educating through adversity
As the number of COVID-19 cases escalated across the Puget Sound region in March and new social-distancing restrictions were rolling out daily, biology professor Amy Lawrence herded her students anxiously through the hands-on learning they needed to complete classes. “We were just holding our breath hoping we could get our lab finals done,” Lawrence says. Her students made it just under the wire. On March 24, following Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-home order, the college closed its campuses. Faculty and IT staff worked over spring break to convert roughly 1,000 courses to fully online instruction. “I consider our employees heroes,”
48 BACK TO SCHOOL | 2020
school President Marty Cavalluzzi says. “They’ve gone above and beyond to make this happen. Some of the challenges are we have faculty who have never taught in the online environment before, and it’s a different mode of instruction.” Among the hurdles to online learning, some students lacked devices and internet access. The college handed out laptops and mobile hot spots to all students with a recognized need, and the IT department issued a map showing where on its three campuses the Wi-Fi signal is strongest. On any day, a handful of cars could be seen on campus lots as students parked to complete their assignments. Faculty in typically hands-on classes
were creative in taking their instruction online, Cavalluzzi says. For example, the college culinary program was delivered entirely through video instruction, like TV cooking shows. Lawrence thinks some of the visual aids she’s been forced to create actually improved the instruction. She made videos (with her daughter’s assistance) and created slides to show parts of plant anatomy that students would have normally been seeing under a microscope. “I’m kind of making the information more accessible in a weird way,” she says. “I’m definitely going to be carrying some of these things forward.” — Chris Henry, Kitsap (Wash.) Sun
OLYMPIC COLLEGE
OLYMPIC COLLEGE, BREMERTON, WASH.