Alison Graettinger
Assistant Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
There is a meme circling social media that shows a picture of Dolores Umbridge, one of the villains of Harry Potter, saying that classes cannot have a hybrid class environment, but instructors must record all courses for students who cannot be physically present. This hyperbole reflects the challenge instructors are facing as we push for in person experiences that many students want, while not punishing students who do not feel comfortable in class or must quarantine. This quandary is yet another facet of the liquid situation that is the COVID-19 pandemic in classroom settings. Many of the resources we as instructors need can be time consuming to request/obtain because they require retrofitting many classrooms with recording capabilities, and the semester has already steamrolled onwards.
Consequently, many instructors are winging it trying to find solutions that get the job done without too many additional burdens on their time. I started experimenting with one of my upper division courses that is cross listed graduate and undergraduate. This way I knew my students would be better prepared to communicate with me or troubleshoot technological challenges, and be more prepared to work independently on some activities should things not work the way I envisioned. My teaching style involves a lot of in class activities, and a lot of me running about the room. A static microphone camera set up for an in person did class not seem compatible.
Instead, I’ve started treating my classroom as a miniature livestream. I bought a cheap microphone for my cellphone and log into zoom on that device, as well as the main classroom computer. This way I have slides and videos shared to the classroom, the zoom space, and ultimately my recordings. Graduate students and any students who are temporarily not in the classroom can log in remotely. I handle chats from zoom at the start and end of class, with occasional checks to see if there are technical glitches. One limitation of my cheap mic phone set up is that remote participants are limited to text only chat, as any sound from the computer results in feedback on the impromptu set up. If I wanted to have their audio responses I could set up a laptop with a Bluetooth earbud in one ear, but I avoid this during class to make sure there is just one less potential failure point. I then turn on and off the cellphone camera for any demonstrations, in person visuals (in my class rock samples), as appropriate for items that cannot be put directly on the screen. I have at times brought in a web camera to have the camera facing the rest of the class when we need longer periods of video in the room. The resulting recordings are shared with all participants via Canvas.
I make sure remote students also come to office hours to check in that they are making progress on semester long projects, and individual assignments. I have not seen any decrease in in-person attendance, though the semester is young. I have also had good communication with students who have needed to participate remotely. From my experience the last two semesters with fully remote classes, communication is always the key factor to student success, regardless of format.
For my very large general education class I leverage the existing classroom technology to record all my lectures. Students must let me know of their absence(s) to receive a copy of the recording with a few exceptions that I share with all the students because they will all likely want to review it (e.g. our class mock Town Hall). For this large class this semester alone I have had >15 of 150 students need to miss class for various reasons (quarantining among them).
I have had more complicated stream set ups with sound and three cameras (PC, Laptop and Cellphone) for demonstrations in my lab. I reserve this level of complexity for completely virtual experiences where I can have graduate student helpers run some of the technology. I don’t think all classrooms need to become youtube channels, but we can accomplish a lot with simple additions like the cellphone mic.