{"id":211506,"date":"2020-04-23T12:30:05","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T16:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/?p=211506"},"modified":"2020-05-07T12:58:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T16:58:49","slug":"lessons-from-afar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2020\/04\/23\/lessons-from-afar\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons From Afar"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do virtual classrooms look like? The answer varies, but since the mid-semester switch to online instruction, faculty have become creative, adapting with digital tools for virtual labs, adding podcasts, adjusting with video streaming software for lectures and discussion, directing choirs on pitch in Zoom rooms, and even creating virtual space for mindfulness and self care.<\/p>\n

But teaching through a pandemic calls for more than simply providing lessons from afar; it calls for additional compassion and patience.<\/p>\n

Having the virtual classroom setting now inside the homes of both professors and students makes for some lighter class moments, like seeing the stuffed animals that adorn a childhood bedroom or being interrupted by children or parents or pets, who sometimes make guest appearances in the \u201cclassroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The change also provides a window into the more challenging aspects of lives altered by stay-at-home orders, including students who struggle with a host of problems, from internet access to financial and mental health needs, to caring for sick relatives or being ill themselves.<\/p>\n

Whatever their circumstances, about 21,000 students are trying to complete a spring term like no other.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too early to know definitively how successful we are at supporting students during the COVID crisis, but faculty are positive if cautious,\u201d says Emily J. Isaacs, executive director of the Office for Faculty Advancement. \u201cThey report that students are coming to classes, although attendance is lower, and students tell them of family members who are ill, and even more frequently, out of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the past month, the Office of Faculty Advancement has presented nearly 40 online classes on best practices for remote teaching, attended by more than 1,000 faculty, Isaacs says. \u201cThe challenge now is to sustain the momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tom
麻豆传媒在线 Professor Thomas E. Franklin teaches his Monday Multimedia News Production course using Zoom conferencing. Franklin has set up a temporary office in his basement after the COVID-19 outbreak forced courses to be taught online. Photo by Thomas E. Franklin
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Navigating Hardships<\/h2>\n

While taking classes, many 麻豆传媒在线 students are working on the front lines of the pandemic, including first responders, nurses and public health professionals. They are essential workers, cashiers at the grocery store, teachers home schooling both their own children and those in New Jersey classrooms.<\/p>\n

Assistant Professor Thomas E. Franklin says his experience as a journalist prepared him for this crisis. \u201cI’ve been in situations where the unpredictable happened and you’re trying to function under the strain of an emotional world occurrence. You just figure out a way to still do your job and be productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin, a 9\/11 Pulitzer Prize finalist, is not only adapting classes in advanced multimedia news production with tools available to students during a quarantine, he’s also documenting life<\/a> in New Jersey amid the pandemic.<\/p>\n

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Like other professors, he\u2019s also learning of the hardships many students are experiencing \u2013 students like Diana Ortiz, a senior majoring in Communication and Media Arts who juggles her course load with working full time as a unit secretary on a trauma floor at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital to pay tuition.<\/p>\n

The coronavirus is always on her mind, she says, whether she is at work or at home. At the hospital, \u201cyou don\u2019t know what you\u2019re walking into. Talking to nurses, and seeing their eyes, there is a lot of anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her biggest worry, Ortiz says, is bringing the virus into the home she shares with her parents. And while no longer commuting nearly an hour to campus, the stress at work and pressure of finishing the semester leave her more tired than usual. \u201cHalf the time, I\u2019m in a daze,\u201d Ortiz says. \u201cMy mind just isn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortiz says she is grateful to the professors like Franklin who recognize what she is going through. \u201cIt goes a long way \u2013 the support you get, it goes a long way.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

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\"Diana
Diana Ortiz uses her phone to take part in a class on media management. Photo courtesy of Diana Ortiz
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Removing Barriers<\/h2>\n

\u201cFaculty at 麻豆传媒在线 have always felt great compassion and even affection for their students, but perhaps more so than ever before, faculty are communicating this compassion directly to their students,\u201d Isaacs says.<\/p>\n

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\"Rebecca
Assistant Professor Rebecca Linares
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Pass\/Fail options for undergraduates and flexibility of deadlines are among the ways the University and faculty are removing barriers as students transition to the online learning environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s been a big thing for us,\u201d says Rebecca Linares, an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning. \u201cWe’re trying to be mindful to not make any assumptions about what it means when a student doesn’t show up or doesn’t turn something in. Our students are navigating totally different realities right now and different responsibilities.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>

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The move to online classes has been easier for some courses than others. Assistant Professor Manveer Mann stepped in to take over a retail math course. \u201cIt was challenging enough for students that the math course had moved online, and now they had a new professor whom they had not met in person,\u201d Mann says.<\/p>\n

By offering one-on-one tutorial Zoom sessions she\u2019s been able to alleviate some of the stress students were feeling. She also created YouTube video tutorials demonstrating how to solve sample problems so students could watch them as many times as they needed.<\/p><\/div>

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\"Manveer
Assistant Professor Manveer Mann<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/p><\/div>\n

Teaching and Learning<\/h2>\n

\u201cI have been teaching for many decades and I always argue that we never arrive as teachers. We always have new things to learn, new things to do,\u201d says Professor Jaime Grinberg, department chair of Educational Foundations.<\/p>\n

In reformatting a lecture hall with 100 students for a class that now needs to fit into the size of their phones and computer screens, Grinberg says he\u2019s created new assignments, including adding documentaries, incorporating text messaging into discussions, playing a mix of musical genres as students enter the virtual classroom.<\/p>\n

When technology glitches, he asks students to help out. \u201cI’m teaching you something, and you’re teaching me,\u201d Grinberg says.<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Josh Galster from Earth and Environmental Studies typically draws during a class. To continue virtually, \u201cI built a stand out of a rock and some legos \u2013 besides a geologist, I have kids \u2013 for my phone to record me talking while I draw.\u201d Galster says he tried to use a tablet, but it wasn’t the same. \u201cI’m trying to keep my hands out of the videos,\u201d he jokes, \u201cbut I’m still learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The continuity of classes has been important, observes Mar\u00eda Cio\u00e8-Pe\u00f1a, an assistant professor in the Department Teaching and Learning. \u201cIt offers a space for us to maintain connection with our students, particularly during stressful, uncertain environmental situations. But because it’s in a crisis situation, [the mid-semester switch to teaching online] is very different than when you have orchestrated or planned from the very beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essential Outcomes<\/h2>\n

Supporting the rapid preparation with the mid-March decision to move all classes online, the University developed a peer-to-peer model to share strategies and instructional technologies. The support includes developing a variety of ways for students to attend class, access content knowledge and demonstrate their comprehension.<\/p>\n

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Professor Pankaj Lal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Professor Pankaj Lal says he\u2019s adapted classes in Earth and Environmental Studies with online presentations, web videos and online materials that are being made available freely by colleagues and organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have learned that chats, where students are writing their thoughts and questions from some interesting perspectives, while live streaming the class has been quite engaging,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And since field work is restricted, Lal\u2019s 20-member research group has channeled efforts into smaller work-groups doing modeling and analyses. \u201cThese research groups are interacting regularly and we are using screen sharing extensively,\u201d he says. \u201cLive discussions, working and collaborating on projects in real-time has been really helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other strategies have included new ways to present information. Associate Professor of Musicology Laura Dolp converted formal papers into podcast assignments. \u201cI felt that because students were now in potentially isolating environments that hearing each other’s voices in relation to course content was important. They can also conduct interviews with each other as part of the format, which encourages them to process the material together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Professor
Professor Neil Baldwin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Professor Neil Baldwin says the switch to remote platforms, according to studies, is less smooth for freshmen than other students. \u201cThis was borne out to me when not one student wanted to shift to asynchronous classes \u2013 everybody wanted to meet at the same time and on the same day \u2018like we always did\u2019 and to do it on Zoom so they could see and hear each other and feel part of a group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since moving his honors poetry remotely, Baldwin says the class has discussed, quite relevantly, “the lunatic, the lover and the poet” from Shakespeare\u2019s As You Like It<\/em>; Keats’ concept of \u201cnegative capability\u201d in the context of the current global crisis; William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell<\/em>; the poetry of Giacomo Leopardi; Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird<\/em> by Wallace Stevens; and the haiku of Basho.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe remarkable thing, for me,\u201d Baldwin says, \u201chas been the miraculous response of these young people to the power of poetry in a time of such adversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Sports Media and Journalism, students used the app Adobe Spark to create personal storytelling videos. The class bonded in sharing the work during a Zoom session, says Assistant Professor Kelly Whiteside. \u201cWe had great feedback, including from students who were on but had their audio and video off because they were either sick or taking care of young children. They chimed in with comments in the written chat section which I read aloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Associate
Associate Professor Tara George<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>
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Associate Professor Tara George, head of Journalism and Television\/Digital Media, assigned a documentary from the Sprague Library database accessible to all students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cued up our films to start at the same time, and then we did a live chat through Canvas. It was a jerry-rigged version of Netflix Party, but it worked. And the discussion was thoughtful and a welcome distraction from the pandemic.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>\n

Cultivating Mindfulness<\/h2>\n
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Faculty say they\u2019re finding ways to bring mindfulness \u2013 the practice of paying attention to a moment with openness and curiosity \u2013 into their virtual assignments in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n

In a class on religions of the world, meditative practices were integrated alongside the introduction to Asian religions, students listening to a recording of chants to soothe their minds. \u201cI’m trying to incorporate some of the things we’ve been learning as tools for potentially coping with this situation,\u201d says Assistant Professor Kate Temoney.<\/p><\/div>

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\"Kate
Assistant Professor Kate Temoney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/p><\/div>\n

Faculty are also building in opportunities for self care, like asking students to go on neighborhood walks, to cook a meal, to reach out to a friend.<\/p>\n

At the John J. Cali School of Music<\/a>, some students are participating in optional mindfulness sessions in classes and rehearsal meetings. \u201cFor musicians, learning how to pay attention is the secret to effective performing. You have to be self-perceiving and world-perceiving, and completely embodied and free of unnecessary tension,\u201d says Professor Heather J. Buchanan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s become so much more important in the last few weeks,\u201d Buchanan says.\u201c\u00a0I am trying to help students cope and find a sense of purpose through meaningful learning experiences. Also encouraging them to understand that when this situation is eventually over, hopefully it will be a small blip in the context of a whole life. But for most students, it is tremendously overwhelming right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story by Staff Writer Marilyn Joyce Lehren<\/a><\/p>\n

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