Drs. Don Johnson and Kathryn Zawisza from the University of Arkansas presented at the 2020 Lilly Conference online a review of how their institution’s faculty responded to the transition to remote teaching. They were part of a group tasked with summarizing faculty feedback and providing lessons learned to their community. They were one of three working groups. As with our institution, University of Arkansas created a Keep Teaching website that compiled resources and data. They reviewed both instructor feedback as well as staff and student feedback… including instructional design and IT units! They surveyed all instructors of record including graduate student instructors in the spring of 2020 with a response rate of around 10% and 239 responses. This was lower than the response rate from the survey at NCSU. Their survey consisted of selecting areas to focus on and then providing open-ended responses for what worked and what didn’t. Communication was mentioned in what worked, with instructors using a variety of tools to promote steady communication. Students appreciated synchronous courses. What didn’t work in terms of communication was emails were not read and low attendance to virtual office hours. The working group recommended establishing a consistent mode of communication with students and explaining access to support services. The working group suggested communicating communication plans and synchronous sessions when possible. Both instructors and students reported appreciation of clear expectations and deadlines while providing flexibility. Interestingly, too much flexibility was an issue reported, as students and instructors benefitted from structure. Asynchronous chats facilitated group projects and connection. Technology issues were reported with group work. The working group recommended using breakout rooms for group work and tools that students are already familiar with. Clear instructions and small group sizes seemed to facilitate group work. Being flexible and reaching out to students were mentioned as what worked for motivating and engaging students. Small breakout groups, polling, quizzes seemed to help motivate students. What didn’t work included long synchronous lectures. The group recommended flexibility, setting expectations for participation, and how instructors and students will interact. This week I completed an instructor interaction plan for the BIT 295 course as part of a QM course I’m taking. I think the exercise of writing my interaction plan and getting feedback from others reinforced the importance of this component and sharing this information with students. The survey data from the University of Arkansas did highlight difficulties instructors faced when teaching courses with lab and experiential components. Successful instructor experiences reported making changes in activities and assessments, such as changing projects or including simulations and student-created videos about the content. Recommendations by the working group for experiential and lab courses was for instructors to use recorded videos and available resources to recreate as best as possible the experience or procedures. The survey highlighted the variety of technologies used by faculty and the challenges of learning new tools. Student fatigue with all the platforms and tools used by instructors was reported. The recommendations by the working group included purchasing Zoom for the campus, using already supported technologies, and connecting academic IT support with teaching educational technology support units. Testing and academic integrity issues were reported by survey respondents. Accessibility issues for tools used were mentioned. Some instructors changed their assessments and others tried Respondus Lockdown browser. Several issues with this were reported. I liked that the group recommended discussing academic integrity with students and using low-stakes assessments and replacing traditional exams with alternative forms of assessment when possible. Their suggestion was moving to more application-type assessments instead of typical multiple-choice exams when possible. I enjoyed learning about what another large campus did, how instructors and students responded, and what recommendations were provided at the campus level.
