Faculty question #4 What went really well this semester? What created excitement?

Bill Machold, MM,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, DIRECTOR OF BANDS
The technology generally worked well for me this semester and I was excited to learn it and adapt it. Also, I included a couple of guest appearances through Zoom for my Instrumental Conducting course. Those interactions really had our students excited as it gave them the opportunity to ask questions and seek advice from professionals at different levels of music education and conducting.
Brian D. Royer,
MS, LMHC, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE		 I was very pleased with my students meeting all the deadlines for graded tasks. I taught 5 classes with 70 students. I felt our students did a fantastic job of adapting, with no complaints, and were 100% compliant! Very encouraging! The “excitement” for me, was the anticipation of who would show up to the Zoom meetings.
Anna Shajirat, PhD,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH		 “Excitement” is not a word I would use to characterize distance learning in the midst of a global pandemic. My goal, instead, became to provide students relief by lowering my expectations and by supporting them as students and humans while many of their worlds turned upside down. I believe that I provided relief to students, and so I count the semester as a necessarily limited success.
Minerva Cruz,
PhD, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
OF HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION		 I loved that my students did respond to the deadlines in class. Still, under the pressure of taking other courses online, students understood professors were trying to help them the best we could. Immediately after all courses went online, I decided to send an individual email to all my students to make sure they and their families were healthy and to let them know I was there for anything they needed. I guess my students appreciated that I was concerned about their health and that I understood it was a hard time for them as well. Sometimes we need to show that humanistic side and I wanted my students to see that yes meeting deadlines in class is important but that they are also important to us. In general, I think communication with students went well. Sometimes I felt like I was chatting with some students through email, as they responded to my emails as soon as they received them, and we had that short interaction back and forth via emails during that time period.
Kimberly Hale, PhD, CHAIR,
DIVISION OF SCIENCES AND
TECHNOLOGY; PROFESSOR
OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES		 Surprisingly, both in class and in virtual meetings, college students get very excited about Kahoots! In my Advanced Topics in A&P class, which is discussion-based, we continued as normal but in a virtual format. Students solved and presented whiteboard case studies (we call them this because in the classroom I write symptoms, tests, other information on a whiteboard-virtually I typed it out as a word document) The students in this class were excited every time we met, and we always had interesting and productive discussions.

 
Eylsia Mahoney, MS,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SPORT MANAGEMENT		 Virtual presentations went really well. Other students were required to ask a question after presentations and I loved the excitement and playfulness they had when asking questions and providing feedback. It was obvious that they missed being in class and seeing each other.