Expert advice on virtual teaching

From face-to-face to facing the future

By California State University, Bakersfield

April 15^th, 2020

As students, faculty, staff and community members shift from face-to-face interaction in their usual classroom and office settings, there is a lot of adjusting that is taking place behind-the-scenes.

It’s a necessary switch during the global COVID-19 pandemic. For some, it’s easy, for others, it can cause a disruption to the normal routine, especially when other members of the household are juggling several roles at a time.

“Developing a routine is helpful; especially when some are navigating home schooling kids and work,” said Dr. Allison Evans, a psychology lecturer at California State University, Bakersfield.

Dr. Evans mentioned that it is key to know that we are all in this together. For faculty and teachers, the ultimate goal is facilitating a positive and supportive learning environment for our students.

She offered the following tips for faculty and teachers adjusting to life in outside of the classroom or in the virtual world:

Keep it simple: Technology/tools. You don’t need fancy technology to share out your course material. You don’t want to get overrun by the technology, nor do the students.
Organization and consistency: Create a course design that is easy to navigate and straight forward. Create simple, clear, concise, and consistent course modules so students know what to expect. Less content on the screen is better. Use bullets and numbering when giving directions; this makes it simple to follow. Organize the content in ways that are clear to the student.
Be responsive to students: Set a time each day (or twice a day) to check in with your emails. Being responsive to our students reduces their anxiety and lets them know we are there for them. You can also send a weekly check-in message (via video or email) to the students. This really helps the students stay on track and up-to-date on the course.
Keep deadlines realistic: Ultimately, we do not know what students are going through in their personal lives. These are extraordinary times that require patience and understanding.

Dr. Allison Evans, psychology lecturer at CSUB

Learning curve

Transitioning face-to-face classes to a remote learning environment has been a new challenge for Dr. Evans, as her small group dynamics course has a lab component where students do group facilitating. It isn’t something that can be easily mimicked in a remote environment.

The class also includes many group activities.

“Last week, I gave a live and recorded lecture on conflict management in Zoom with my students, and we did an all-class activity. All of the students were in attendance and fully committed to the group activity. It went surprisingly well!” said Dr. Evans.

Normally she wouldn’t recommend learning in this new environment, as routines and lives have been upended, but her students have expressed an interest in meeting synchronously in Zoom at their normal class times, so she wanted to give it a try.

“Attendance is not required and I record the sessions and put into Blackboard and Canvas for students to watch at a more convenient time.”

Aside from the obvious changes, time has been the most challenging part for Dr. Evans.

“Taking course content that was designed for the face-to-face classroom is not easily transformed to online content. This takes a lot of time and effort,” she said.

“Many best practice tips for our new remote learning environment are the same best practice tips I share when I train faculty in online/hybrid design,” she said. “When I have taught fully online courses in the past, I have spent an inordinate amount of time preparing the course design, and then the time in delivering the course. In the case of transforming from face-to-face to the remote learning environment, we do not have the time to perfectly create a course.”

She added that it’s important to recognize there is a learning curve happening for everyone right now:

“Patience is also important; patience with ourselves and our students. This is a learning curve and our students did not sign up for this remote learning experience. Therefore, flexibility and understanding is important.”