By: Reem Khamis-Dakwar, Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorder and AAUP President, Adelphi University
Given the abrupt changes in all of our lives recently, there is nothing more important than seeking a friend’s help. This was proven to be especially true in my journey shifting courses online post college closure.
Little prior notice, limited experience, and a lack of expertise in a medium would often constitute a recipe for failure and since the closure of many universities in response to the COVID-19 outbreak most, if not all, faculty were forced into a position where failure was all too likely. However, despite these odds, the professorial community persevered in these trying circumstances by means of their collective support.
This semester, I teach both Speech and Language Development and Clinical Diagnosis in Communication Disorders, core components of the undergraduate and graduate programs in Speech Pathology respectively. From my perspective, failing to successfully adapt to online learning would fail the students most dependent on acquiring both a breadth of significant knowledge and key skills that would be critical to their futures as practicing speech pathologists (or in related professions).
The day that faculty received word about the shift to online learning, I remember opening my course Moodle pages to find an abundance of materials designed for our planned face-to-face meetings and asking myself, “Where do I go from here?” My path forward was illuminated by a public statement responding to higher education’s temporary shift to remote instruction posted on the Global Educator Collective Facebook group.
After reviewing the evidence shared in the statement, I identified three guiding principles to steer my courses into an online format.
1) I must connect to the universal feelings of grief, stress, and anxiety by first and foremost acknowledging the uncertainty of these times and how our daily routines and wellbeing have been affected, in different ways and to different degrees.
Reflecting this, my initial communication with students not only informed them of and asked for their input regarding online course implementation, but also explicitly acknowledged the extraordinary circumstances and global trauma we are all experiencing. Furthermore, as the evidence-based statement recommended, I presented a set of principles designed to orient students to the needs of the time. These included an overt commitment to flexibility on my part, respect for the students’ resilience, empathy towards the unavoidable impacts these circumstances will have on their personal lives, assurance of my commitment to assigning reasonable expectations, and encouragement for them to provide their input throughout it all.
Based on this first principle, I made the following decisions:
i. I decided to offer the first three class meetings following the college’s closure as asynchronous sessions in order to enable students to continue their studies on their own schedules while simultaneously adapting to the new reality of social distancing.
ii. I added individualized participation activities to each asynchronous session, each focusing on the primary goal of the session, and provided individualized feedback for each student in a shared forum.
iii. I made myself available for individual Zoom meetings not only during office hours but within 24 hours of a student’s request to meet. I also bombarded students with reminders about my availability and offered to meet through a number of platforms including Zoom, Facetime, Google Hangouts, or on the phone.
iv. I personally checked up on students who had reported family members falling ill with COVID-19, or who had been otherwise drastically affected by the virus. I continually provided assurances of my support, to help decrease anxiety while students are living through these heartbreaking circumstances.
v. I changed the course grading framework to include 30% for participation (deliberately excluded from my previous course designs, to encourage independence and self-sufficiency) so as to acknowledge my appreciation of students’ ability to engage with the material during these trying times.
vi. I shared my own uncertainty and repeatedly requested student input regarding these suggested changes, in the hopes of modelling a degree of comfort with uncertainty – which the students are bound to endure as well - and to normalize open discussion.
2) The coronavirus revealed the ugly face of a number of systemic and social inequities in the United States, especially affecting communities of color. These inequities affect a number of our students in terms of their access to equipment, internet, availability, and comfort while participating in an online course. Hence, my second guiding principle while transitioning to online teaching was a commitment to equitable practices.
In line with this principle, I made the following decisions based on the shared guidance:
i. I developed a survey of accessibility based on a model provided by Dr. Danya Glabau from NYU. Based on the survey results, I learned that all my students were able to access computers with varying degrees of wireless connection security, and that most of them expected to be available to engage with the course activities during the original class time. Based on these reports, I continued to rely initially on asynchronous meetings, to allow all students the time to figure out their wireless access without impacting their participation in the early stages of the shift.
ii. I allowed students to choose whether they preferred to present synchronously in class, or to record a presentation involving paper reviews.
iii. I showed flexibility with assessments and provided any requested extensions in order to support students who are working, taking care of relatives or children, or who have any other added responsibilities associated with the institution of social distancing practices.
3) The last guiding principle was to focus on the course’s learning goals while understanding that a transition to online learning does not mean a direct transfer of the same material planned for in-person learning. In the same way a symphony, opera, or a Broadway show is not the same experience when recorded or watched online, simply converting activities intended to occur face-to-face will likely not result in the same lessons necessary for a higher level of understanding and implementation of the material at hand. I instead needed to refer to a backward redesign in order to ensure that any adaptation supports the targeted learning outcomes for the session, and for the course more generally.
Based on this principle, and the evidence-based guidance, I made the following decisions:
i. My first three online sessions consisted of recorded presentations of the targeted content followed by individualized activities, requiring students to apply the content studied. These activities took the form of quizzes, reviews of diagnostic reports, the development of a diagnostic interview, among others. I also made sure that students received both individualized and group feedback for the work they completed.
ii. I adapted, rather than directly transferring, any in-person assignments. For example, in a session involving the psychometric properties of standardized assessments, students were originally asked to work in groups and review manuals of standardized assessments used in the Hy Weinberg clinic. However, since we no longer had shared access to these manuals, students were asked to report on pre-prepared reviews of the psychometric properties of different standardized assessment tools accessible on the Leaders Project website. Once again, all student contributions were followed up with individualized input as well as a direct connection between the completion of this assignment and the intended goals for the session.
This week I held my first synchronous online meeting with my students, to review current research in language development or speech pathology diagnosis. Students presented their individual reviews of a 2020 empirical study of their choice in either of these fields. I was immediately heartened to view all of the students on one screen although I could sense a shared combination of anxiety and relief in their facial expressions. I shared the hardships I am experiencing with the shift to online learning as well as some personal anecdotes about my quarantined family life. I also shared information from the Chronicle of Higher Education forums regarding faculty resilience in the face of the Coronavirus outbreak. I then asked each student to share how they were doing, how each feels about the class, and if they have any suggestions for modifications I should consider.
The responses I received from the students, the palpable solidarity while sharing our commitment to the pursuit of knowledge in spite of all our recent hardships, and most importantly our faith in human connection and community to support each other made all of my own learning and work during this transition worthwhile. So far, this journey has been difficult, to say the least, but when students acknowledge that they feel heard and cared for while continuing to learn, I am energized to keep going. I hope that our most recent meeting had the same re-energizing effect on them too.
In conclusion, I wish to share a quote from Radical Hope cited in that initial public statement that I am lucky to have stumbled upon. I think it is an excellent reminder of why many of us chose to be educators, as well as of the meaning of our work which is made most apparent during these critical times.
“Teaching is a radical act of hope. It is an assertion of faith in a better future in an increasingly uncertain and fraught present. It is a commitment to that future even if we can’t clearly discern its shape” (Jonathan Lear, 2006).