Small Seminars (15 or fewer students)

Experiments in International Development (GOVT 327)—12-student project-based seminar taught by Lindsay Dolan.   

During online learning, we met synchronously (using Zoom) for half of our assigned (3 hr.) class time. The course was designed to teach experimental social science research methods, how to apply these methods to research in international development, and how to design original experimental research projects. Before moving remotely, I taught the methods component by creating a workbook containing activities and explanations for each session.  In each session, students worked through it in groups while I circulated to answer questions. This travelled well to synchronous meetings. I circulated the PDF in advance, assigned students into Breakout Rooms, and circulated between the rooms. Since the workbooks contained illustrations and explanations I had written, I didn't have to spend time lecturing, and students had fun working through the puzzles/activities together.

Most of the course readings were examples of experiments in international development, and before the break, we had to spend a lot of time comprehending the papers before we could discuss them. When we transitioned to online learning, I (a) cut the reading load to one paper per week, (b) required students to read the paper using the Perusall platform, where they could comment and engage with each other interactively on the text itself. This allowed them and me to resolve confusion/clarification issues before class so we could spend our precious synchronous time discussing the meatier topics that emerged in threads on Perusall.

I made minimal changes to the final project, and students had already defined their research question and general design before the move to online learning. I made the more daunting components of the project (e.g. analysis of fake data) optional to relieve stress. Otherwise, I continued to meet with students independently in office hours and provided written feedback on their drafts.

Read more about Small Seminars (15 or fewer students)

Medium-sized (16-40 students) courses

Race, Ethnicity, and Popular Music (AFAM 248)—27 students, mid-level course taught by Khalil Johnson.

I initially conducted the class in a mixed, lecture discussion format, which included multi-media slideshows that contained primary sources and questions or ideas drawn from student’s bi-weekly Moodle posts. I assigned 1-2 articles, book chapters, or documentary films per class session. The readings ranged between 25-90 pages per class. The assignments were a 3-6 page midterm, an in-class presentation, a 12-15 page final paper or creative project, and the aforementioned bi-weekly Moodle posts.  This structure stayed largely in place after the transition.

After we shifted to online classes I decided to keep course structure largely in place. The assignment length and number remained the same. I shifted the in-class presentation to an online format that gave students a variety of options to present information––video, podcast, slideshow, short paper. Students could then post the presentation to Moodle asynchronously. While the other assignments remained the same, I added the option for a written or verbal final examination for students taking the class Cr/Un, and I encouraged students to exercise this option.

We continued to meet twice a week at our regularly scheduled class times. I also continued to teach in a mixed lecture / discussion format via Zoom. I purchased an external monitor so I could see both my students in the zoom grid and the slideshow presentation at once. This allowed me to respond to students in real time and even prod taciturn students to speak with gentle cold calls. The “chat” function on Zoom acted as a surrogate white board. I recorded each class session using Zoom’s built-in feature and uploaded the videos to Moodle for students to engage asynchronously. To my surprise many students who could not attend the live sessions actually watched the videos on their own time! I continued holding office hours via Zoom, adding additional afternoon office hours on Tuesday and Thursdays for students on the West Coast. The Calendly app made it easy for students to make appointments that automatically integrated with Zoom.

The keynote throughout the transition was to offer continuity for those who needed structure and accommodations for those who needed more flexibility. As a former elementary teacher, “fairness” does not mean that every student gets the same thing, but rather every student gets what they need to succeed. I also teach Black Feminist scholarship that’s critical of the classroom as an “objective” and “rational” space, instead emphasizing standpoint epistemology and encouraging dialogue across differences. In practice, this meant adding check-in moments at the beginning of class for students to share feelings, thoughts, experiences about the pandemic, online classes, etc. Even though these “check-ins” diminished the time we had to discuss the assigned materials, I believe that demonstrating collective care and concern improved the intellectual engagement during the remaining class session.  

Ultimately most students were able to learn and produce excellent work during this ordeal. However, the transition online adversely affected the most vulnerable students. These disparities predictably broke down along lines of race, economic class, and physical / mental disability.

Read more about Medium-sized (16-40 students) courses

Large (40+ students) Lecture Courses

Principles of Chemistry II (CHEM144), 60 students, lecture-based, taught by Michelle Personick

CHEM 144 is an introductory level course composed primarily of first-years and some sophomores, and knowledge of content from CHEM 144 is required for subsequent sequenced courses—such as organic chemistry—as well as for the MCATs and other pre-professional exams, so I kept the full content coverage of the course because most of my students will continue in the sequence.  Over spring break, I generated a “Distance Learning Plan” outlining the logistical changes which I then posted to Moodle and emailed to the students via Moodle.  To help students stay organized, I sent out a weekly “This Week in CHEM 144” newsletter on Sunday afternoons throughout the second half of the semester using Moodle Quickmail, which included general reminders, a schedule for the week, and a “demo of the week” video (link to existing demo videos on YouTube) with a brief explanation. The other key pieces were having a well-organized Moodle page and being very specific when providing instructions.

Lectures and Assessments: The course was scheduled at 8:50 AM with 60 students across many time zones, so I pre-recorded lectures—usually a few days in advance—using Zoom and then posted the lecture recording link on Moodle the night before each class. I normally teach primarily with chalk, using slides only when necessary, since this is the strong preference of my students. While recording lectures, I used a Surface tablet with a stylus and was able to swap back and forth in Zoom between the whiteboard for “chalk” lecturing and screensharing for slides, as needed. I always hand out printed copies of slides (if any) before class and post my handwritten lecture notes on Moodle after class, so I just posted both at the same time as the pre-recorded lectures. Students appreciated being able to watch the lectures in their own time zone and around their own schedule, as well as the opportunity to re-watch them while working on assignments or studying for exams. I set up homework and exams via Moodle assignments, where I posted the questions as a PDF and the students uploaded their answers as a Word or PDF file. I downloaded completed homework assignments and exams and my two graduate TAs and I graded them in Adobe Acrobat. I was able to use the “feedback files” function in Moodle to batch upload graded assignments and automatically assign each graded PDF back to the appropriate student for them to see. I changed all assignment deadlines to midnight Eastern to accommodate time zones and work schedules. For exams, I posted the exam to Moodle on Friday at 8:50 am (class time) and the students had until Sunday at midnight Eastern to upload their completed exam as a PDF. Exams were closed book, notes, etc., and I allowed students to take as long as they wanted in one sitting. I tracked access to the exam via Moodle logs. These logistics were designed to minimize added stress from the online environment, especially for students with jobs or poor internet/technology access.

Interaction with Students: I held Zoom office hours on Mondays and Tuesdays for 2 hours each day, which is slightly longer than normal. Each of my two grad TAs also held office hours on one of those days, as well as Wednesday and Thursday in exam weeks. This way there were multiple time options for students to seek help. I decided not to hold the weekly discussion sections associated with the course (6 sections) online due to logistical challenges. At the end of the semester, a small number of students mentioned they wished there had been a set place to work with other students on homework (this is allowed and encouraged), so if I had to do it again I might have a couple optional discussion sections for students who were interested. I also have an anonymous feedback tool in Moodle called the “Question Box” where students can ask questions if they don’t want to ask them directly in class or if they think of them afterwards, and then I answer them at the beginning of the next lecture. Due to the asynchronous nature of the remote course, I switched to answering Question Box questions in a “book” activity in Moodle, with a different “chapter” for each week. This was also nice because then students could refer back to previous questions in the book and also because it meant I could post images, videos, or links with my answers. I committed to answering Question Box questions once a day, though I often responded more frequently. I received 10-15 Question Box questions in an average week, which is standard. I also normally devote an entire “Question Day” lecture before each exam to answering student questions pulled at random from a real cardboard Question Box. In the online version of the course I did record those specific lectures live with the option for students to join the Zoom or watch the recording. Students submitted questions to the Moodle Question Box marked with #QuestionDay by 8 AM on the day of the lecture if they wanted them answered in the live Zoom and they could also ask real time questions in chat. In general, I found it important to be thinking about possible student questions myself while recording my lectures, since the students weren’t there to ask them during the lecture.

Foundations of Contemporary Psychology (PSYC 105) 216 students, taught by Sarah Carney 

At the time of spring break, there were six major concentrations to get through for the remainder of the semester; I video recorded each of my lectures and uploaded those lectures onto a private YouTube channel.  I broke up my lectures exactly as I would have had I been in class; in other words, if I was talking about Social Psychology over a planned span of 3 days, I made three video lectures.  I would then post the lecture that matched the day of the course in the syllabus.  It was important to do this because I worried the videos could become quite confusing over time--I anticipated a large number (say, 225 or so 😉) of "where are we?" emails, so I felt that my output needed to be consistent with the plan I had started with. 

I posted the lectures in two locations--on Moodle via a link and on our course Facebook page. If there were video clips that would have accompanied the lecture I attempted (somewhat successfully) to locate those clips on the internet and posted links to those on Moodle as well. (When I couldn't find them I tried to locate reasonable substitutes.)  I posted each lecture on the day and time of the class. My class met on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:50-10:10 so I made sure to post the lecture by 8:50 so that students who wanted to take the course somewhat synchronously...could. As an aside these videos were not well produced in terms of quality; very often my cat would wander in, cross in front of the screen, etc.  At first I tried to edit her out--swears were heard--but student feedback was emphatic: they liked the cat.  I think humanizing moments were helpful and I stopped trying to hide them with glossy professional lectures, not that that ideal was really ever possible. 

After I had posted all of the unit lectures and I created an online test (quiz) for each topic.  It was designed on Moodle using the "quiz" application, and I told the students that it was open book--notes or textbook chapters were fair game. The quizzes were designed to open on the last day of the unit, and stay open for a week.  There was no time limit to complete the quizzes, however once an answer was submitted it could not be changed. In addition to the posted lectures and the assessments, I created discussion questions which were posted both on Moodle forums and on the Facebook page.  I posted typically 6-10 questions per unit, and asked the students to respond to at least 4.  The questions ranged from sort of personal experience questions (ask your parents what kind of temperament you had as an infant; how many languages do you speak?) to more research based (are languages necessarily spoken, and if not, what makes language a language? Is your personality affected by which language you are speaking; if yes, how?).  I have never tried this type of question/response before and was really pleasantly surprised at how effective it was at creating a sense of community--between the students and me mainly, but also between the students themselves, who sometimes broke into conversations (particularly on the Facebook page, but sometimes on Moodle as well).  I responded to every single forum post personally.  Often that response was very quick ("Thanks!") but sometimes I would go into more detail depending on their answer.  225 X 4 X 6 responses...it was a lot but at the end of the course I really felt it had been worth it because of the ways it sparked conversation, it facilitated students making connections between the material and their every day lives, and was just generally interesting. One question was always "Do you have questions about the reading or the lecture that I can clarify?"  This was a good way to let students ask things publicly so that I wasn't having to write umpteen personal emails all answering the same question.  I am planning to make use of these forums in the future because I felt that, though really time consuming for me, they added to the quality of the course in a very real and concrete way.