Moodle for students to feel there is a human being at the other side of their computers. Also, I posted more videos than usual from YouTube for students to interact with each other in forums. I even shared my personal phone number with graduate students for them to feel free to call me whenever they could not meet a deadline or have any questions related to the course.

Kimberly Hale, PhD, CHAIR,
DIVISION OF SCIENCES AND
TECHNOLOGY; PROFESSOR
OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

I tried to keep my classes as close to the way they were formatted as possible. I did this to provide familiarity and stability for students. I had synchronous meetings (Via Google meet) for most of my classes, but recorded them and posted them for students to watch later. Students were not required to attend the synchronous meetings but most times I had 90% or above attendance. Many students were engaged and asked questions as if we were in the classroom.

Eylsia Mahoney, MS,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SPORT MANAGEMENT

I utilized Google Meet. Students still completed group projects and did group presentations. It was a great opportunity for students and myself to get creative and learn how to use some new technology.