New school of thought

Faculty quickly shifts to a new teaching environment

By Leslie Virostek

When the CCSU campus shut down in March and the University switched exclusively to remote learning, the teaching faculty found themselves in an unprecedented situation: Lesson plans and scheduled labs were out the window. Office hours and other in-person opportunities to mentor students were not possible. Somehow, faculty members had to figure out how to teach their classes and support their students’ progress from home.

The Instructional Design and Technology Resource Center (IDTRC) sprang into action to help. Faculty became students in online teaching tools that could provide remote alternatives for in-class discussion, small group work, information sharing, and more. Far from having a respite, faculty spent the spring break scrambling to adapt to new pedagogies.

“The day classes went remote was a life changer for me last spring,” says Cathy Donahue, an adjunct Marketing instructor. “Thankfully, I’m healthy, but I worried so much about the health and well-being of our students and their families. I launched class on WebEx every week in March, and all of my students showed up — each and every week until the end of classes. I hadn’t known what to expect, but CCSU students brought their A-game.”

Dr. Christina Robinson, associate vice president for Graduate Studies, Research, and Faculty Development, worked with the IDTRC to draft remote-learning survival guides for both students and faculty members to keep everyone afloat. But as the spring wore on it became clear that pandemic teaching would continue in the fall. In what was a herculean collaborative effort and a test of the mettle of the community, Robinson says the faculty shifted from the “panic pedagogy” of patching things together to a “pivot pedagogy” that could deliver the quality of education worthy of CCSU.

“I think that to prepare for the fall term, the faculty had to work about 1,000 percent harder this summer than in a normal summer,” she says.

To make the big pivot, faculty members had to develop several distinct skillsets beyond classroom teaching, including online instruction via Webex; meetings in Microsoft Teams; online asynchronous teaching in which the exchange of ideas and sharing of materials involves no real-time interaction; its counterpart, online synchronous teaching in which classes are prerecorded; and, finally, the hybrid model with some students present in the classroom and others participating in the same course remotely.

Robinson notes that making HyFlex learning a reality at CCSU required an unprecedented level of collaboration among the IT, Facilities, and Academic Affairs departments. “There is always talk in academia of breaking down the silos,” she says, “and we saw that happening.”

That collaborative spirit fueled the long summer of academic development for faculty throughout the summer. Many faculty members began creating their own learning communities and troubleshooting groups. They shared tips on best practices for instruction in HyFlex classrooms, with their teaching zones, spaced student desks, pivoting cameras, and software platforms.

“The circumstances challenged us to be more imaginative than we might have been,” Robinson notes. As an example, she points to art and chemistry faculty who started meeting on Zoom when they discovered remote-learning challenges in common within studio and lab spaces.

Robinson says Dr. Kristine Larsen, faculty director of the Center for Teaching and Faculty Development (CTFD), was a visible peer leader, as was Associate Professor of Physical Education and Human Performance Jason Melnyk, who created numerous how-to videos for the benefit of colleagues. CTFD has catalogued dozens of training videos, guides, demonstrations and workshops and posted links to them on its webpage, which are available for faculty to use at any time. Subsequent live workshops for faculty have been added to the growing library of resources.

“This semester, the training opportunities from CTFD and IDTRC were first-rate,” says Donahue, who had some experience teaching online before the pandemic. “Training was hands-on, informative, and ample. My admiration for the people on both of those teams grew tenfold when I saw how much time they invested to help faculty pivot under pressure to new platforms.”

Today CCSU faculty members know that should pandemic teaching extend into the spring term they will be ready. Many are continuing to build on the platforms and pedagogies they are using now, in pursuit of further innovation.

“I am genuinely looking forward to the spring,” Donahue notes. “The world hopefully will be moving into a healthier place, and we’ll all feel a little more comfortable in our present circumstances. I hope students seriously consider the opportunity to join us in the classroom if they are able. The technology is better, the quality of instruction is better, and the sense of community in coming together is always better when we’re together.”

The IDTRC and CTFD have a full slate of refreshers and extended training sessions scheduled during the months between the end of Fall 2020 and the beginning of Spring 2021 classes. Robinson notes that after the initial “limbo” of not knowing how long remote learning would last, CCSU’s faculty rallied with one singular motivation: their commitment to students.

“We realized that we needed to pull together to be the great community we could be,” says Robinson. “We are united in a mission to provide the high quality education that our students deserve.”