COVID 19: Day one teaching online

Like most universities, in an effort to help flatten the curve and protect the university community, Mississippi State University (where I teach) decided to extend spring break one week. This gave faculty time to shift their instruction to a distance venue. Today was the first day back. Today was my first day teaching onine during the Covid 19 shutdown.

At 7:45 today my class EDE 4143 Elementary and Middle Level Social Studies was open and ready for students via Webex. My class presentation and activities were prepared and ready. Audio and Video were working. I had sent an email to my students late last week to let them know we would have class on Monday at 8 am (our normal scheduled time), directed them to the link in Canvas (our university online courseware), and directed them to email me to acknowledge the class meeting time and that they could open Webex. By 7:50, 10 students were logged into Webex and I was hearing exclamations of joy! The students were excited just to see and hear each other! I decided to let them interact and catch up. A few students couldn’t figure out how to turn their video on and they helped each other out. I just sat back and watched. As new students logged into the class, I would greet them with a wave and a smile. By 7:58, the students were taking roll and had determined which two students weren’t present and they sent out text messages and at 8:00 all students enrolled in the class were present.

I had a few goals for class today. My first goal was to bring back some semblance of normality in my students’ lives. I have taught online a lot and usually conduct online classes asynchronously. I have had great success using recorded lectures, group online activities, discussions, and individual learning activities to meet my instructional goals in an online environment, but I decided that for this time, I would do something different. My students needed something different. Their big problem was social isolation (that was my hypothesis at least). So last week, I dumped my plan to go asynchronous with my class. I decided to jump in head first and go almost all synchronous and have a live class on the first day back. I also decided to have class at the regularly scheduled time. The only change to my students was the location. Their response as the entered the classroom confirmed to me that their true need was social interaction. Now I did have class and did lecture a bit more than I would have in a regular class on campus, but my focus was to rebuild the classroom community and to connect with my students.

I’m not going to bore you with the topics I covered, but I will share a few things that I covered that I felt students needed on the first day back from their extended spring break. The first thing I did was use some humor. The title of my presentation was “Holy Moly… We can’t come to campus anymore.” It got a few chuckles. Maybe not as many as I expected, but sometimes humor can help reduce stress. I then shared how my life had changed. I then outlined the changes in the course that were required and assured them that any changes to assignments because of things outside our control would be reconciled to their benefit. In other words, they weren’t going to be penalized because the new course venue wouldn’t allow them to complete an existing assignment as originally assigned. We then discussed a few schedule changes (they were off an extra week of spring break, so they missed a few quizzes and I needed to move an assignment). I then explained how I would teach this week and each week after. Then I taught the lesson for the day.

In addition to teaching them, I gave them two pieces of advice. For most of them, this is their first time to work/study from home full time. So I shared with them advice on how to work/study from home and a link to an article with more details (https://combatgent.com/blogs/unhemmed/how-to-work-from-home-and-keep-your-sanity). The five recommendations the author made were to 1. Find a routine, 2. Experiment with your schedule, 3. Set up a space, 4. Find some productivity tools, and 5. Dress the part. I shared my experience the week before as I applied each of these recommendations to my effort to work from home. I ended the class with a quote from Benjamin Disraeli, “We are not creatures of circumstances; we are creators of circumstance.” During these trying times, it is tempting and maybe easy to feel like we are victims. Well I guess we are if we allow ourselves to be controlled by the circumstances of Covid 19. I encouraged my students to find a way to become creators of their own circumstances within this temporary suspension of normal life.

Class ended on time and I told students I would stay online and answer questions. They asked a few questions, and then a few asked about advising. I decided to advise there in Webex. I made sure that I was no longer sharing my screen and then without sharing an GPA type information, I checked the program progress and released about 8 students to register. The last student logged off at 10:30.

A few lessons from today for me:

1.     My students needed a sense of normality and conducting class during the regularly scheduled time helped provide that.

2.     My students needed to see and hear each other and to socialize just as much as they needed the information I was going to teach in class.

3.     My students needed advice on how to proceed as online students when they had all signed up for an on campus program.

4.     My students needed encouragement from me and from others.

5.     My students didn’t need to be required to come to class. Someone asked me if I required it. I never even considered it. I told my students we were having class at 8 am via Webex and they all showed up.

6.     My students needed leadership. They needed to be given a vision of how we would complete the school year and be assured that I could follow through and that I had faith that they could each be successful.

Did I hit a home run with today’s lesson. Probably not. I’ve taught better lessons online or face to face. But I did do the number one thing that I think my students needed. I connected with them and I helped provide a semblance of normality to their lives in uncertain times. For that I am proud.