Category: Faculty Stories

Leta is a faculty member in the Dental Hygiene program at Camosun.  The sudden pivot in March 2020 from face-to-face to online was a challenge, especially when Leta notes “I’m a person who can usually switch gears quite easily in situations I am familiar with, however, anything involving a computer is not intuitive to me and therefore takes time and repetition to learn how to navigate.  Plus, while I knew there was support available, with everything going on, I didn’t have time to pursue it.”

Leta told me “when we had to fast-track right away last March, we were survival mode. Even in September, after everything settled over the summer, I was reluctant to try anything new because it was such a learning curve for me. In addition, in our program we are stretched to the maximum with our curriculum, so having to learn how to manage new online tools was too much.”  Leta ended up teaching mostly synchronously, getting ongoing feedback from her students.  But she feels her students struggled with the online format.  “My classes are 2 ½ hours long which is long time to be sitting in front of a computer trying to stay engaged. And after my virtual class, they had to run off to campus for their clinical course. So I know they were signed in, but I don’t think they were always engaged.”

In addition to the stress of moving to online teaching, and the logistics of students having to move from virtual classrooms to face-to-face clinics daily, Leta expanded a bit on challenges she faced last year around student engagement.  “I teach clinical theory which integrates everything students have learned in their basic sciences courses, dental anatomy, etc. Usually we would have a lot of discussion in class, but due to the amount of content in the course, and the complexity of discussing questions online which can be time-consuming, we’d always be rushing through the class. Sometimes I would have to talk for the full 2 ½ hours and it became difficult to build in that engagement.”

In spite of all the challenges, Leta did have some good takeaways from her online teaching.  For example, “using the D2L quiz tool was great, because my courses have so much heavy content that can be hard to evaluate appropriately.”  Leta is excited because, while the program is required to run in-person midterms and finals to meet accreditation requirements, the quiz tool allows her to provide low-stakes evaluations for students which she is planning to incorporate when she moves back to face-to-face teaching.

One of the lessons Leta learned first-hand last year was that “you can’t follow your regular in-person style when you’re teaching, which I knew, but I didn’t really understand how different the modes of engagement were between teaching in-person and teaching online.”  Leta says she would have liked to have learned to use additional tools to support her students, like the Discussions in D2L, but found she “was not confident enough to both learn new tools and ensure that I could engage with students appropriately. It was just too much to wrap my head around while in the middle of doing it.”

Leta advises anyone moving their courses online to connect with CETL and eLearning for workshops, consultations, and one-on-one help.  She said she found the online tutorials especially useful “because while some people are great at remembering things. But I find a step-by-step tutorial that I can refer back to really helpful.”  A good reminder for us in CETL to provide help in as many ways as possible!

Moving forward, Leta wants to work with D2L quizzes, and to explore the Discussion tool to support students outside of class time.  “I want to incorporate more quizzing, because students don’t always ask questions until they’ve failed a midterm,” so having more options to test their knowledge will be useful.  “And I think discussion boards will give them more options to comment on or ask questions about content outside of the class.”  Leta also sees D2L as an option to provide students with content if she is unable to teach for a day.  “I could provide them with an asynchronous class so we don’t get behind in the schedule and then we can discuss the material in person later.”  Finally, “one thing that was nice last year was I could meet with students virtually outside of normal office hours.  They were in their own space and I didn’t have to worry about privacy,” since Leta works in a shared office space.  The virtual environment also allowed Leta to share her screen with students, so they could more easily go through their exams, etc. “I could see continuing with virtual office hours because we need to support our students however we can.”

Leta’s final words are to remember that “doing your best is good enough.  As educators, we always strive to make it better, but if you do the best you can, students will still learn and engage.”

Asha is a faculty member in the Community Child Family Studies program at Camosun.  Now, Asha’s programs are cohort-based, so not only did she face moving all her current students online in March 2020, but they also had a brand new cohort starting in May 2020, meaning they would start off their Camosun studies as online learners!  “We were a bit panicked about how we could make the student experience relational, because our program is about interpersonal relationships. So collectively our faculty worked together to figure out how we were going to make this happen when everyone’s learning to navigate the technology of Collaborate and online learning.  That was so great, that peer-to-peer piece where everyone was helping each other.”

While Asha’s program had to postpone some courses due to practicum changes in our community, and found it challenging to move the rest online so quickly without time to prepare, the challenges weren’t all bad.  “We thought, we’re educators.  We can figure out all these things. We didn’t have to do everything, but we could start small and build from there. I think a big takeaway from going online is that we can scaffold how we teach online and what tools and technology we use. We can learn little pieces, get good at them, and learn some more, and keep the best of them depending on what works for our teaching style.”  But in addition to sorting out the pieces, and learning how to teach in this new online mode, Asha says “we also had to support our students in learning what it means to be an online learner. I think the technology lent itself well to scaffolding this learning, and they gradually built confidence around it. So, it was two-fold for the students: building technology skills and confidence, and building confidence learning new content.”

Like many faculty, Asha also found herself developing online courses as she was teaching them, working to “translate things to online  figuring out different ways to do things, and still being creative, while finding ways to keep students engaged like I would have in a face-to-face classroom. In addition, many students were reluctant to be online, so creating community and maintaining a culture of safety was a challenge. But we overcame that in many ways, for example, playing games online, dancing in our classes, working in smaller groups, respecting our diverse needs and cultures and building peer support, which helped.”  In the end, Asha says that they did the best they could, and students still learned, still understood the big ideas, and were able to continue to develop as compassionate learners and professionals.”

When I asked about any rewards Asha sees from the past year, she told me that she has always been interested in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and thinks that, overall, courses were better designed for UDL because “we used closed captioning on videos, readings were more accessible for reading, and I think the online provided opportunities for many students to learn in the ways that suit them. I think we met the needs of a more diverse group by going on line.”  Asha also told me how surprised she was with the closeness some of the cohorts developed.  “I thought people would feel more disconnected, but they found ways to be connected by building relationships through the technology or outside of class. What also surprised me was how creative students can be when they have to use technology to create assignments. For example videos, podcasts, skits online or demonstrating their learning in other ways, which is UDL.”

In addition, Asha was delighted to discover inventive ways to bring her personality into the online classroom.  “For example, every class I showed something from my garden, and that became part of the culture of the classroom. And then the students started bringing things in – we were creating our community of learners.”  And this community ended up including students from different parts of Canada and the world.  “We had the beginnings of this global network, which I thought was really exciting because in a live online classroom, we were hearing different perspectives from people living in different countries.”

Asha learned many lessons from last year, including one that keeps coming up again in again in my conversations with faculty.  “We have learned new ways to deliver our courses, as well as how to meet and collaborate with our colleagues, which I’d like to explore more.”  Although she did recognize the challenge learning online is for some students.  “Some people didn’t love being online, and some people really needed a personal connection. So one question I still have is how do I keep students motivated in an online environment?”  The advice Asha has for anyone moving their courses online is “to be gentle with yourself because you do know what you’re doing. You know how to connect with students, and that will come through online. But also dig into all the resources you can find, and challenge yourself to try somethings you never did before. And remember you are not alone and that you can reach out to colleagues for support”

Moving forward, Asha’s Interurban cohort program is staying online for Fall 2021, with a plan to have face-to-face with some blended courses in the Winter 2022 term.  “We’d like to potentially offer a completely online program at some point, because we recognize there’s a need for that in our community.”  Asha does think that we, at the college, need to all take some time to reflect on all that we have accomplished, all that we have learned over the past year and a half.  “We have already begun to reflect on how our eyes and minds were open to the creativity of online teaching and learning, and to the many things we actually gained going online.  But now we need to take what we’ve learned, and think about how we want to deliver courses in the future, about what courses could stay online, which could be blended, etc.  Ask ourselves, does everything have to be in the lab or classroom or can we do some things virtually? Can we condense things and have students on campus for shorter amounts of time? It has made me rethink how we schedule and design education.”  And I definitely agree with something Asha said to me, “I think this year has allowed us to blow up education a bit – it allowed us as a college and as educators to jump forward a few years, and hopefully we don’t retract entirely back into what was our comfort zone – this goes for all levels of the College. I think this year we saw some of the most creative work and dedication from faculty- they showed professionalism and innovation in a pandemic, and I hope that faculty are encouraged to keep creating education in new ways.”

Asha’s final words reflect how I think so many feel now.  “It was a pretty emotionally draining year, but I think that allowed us to feel more empathy and compassion for our students and for each other. We needed each other more than we would have done before.”  Let’s hope we don’t forget that!

Alexis is a faculty member in the English Department at Camosun, teaching academic writing to students coming from a wide range of disciplines.  Alexis, like many others in March 2020, was “overwhelmed and unsure if we were just managing through a brief crisis, or if we would be teaching online for some time.  It soon became apparent it would be for longer, but as an educator, and someone who’s really keen on pedagogy, part of me was really excited.”

Alexis told me that a large part of her classes involve discussion, so she was nervous about how that aspect of her courses would work online.  However, she did see the possibility the online tools offered: “when I got on to Collaborate and saw the breakout groups, I was heartened because I thought they would enable me to place students into small groups to do the work they would have done face-to-face. In the end, I think that was one of the more successful aspects of my teaching this term.”  As the term went on, Alexis felt her use of the online tools improved as she got feedback from students.  “It was really important for me to hear student suggestions about what was or wasn’t working, or to receive suggestions for me to try.  I also ask for feedback at the end of each term, and this year, most of the students commented that they liked the synchronous online experience, that they enjoyed being able to connect with their colleagues.”

As you may have guessed, Alexis, like Maureen, opted for a more synchronous model to support her course discussions, rather than the Discussions tool in D2L at all.  “Learning too many tools at once would make you and your students go crazy, so I decided to be intentional in choosing those tools that would best support my course and my students and learn those tools the best I could.” However, she notes: “I’ve heard many stories from colleagues in English about the rich responses they’re getting from these online discussions. It seems to have revolutionized their teaching, and while I didn’t use them this last year, I would like to investigate them and, perhaps, try them out in the future.”

Working out how to run group discussions online was one challenge for Alexis.  Another challenge she faced, which is not only a challenge for online teaching, was flipping her class, trying “to figure out how to separate groups into those that had completed the flipped element, the online reading for example, and those who hadn’t in a way that didn’t shame students for not completing the work in advance.”  In addition, she found that “the online pivot allowed me to dig into how I was handling the diagnostic elements I do in week one, like getting a sample of a student’s writing. There was no good way to do that in the online environment, but I let it go and redesigned the diagnostic so students completed it on their own time. Moving forward I can expand the diagnostic and include richer questions, in addition to adding a self-assessment component.”

And finally, one other challenge Alexis noted is one we all recognize.  “Everything took more time. The time it took to learn the technology, to make new resources, to think through all the elements of my course, and to be intentional in creating a course that would make sense to me.”  And, of course, missing seeing students “grimacing, or raising their eyebrows, or opening their mouth in surprise – you can’t replicate that in this forum, and I really miss those moments.”

When I asked her about what rewards or memorable moments stuck with her, Alexis told me a wonderful story.  She had “brought in a piece from CBC with three panellists discussing removing John A. McDonald’s name from schools.  Students had to read some articles in advance, and come to class prepared to free-write.  Students then worked in groups and came back to report on the most salient points of the group discussions.  But what happened next, I don’t think would have occurred in an in-person class.  A student who seemed rather shy shared a story with everyone, explaining how our exploration of indigenous rights and attention to discriminatory practices made her think about experiences from her own cultural background.  What came to mind for me was some research that suggests students learn more from their peers than they do from their teachers. I feel like the learning that happened in that moment was so profound, and even if I could have told that story, it wouldn’t have had the emotional impact it had coming from that student at that time. That was one of the most memorable experiences for me last year.”

For faculty moving their courses online, Alexis advises “challenge yourself and challenge your students. Keep exploring, because online tools have a lot to offer, so make the space to keep learning without overwhelming yourself.  Look at your course and outcomes, as well as what you know works for students and what you value, and consider how you would replicate that online and focus on those things. In addition, be intentional with what you want to do but be open to advice from others.”

As I mentioned earlier, moving forward, Alexis is interested in exploring asynchronous discussions in D2L.  This would enable students “to have a record of their discussions that they could draw on for future assignments.  My colleague Kelly said she found it wonderful that students were quoting each other in final exam questions. In Discussions, students could be having academic conversations, drawing on each other’s insights and thoughts in an ongoing fashion. That’s what we want for students as producers of academic work, and the discussion forums can give them more space to really tackle questions and engage with their colleagues in a way that they can’t, perhaps, in live sessions.”

“While last year, I think students were hungry for the immediate contact with me and their peers that the synchronous model provided, in the future, I would like to explore blended options, because you’d potentially have the best of both worlds, face-to-face and online, depending on how the course is built.”  I look forward to talking to Alexis more about this soon!

Dave is a Trades instructor teaching Metal Fabrication and Sheet Metal courses at Camosun.  Like many Trades faculty, he had used some of the tools in D2L prior to the pivot to complete online learning in March 2020, but found being completely online a challenge with the hands-on nature of the courses he teaches (as many instructors will relate to).

Dave told me that the transition to online wasn’t too bad for him because he had been using online tools to support his teaching for about 8 years.  What he found challenging, and time consuming, was making videos for demonstrations of various tasks and activities, since students could not come into the classroom for live demonstrations.  “While moving online was easy, the amount of camera work was overwhelming because I had to edit and split and mesh and trim and review the videos for quality.  It was also challenging trying to find quiet times for filming in the shop.  I’d have to film in the morning or later on or a weekend, and if I tried to film during the day, I’d have to ask everybody to be quiet. And that was stressful too because everybody would be watching and listening and waiting for me to finish. But otherwise, everything was pretty good for me moving online.”  In fact, Dave reflected (like other faculty) that “we needed this pandemic to force us to do something a little bit out of our comfort zone.” In addition to creating demonstration videos, Dave pre-recorded all his lessons and made “how-to” videos for all his assignments.  He then was able to use his synchronous classroom time, in Collaborate, to talk to students and answer their questions.

After the initial move to completely-online learning, students were gradually allowed back into the shop for limited contact hours.  “For my next course, for example, I have two weeks of online learning work on the computer, and then I have three weeks in the shop.”  He found blocking like this was much more convenient for students as they didn’t have to travel to the college every day or for long hours.  “It just didn’t make a lot of sense for students to travel for an hour or sometimes two, and pay for parking to do only one or two hours in the shop. I had a lot of students say they appreciated their shop time being blocked together.”

Dave found that the biggest challenge with online learning was students not having laptops or Internet access.  And in addition, even when they had access to computers and Internet, they often couldn’t find a quiet space to work.  “I’ve heard of people using their travel trailer in the driveway as a quiet spot for working on their courses.”

One of the biggest rewards from the past year for Dave was working with the Quizzes tool in D2L.  “We created self-tests of 50 or a 100 questions, for students to review, and we can set them up so students can redo the quizzes, but only those questions they got wrong.”  Dave credits having self-test quizzes available for the higher than expected averages in his classes this last year.  In addition, they had the highest Red Seal average as well.  “It’s not really fair for the person with the best memory to always do the best on the test. What’s important is students are understanding and moving forward.  In addition to being able to do the quizzes over and over again, Dave thinks that another bonus of using the quizzes tool is that students can complete the quizzes when they have time, because they are always open and available.  “Some students wake up at 5:00AM and do all their work by noon. Some students wake up at noon and they’re up till midnight. They perform best when they are ready to perform, so that was a major reward, for them to be able to complete quizzes and assignments at their own convenience.  We’ve heard that a lot from the students: they were really scared of taking an online course, but found it manageable because of the flexibility it offered.”  Dave told me that in the end, 1/3 of the class ended up preferring online learning, 1/3 had no preference and 1/3 preferred the classroom to help them focus on the task at hand.

When I asked him about some of his own takeaways from this past year, Dave said he learned that you really need to understand the various software and online platforms you are going to use, and take the time to set them up right at the beginning for the long term.  In addition, you also need to set students up for success in terms of the technologies and what they can expect.  “Make sure the students are informed coming in, and giving them the chance to experience the technology in advance so they aren’t seeing it for the first time on the first day of class. They need to have a chance to develop some comfort with the tools before they can start studying what they need to know.”

Moving forward, Dave is definitely planning to keep what he created over the past year.  “Having videos will definitely complement what we’re doing in the classroom, so students watch the demonstrations before as well as after for review.”  In addition he will keep the self-test/quizzes both to enhance student learning, and because he has discovered that they also “save me maybe 20 hours per course, which gives me an extra three to four days I can spend with students in the shop.”  Dave also plans on building on what he created, with “more videos, more self-tests, and better content.  And I guess the next thing we’ll do start using the marking rubrics on D2L, so I can have the rubric open and mark their project right there in the shop.”

Even though Dave recognizes that there are still challenges ahead (for example, how to support students with access to technology and the Internet while in the classroom), he says “to go back to the way things were before would just be ludicrous.  It wouldn’t make any sense to throw away everything we’ve developed to go back to paper – that is just not reality in industry right now.”  All I can say is that I am looking forward to seeing where Dave is at in another year!

Maureen, a faculty member in the English Department at Camosun, had not used many online tools, including D2L, to support her teaching in the past.  So for her, the pivot to online was “from zero to hero, because I really was starting with zero!”  Also, initially Maureen “didn’t have a computer, had no printer, no equipment.”  Luckily, Camosun provided her with that infrastructure very quickly, and then she just had to learn to use it all for her teaching.  Maureen also noted how because everyone had to pivot at the same time, students, faculty, administration, “that synchronization of all of our efforts towards one goal made for as smooth a transition as possible for the students.”

As you can imagine, Maureen faced many challenges as she moved her courses online.  She told me her biggest challenges was her fear “that because of my inexperience, it wouldn’t work, that I wouldn’t be able to connect in an interactive, interesting, stimulating, thought-provoking way with my students the way I did face-to-face. Trying to keep that active learning environment alive was one of my biggest fears and challenge as well. Or maybe the challenge was to overcome that fear.”

She overcame her fears, however, by attending workshops and reviewing CELT resources containing “tips and things to watch out for, as well as other things you could do once the basics were in place. Then I was able to consider what I could reach for, to try that next skill. I really liked the building block approach, which got me started and built my confidence.” In addition, Maureen was able to take a step back and look at her course from a student perspective.  “I realized that certain things would have to go, and worked on the clarity and organization, by always looking at things with a student’s point of view.”

Unlike some of her colleagues in English, Maureen decided to teach synchronously with some D2L support.  “The core material was in D2L: PowerPoints with voice-overs, videos, links to readings, as well weekly instructions.  Then I would have one Collaborate session a week which was very helpful. Students who attended those sessions tended to do better: they were more engaged and more connected with the class. I also used Collaborate for my office hour and individual meetings, which was nice because students could load their documents in Collaborate and then we could look at things together.”  Teaching synchronously, however, doesn’t always mean you see your students.  For Maureen, the day when students started turning on their cameras made her feel “like I had overcome the hurdle of connecting with them. You have to overcome that feeling of being so exposed, and for them to trust the classroom space, as well as me and each other, was really encouraging. I felt like we were all together on this adventure, creating it as we went along.”

Maureen told me that she also appreciated being able to meet students when they needed to meet with her, rather than being bound by specific office hours on-campus.  “Even by appointment, meeting times are dependent on when students are on campus, and when I am on campus. Having the online learning environment available adds some flexibility, and makes for much richer meeting opportunities.  We can see each other face to face, I can look at their work and give feedback. So having roving office hours, being able to quickly help students, I really enjoyed that, and I would like to keep that even when we go back to face to face.”

Maureen’s advice for faculty moving courses online? “Sign up for the workshops, and if you have a question for the e-learning team, ask it. When you have a question, even if it’s small, ask it because it will keep coming up. And another thing I found useful is repetition, doing things over and over again. Like learning anything else, practice makes perfect.”

After teaching online this past year, Maureen has learned some new skills to complement her face-to-face teaching.  “I’ve always used course packs, but now I love the flexibility of being able to just make changes when I need to.  Using online content allows you to be ultra-current, and to be responsive to students’ questions using the Discussion forums.  In addition, Maureen has found having students submit their assignments in D2L has allowed her to give feedback in more ways.  “For every assignment I can change it up so that it looks different, to get them thinking about it in a different way. I will definitely keep online assignment and marking as one option for them.”

As we wrapped up our chat, I asked Maureen if she would teach online again, and her answer made me smile “: I found out that I love both: I love face-to-face, but you know what?  Online was pretty fun too, and I would like to get better at it.”

Brenda teaches Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking in the Visual Arts program at Camosun.  I can hear what you’re thinking…drawing, painting, and printmaking online?  What?  Brenda was also a little skeptical when everything pivoted.  “I was very nervous at the prospect of at all, so I guess I had some resistance at the beginning that I had to get over. Then I realized it wasn’t about me having my way – it was about me showing up for the students. So I stopped thinking about myself and started thinking about what they might need and how I could deliver it to them.”

Like most faculty, Brenda was in the middle of teaching last March when everyone was sent home.  Between the shock and scramble to make things work, she says that while she had “space where students could continue to upload work even if they had to complete it at home, it was a very sad ending to the term. We didn’t get to say goodbye or discuss the artworks that they were working on,” something they normally would have done.

While Brenda’s scheduled development plans in the spring did not involve reimagining her fall courses, she was thinking about them.  “I was going to be teaching a drawing class and two printmaking classes in the fall, so I connected with former students asking what they might like to see.  I also connected with colleagues at here at Camosun, as well as with people teaching up island to ask them what they were doing. So we exchanged some ideas and exercises which was really helpful – connecting with people who were in the same kind of situation.”

Because students would be missing in-class demonstrations in the fall, Brenda spent a lot of time making videos of those demos.  However, since she was not the only instructor in her area doing so, finding someone to help her make the videos was a challenge.  In the end, with the help of her son, she made about a dozen videos in her kitchen so students could review the various drawing and printmaking processes on their own time.  Brenda says she had to let go of trying to make the videos perfect.  “It was a struggle at first, but looking back, while I had a sense of embarrassment at the beginning, I became more comfortable over time.”

Brenda’s students were lucky to have some face-to-face studio time blended in with the online teaching, which she told me the students loved.  “They were eager for that connection. While we have protocols dictating how many people we can have in each studio, we have three studios that we can use to split up the students into groups.  That way they get a chance to converse and talk about each other’s works.”

The loss of the normally more intense face-to-face engagement, however, led to other challenges for Brenda.  “One challenge was around understanding the printmaking tools that were new to students. We put together kits, so students had an easel, a lino block, rollers, etc., but because they hadn’t used them before, they asked a lot of questions. I would refer them to the videos, and ask them to come back with more specific questions, but we also had to remember that they were at home, which meant there were other considerations to explain to them.  For example, they needed a place to clean up leftover ink – you don’t want to put it down the kitchen sink, you don’t want to have it on the kitchen table, you don’t want to have it in your roommate’s room. So there were a lot of considerations to keep in mind.”

In addition, Brenda found that some students were reticent to share their work on Collaborate, perhaps due to shyness or fear of being judged.  “There are students that still lurk because I have given them permission to lurk in Collaborate.  They don’t have to say anything, but its good practice for them to at least listen to how we describe artworks we’ve made, and how we get feedback from other students. I know they’re there, but I’m not forcing them to speak up – they’ll do it when they’re ready.”

But at the same time, being online brought some rewards.  Brenda found some amazing new assignment formats.  For example, one she called ‘three things we loved.’   “Maybe you love flowers, or maybe you love cigarette smoking, or maybe you like tea.  Then you draw those three things that you love the most. But you also have to draw them with a background, a middle ground, and a foreground, because that gives us space in the painting so it looks three-dimensional. Then we went on to something called micro, making a large image of something that was really small. For example, if you decided to draw a bee, you enlarged it to a full 20” by 20” piece — a good experiment with how you would use space in a drawing

Then she also had the students complete some short exercises while they were in their Collaborate sessions.  “This would be the first thing we did when we came into Collaborate each week. I gave students prompts and they had ten minutes to draw the image in their sketchbook. Then they would upload their sketch into the Assignments tool where I could see it. They were working in real time, and I thought that was really important that they would get immediate feedback. And they loved it. We did all kinds of prompts, whatever I could come up with, usually the day before class started.”

For the painting classes, she tried something a little different.  “We worked in black and white to avoid the complexity of having to mix colours, and I asked them to find an object in their house and paint it four times over a period of weeks. We were looking for repetition and refinement.  They enjoyed that a lot.”

Moving forward, Brenda is planning to keep some of the things she’s learned and implemented in her classes.  “For their programs, students paint on canvasses, wood, panel, and paper, and put all their work into a big fat cardboard portfolio. Then as the instructor, you have 25 heavy portfolios to mark.  So, moving forward, I would like to see a digital upload of their work instead.  They can photograph their work and upload it to D2L so I can assess it there. This would also allow me to more easily find an individual student’s work at any time, instead of searching through a pile of physical portfolios.  We could also have them include an artist statement with their work, and I can give them feedback for both their work and their statements.”  She will also keep the videos she made over the year.  “I think that’s what’s nice about a blended class, because students get a chance to talk with each other in real time, but they can also review material and think about things in D2L.  It’s the best of both worlds.”

In the end, Brenda told me that while she was nervous at the beginning, and the learning curve was steep, she found the strength to get through it.  “I’m a long-term teacher and I have to remind myself that I have lots of skills, and while sometimes I may think I don’t know how to do something, I can find ways to make it happen.”

 

Kate is a Biology instructor at Camosun, and this past year taught two sections of Biology 090 (a college prep Biology), as well as a section of a brand new second year Cell Biology course.  Not surprisingly, both had their challenges in moving online.  But, as she told me, last March, the Biology instructors “all jumped on the bandwagon together – whatever I was doing, I was sharing, whatever they were doing, they were sharing, and we just threw it all in the pot and cobbled through the semester, and in the end it wasn’t awful,” which certainly sounds like how the pivot last March worked for me!

Kate was fortunate to have scheduled development last spring, so she could spend time planning for fall.  She had used some D2L tools before, but faced some learning of tools she hadn’t used.  And now, Kate says she has fully adopted the Grades tool, as well as the Quizzes tool, finding the immediate feedback and the ability for students to complete quizzes multiple times a great trade-off for the work she put into creating them.  In addition, students submitted their lab assignments to the Assignments tool, where she could use the annotation tool or download them, add feedback, and upload the marked file for them.  “That part has saved me tons of time, once I got it working right, and I’m going to keep that for sure.  For students, when it comes time to study, they all have access to the uploaded marked versions, even if they were working in groups – no more excuses that someone else has the final copy of the assignment! It’s always there as a resource for them.”

For fall, Kate taught the Biology 090 asynchronously, which she recognized was a risk because of the upgrading nature of the course.  “I thought it would be a mistake to code it as synchronous, especially when there was so much unknown with jobs and lives and schedules.  Instead, I asked myself, how can I make this more accessible? So I tried to make it more self-paced, but with deadlines every single week. I’d have weekly synchronous tutorials, but I did not take attendance and I recorded them all. I expected students to watch them, but gave them the choice of how and when to schedule that time.”

Labs were definitely Kate’s biggest challenge.  “The big thing for Biology, of course, is the labs because they are supposed to be tactile:  you’re trying things out, you’re working with equipment, all things we couldn’t do. So I worked with that team of instructors and we came up with a pretty good hodgepodge of activities.”  For example, they developed what she called “kitchen labs.” “Do you have a carrot? Can you boil something? Can you watch ice melt? Can you put some ice, and then put some salt with the ice and then explain what’s happening to the hydrogen bonds?  They were all activities designed to connect to the course content, which worked out pretty well.”

While for the upgrading courses Kate was able to find a wealth of lab-related resources on the Internet, the second-year Cell Biology was a different story.  “Cell Biology is very content heavy, and online labs are not ideal, but we made the best of it.”  One of the instructors used his scheduled development time video-record several of the lab procedures, creating little one- or two-minute clips walking through the processes to get students through the semester. “Then we upped some of the data process requirements to make up for the loss of the practical skills, which worked pretty well.”  This last year has definitely brought out that flexible thinking – trying to find that balance of activities that will support students meeting learning outcomes.  One thing Kate noted about the Cell Biology group was that she saw “a really big difference in student engagement. They’re making study groups, they’re interacting, and you can see improvement in their data processing as well as in their critical thinking skills.”  I was particularly excited by an unanticipated by-product in Kate’s Cell Biology synchronous classes. “What has been cool is the text chat in Collaborate. Many students in this group knew each other from previous classes and there was an active chat thread while I was talking about something, for example someone types ‘I saw this cool article’ and they paste the link, or someone says, ‘yeah, it’s like what we did in our anatomy class’.  Having that text chat with this friendly banter (mostly content related) has been really fun and makes it feels more like a community”

In addition to finding new ways to deliver labs for the upgrading classes and discovering community building in the Cell Biology course, Kate has found many positive outcomes form the past year.  “This semester we are running a section where we have students from the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, mostly indigenous students, taking this course fully online. Look at the outreach that we’ve been able to accomplish by making a cohort for them!  I also have people in my own class who would never have been able to take a class face to face, for example my one student who had a baby two weeks before the class started in January. I have students from all walks of life who are able to access this asynchronous class because they complete the work in their own time within the week that each assignment is open.”

But there have been lessons learned along the way as well.  “It doesn’t always work the way you think. For example, I gave students an open book exam and discovered that not all students really understood what open-book means and what it doesn’t mean.  They were looking up every single question and of course ran out of time, even though I had warned them not to rely on their books, which was a lesson for all of us.”  Kate also realizes that not every student will succeed in an online course.  “Some have really missed those face-to-face study groups that happen organically after class when you’re standing around or hanging around the lab. But for other students, they’re self-motivated, know how to study, and know when they need help and how to get that help, whether it’s from me or the biology Help Center or online resources, and they’re rocking it.”

Moving forward, Kate is going to keep a lot of what she has created and learned.  “All those assignments that I spent all that time creating with the answers and instant feedback, I’m keeping those. They’re awesome. They’re great for the students and it’s no extra marking for me. I’m going to keep the digital lab submissions and look at ways I can give better feedback, better upfront instructions, etc. I’m even thinking about ways I can continue to share my PowerPoints in class and use my pen to write directly on the slides instead of using a laser pointer, because with the pen the marks will stay there.”

What Kate will remember as well is how she was able to make connections with so many students.  “I know people say it’s faceless and there’s not a connection, but there are ways to make connections without forcing people out of their comfort zone or making them turn on their cameras in a class of 50.”  And as many others have noted, there have been a lot of positives come out of having more flexibility in work-life balance, for students and faculty.  “Not having to commute or take public transit, not having to arrange for childcare – it’s all about making education accessible and flexible. That’s what the future needs – the model of going to University for four years face to face, and that’s all you can do, that’s gone. That’s not the reality for most students, and we need to get with the program.”

Lisa teaches in ELD (English Language Development) at Camosun.  She remembers the switch to online teaching last spring well: “The Friday before, I quickly taught the students how to take photos of their work with their phones and upload them because it felt like we might not be coming back on Monday. And then Monday we were online. Then I just tried to get them through the last weeks of the course.”  Then, over May and June last year, Lisa was on scheduled development leave and worked with a colleague to prepare for what they knew was coming in the fall.  “We realized that at the level our students were (lower level ELD students), nothing would be accessible to them. They might not be able to get into the class, and for new students, how would they even find their student numbers? So we spent a long time trying follow through what a student’s path would be to access the online platform, and did a lot of work trying to figure out how we were going to teach them all the skills that they would need.”

As I mentioned, Lisa taught lower level ELD courses in the fall, and found managing the challenges her students faced to be at times overwhelming, especially considering that “underlying everything was an assumption that they had basic computer skills. And they might have those skills in their own language, but keyboards and webpage layouts can be very different in English. Unfortunately, we hadn’t put much focus on basic computer skills development, which ended up being a big problem for students.”  In addition, Lisa faced some frustrations with D2L because it doesn’t always lend itself well to language teaching/learning.  “Where I’m at with it now, I would prefer not to use D2L, but would use Collaborate and either send a CD to students, or links to online audio files.  I was constantly trying to fit language learning into a system that was not developed for language learning and always having to find workarounds.”

The fall term presented a daily constant challenge.  “I heard a teacher being interviewed and he used the word heavy and that’s what it felt like. Every day were frustrations. I would stumble across a new thing and get all excited to try it out, and then wouldn’t work quite the way I envisioned it. It was a roller coaster.”  In addition, ELD courses typically have lots of small homework assignments that are easy to manage face- to- face, but managing them online, well “you put a lot of effort into marking something electronically, then have to help the students find the feedback,” but unfortunately in D2L instructors can’t always see what students see.  “I found it very difficult to help students at my level and I’m sure half my class never saw any of their feedback. It is so much more difficult compared to just handing it back and having a quick chat in the classroom.”

This Winter term, however, Lisa’s workload has been much better.  “I teach six hours a week and the other part of my workload is doing online testing. This term, there’s three of us team teaching, plus a support person, plus a manager, which makes things much more manageable.”  Having a larger support team managing an online teaching load, especially the first time around, is really key to success (and much less stress).  I do want to mention the project Lisa worked on this term.  “It’s a project with contract training, providing language, business and make-it skills to a group of immigrant women to sell products at local farmer’s markets. With the pandemic, one unexpected result has been the creation of an online store for Camosun.  Any students making products for sale can now sell them through the store and people can pay online, so it’s a benefit to the whole college.”

While Lisa felt frustrated a lot of the time over the past year, she does see some positives.  “Humans are remarkably adaptable, and I’ve felt like everyone jumped in and made it work as best they could.  We were collaborating, teaching each other, and learning as quickly as possible.”  Even instructors who were very new to all the technology were figuring it out and helping their colleagues.  “What I take away from last year is that huge team effort, everybody digging in and finding ways to make online teaching work.”

Lisa has some advice for faculty teaching online for the first time.  “I would definitely try to get access to a course that had already been set up, and connect with the instructor who set it up.  And I would want to work with that person as a mentor.”  Last spring, because they were thrown into the deep end, this was not really possible so “the group of us who were on SD ran training for the department.  Other instructors (who were teaching in the spring) could learn with us and then try it out right away in the class and report back.”

Moving forward, Lisa also feels that having dedicated eLearning support (someone familiar with their programs and teaching styles), as well as technical support, would make future technology-enhanced, blended, or online teaching less stressful for faculty and students.  “Someone who knows the platforms and can come in on-call to help with students when they’re having trouble, and also teach some basic computer skills.”  As for what she will continue to use moving forward, Lisa says now that she has content, the gradebook, and tests set up in D2L, she will continue to use them.  “I will also use the News, and I’d like to get on top of the Checklist.”

Lisa ends with a couple of thoughts. “When I look back on last year, with the news that we will be back face-to-face in the fall, it was very satisfying. I love delving into new things and learning about them. As a language teacher, I don’t think I would put much more effort into D2L, but into online learning?  Absolutely. I can see all sorts of ways we could make it work, as long as workload is being recognized properly, which is a big issue.  I also proud of myself and the other instructors in our department, as well as our students. So even though there’s been a lot of hard stuff, we’ve done some pretty amazing things, and that’s what I’m going to remember.”

Ally is a librarian at Camosun College, working primarily (pre-Covid) at the Interurban Campus library. Librarians, and Instructional Designers (like yours truly), are also faculty members at Camosun. We facilitate workshops and teach instructional sessions for faculty and students. Fun fact:  Ally had emailed me to ask if I was going to interview a librarian, and I said “Yes – are you volunteering?”  So, she did, but sent her colleagues my questions to get their answers and perspectives on the past year as well.

I asked Ally what the sudden shift to online support was like for her and her fellow librarians. “At first, it was a bit of a jumble, like it was for everyone else. We made more use of the online tools we already have, more time on AskAway (online chat) research help, and then worked to develop new online resources. One of the things I spent a lot of time on in the first few days was the initial COVID-19 resources guide pulling together subscription content like Credo Info lit with Camosun created resources. All of the librarians jumped in and started creating what ended up being instructional videos which, over time, we narrowed down, improved, and made more consistent.”

What Ally missed most, however, were the daily face-to-face interactions with students and colleagues. In the past, “at Interurban, Margie and I have offices right in the student space. With Margie, groups of business students would just go to her office to ask questions and chat, and I would often have one-on-one interactions with students who know me from class sessions and come to ask for help. At Lansdowne, the librarians have daily shifts on the reference desk, and I think losing that day-to-day, more personal connection with the students, was a significant loss.”  For some context, while the Camosun libraries were forced to close after the shutdown, it wasn’t long before there was some limited opening for handing out books, laptops, etc. for students. But mostly the libraries remained closed until fall (in September the Lansdowne library opened for take-out and limited computer workstation access, and the Interurban library followed suit in November). But luckily, librarians are highly adaptable and found new ways to connect – new ways that they will likely not let go of even when returning full time to their libraries. “We weren’t really using Collaborate before, but now we definitely are, and we’ve discovered that it’s a fantastic tool. We have been using research guides for years, but recently we have invested in some additional apps on the same platform. One is a scheduling tool which, combined with Collaborate is how we’ve been putting together our online open-registration workshops.”  In addition to workshops, Collaborate has also made it possible for librarians to host virtual one-to-one chats with students and faculty. What makes Collaborate such a game changer is being able to “see a student’s screen, give them advice, and work through problems. It’s a lot easier to have those kinds of teachable moments in a Collaborate session than in our pre-Covid classroom sessions, which has been quite transformative for us.”

When I asked Ally what the biggest reward might be from the past year, she told me “I honestly think that Collaborate makes it easier for me to connect with students. When we are face-to-face, there aren’t any name tags, but in Collaborate when people are typing in chat or speaking, I can address them by name and get to know them. I think it’s been very good, strangely, in terms of personal connections.”  I have heard this echoed by other faculty and colleagues – that despite the distance technology can create, in some ways it has brought us closer over the past year.

Reflecting on lessons learned, Ally says “I think as a group, we do our best to respond to students and faculty at their point of need, so the biggest takeaway for us was to jump in and take risks. Like the instructional videos: most of us have made videos in the past individually, but the Covid response involved all of us jumping in. We created a lot of content and then re-worked it, which I think was strangely more streamlined than hashing out the details before creating anything.”  And these thoughts certainly are echoed in her advice to anyone who might be coming back to work after being off for this past year. “Don’t be afraid of just trying things, your colleagues and students really don’t expect perfection, let it be messy for a while, and don’t lose your sense of humour.”  She notes that the librarians normally engage in reflective teaching practice (they all teach workshops year-round), and integrating new technologies has been part of every aspect of college librarianship for decades, so, they were already adept at “pivoting.” Learning Collaborate added an additional layer of complexity, but their reflective practice remained the same.

Moving forward, Ally says she sees “probably an expansion of more workshops on Collaborate and speaking for myself, I would be quite open to office hours for reference help. And I think we will probably start integrating the new scheduling tool with Collaborate to create a set repertoire of online workshops and drop-in times, because I think there are a lot of students who really like working from home. And so why wouldn’t we continue these as a service? Why would we leave those students out if that’s their place of need?”

Libraries’ function as a “safe third space” will always be an important part of life at the college. “There are plenty of students who live with too many roommates or family members, and there’s just no mental space at home for them to really get the sort of studying done that they want to do – and that’s why they spend so much time at the library. But I think what this past year has done for some students is also give them a digital space where they can get help when they need it.”