ASMCUE has been a lot of fun this year! While I haven’t had a chance to watch live sessions, I participated in a podcast, a workshop, a roundtable, virtual office hours, and mini workshop! We’ve been talking a lot about the lessons learned from remote teaching. Therefore, the session I watched tonight seemed appropriate.
Kesha Baptiste-Roberts and Sharon Barrett from Morgan State University discussed the “Impact of Transition to Remote Teaching on Working Graduate Students” as part of the 2021 Lilly Conference online. The presenters teach public health and were concerned about the experience of adult learners in the MPH and DrPH programs who transitioned from face-to-face to remote learning due the to COVID-19 pandemic. They also assessed the fall of 2020 students in their courses. Barrett reported that the study population included 55 doctoral and 32 master’s students, and the recruitment was done via the learning management system. The response rate was between 41.8 and 43.8%. Baptiste-Roberts reported that for their internet survey (30 items) they recruited 37 participants from DrPH and MPH programs from two cohorts (spring 2020 and fall of 2020). They asked students how well they transitioned to emergency remote instruction. The doctoral students reported very well or well, while some MPH students mentioned somewhat well.
Barrett described the challenges encountered by all students enrolled in spring 2020: lack of interaction with others, distractions at home, and need to take care of family members. From the DrPH program, some respondents (33%) mentioned that instructors were not proficient with Canvas, the course management system. Positive experiences included no stressful commute, increased attendance, dinner at home… and enjoyed the online format. I think this is telling as we consider providing online options designed to be online (and not emergency remote teaching) to provide flexibility and options for students. Most students enrolled in Spring 2020 were satisfied with support from instructors, however, among the MPH students some were dissatisfied in the fall. Interestingly, DrPH students surveyed in the fall had similar satisfaction levels than those reported in the spring of 2020. In the spring of 2020, both DrPH and MPH students were satisfied with the course quality. Again, in the fall of 2020, MPH students reported some dissatisfaction while there was little change in the ratings for DrPH students. Student quotes mentioned changes that rendered the syllabus “useless” and some instructors being better than others at online teaching. Student engagement activities that instructors implemented included mindfulness exercises, weekly exercises, and reflections. Strategies students used to reduce challenges were finding low distraction environments and time management. Lessons learned by students as gleaned from quotes were creating learning communities with peers, they realized they were more productive during remote learning, and increased communication and time management. The presenters reported feelings collected from students about the fall of 2021. Some students reported being concerned about coming back to campus, some were concerned about shifting from online to face-to-face courses. It was interesting to read the different quotes and notice differences between MPH and DrPH students. Some participant responses suggested enjoying online education and not knowing how to navigate a campus they had not visited! The MPH students when given the choice on the survey mostly selected hybrid option, while the DrPH students mentioned synchronous virtual learning, hybrid, and asynchronous online! The presenters concluded that self-care options were available via online remote learning and synchronous virtual/hybrid classes were the most preferred modalities of instruction for the fall of 2021. I’m enjoying learning about all these surveys, strategies, and lessons from the past year. While every course and campus is different, it is interesting to see the preferences in this case seemed to vary by program!
