In light of the COVID-19 crisis, I am personally thankful that my university—and universities in general—moved quickly to transition from face-to-face learning to online learning. Such a transition has allowed my wife and me to still teach while maintaining “social distancing.” Critically, our students can continue to make progress toward their degrees and careers, while potentially avoiding the cauldrons of contagion represented by college living arrangements.
Such a rapid transition, however, begs two important questions:
1. As the university transitions to online learning, can all students access the resources they need for online learning?
2. What is the quality of the resulting educational experience?
The first question listed above was essentially my first question when I received the directive to put my classes online: Can we actually do this? I had a computer and high-speed internet, and I suspected that I could access the software resources and learn the software quickly enough from my end, but what about my students? This is particularly a concern at my school, Ferris State University, because we are an opportunity university, serving many low-income and first-generation students.
Thus, my first act was creating a short online project for every class called “Available Resources.” The project involved downloading a Word file with a series of short questions related to online and other resources. Do you have access to a computer? Do you have access to high-speed internet? Do you have access to the textbook? (Many students were stuck at home and their stuff was at school.) And so forth.
Quickly I learned that the majority of my students were good to go—their being able to complete the Available Resources project confirmed a certain level of available resources. I did not hear immediately from about 10 of my freshmen (shocker!) but after some additional prodding, I learned that the majority of them had the tools they needed.
But “majority” does not equal “all.” What about the handful of students who reported they were missing a critical resource? I am working with them on a case-by-case basis.
I then moved to the second question, educational quality, which I addressed based on class type.
Two of my classes are different sections of the same class: Architectural Design Principles. I basically run this class like a design studio—in fact, I refer to it as “Architectural Studio Lite,” since it is a 3-hour class (not a 5-hour or 6-hour class) like a typical design studio.
How does a design studio function? I assign projects, which I critique as the students work on them. Oddly enough, this was easy to transition to an online environment. Using Microsoft Teams, I can video conference with my students, and they can share their progress through screen share, which also allows me to take control of their screen and move a cursor around.
More about the transition to online learning in a subsequent post.
Copyright © 2020 Christopher L. Cosper