CHC Faculty Get Creative to Keep Distance Learning Fun and Effective
Publish Date: Nov. 10, 2020
Brandi Bailes, mathematics professor, admits that statistics can be a dry subject, but humor, she has found, is a helpful remedy. 鈥淚鈥檝e always been a ham in the classroom, but COVID has made me need that more as a teacher,鈥� Bailes said. 鈥淧eople have a lot of math anxiety, so humor always helps with that. In a traditional classroom setting, there鈥檚 more natural camaraderie, so now it鈥檚 either I am humorous, light-hearted and funny, or this class is not going to be successful.鈥�
With student achievement at the forefront of her mind, Bailes crawls under her desk each week as she logs onto Zoom. Her studentswatchexpectantlyasasmallgrey elephant appears on the screen to teach them the next lesson in Statistics. Using her child鈥檚 puppets - Eli the Elephant, Lion, Cow and Cat - Bailes presents effective lectures enhanced with funny anecdotes.
鈥淚t keeps students engaged on one hand just because it鈥檚 different, but also it helps to not ignore the fact that my students have family around,鈥� Bailes explained. 鈥淚t puts a lot of pressure on the students who are at home with kids to have to pretend like they are like other students in a distraction- free environment. I like to draw the kids in rather than ignore them and allow them to enjoy the puppet show while their parent is learning.鈥�
Bailes acknowledges the reality of her students鈥� learning environment and adjusts her expectations accordingly. 鈥淲e use Snapchat filters in class a lot,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he students really like using them because it鈥檚 more comfortable for them to not have to put their face forward while still having their camera on. Allowing them to hide their appearance as a duck or whatever allows them to still engage without feeling self-conscious.鈥�
Gwendolyn DiPonio, English professor, has taught online for more than ten years and has made adjustments to accommodate students who simply prefer face-to-face classes. Recently she dressed up as Professor McGonagall, fictional Hogwarts professor from the Harry Potter series, to spice up an English lesson on the correct format for research papers.
鈥淢y videos have a twofold purpose, both to ease the tension students must feel about electronic communication and to entertain them a bit,鈥� she said. 鈥淢y dressing up as characters or adding humor to required academic content adds an element of fun we might have if we were in a room together.鈥�
CHC faculty members鈥� creativity is not limited to character acting though. AlexanderO鈥橞rien,instructorofmultimedia and computer information systems, was inspired to find a way to make slides more accessible in Canvas, the College鈥檚 online learning platform. In an attempt to include an interactive feature, O鈥橞rien found that there was no easy way to accomplish that without HTML coding. Knowing that other faculty members may be looking for a similar solution, he found that he could make a Google Slides presentation, publishittotheweb,andplacetheprovided coding from Google Slides into Canvas for a simple, looping set of images.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 the fully interactive element I was originally hoping for,鈥� O鈥橞rien said. 鈥淏ut it still provided a new way to look at the content.鈥�
The end result allowed students the ability to see images before photo editing, and then blended into the altered image, which helps to distinguish the content from regular, static images. While it was a small change to the online course, O鈥橞rien said it鈥檚 vital to make every aspect of distance learning accessible and engaging for students.
鈥淥ur students are struggling to perform their best in this new world,鈥� O鈥橞rien said. 鈥淚t is up to us as teachers to be sure we continue to be vigilant and innovative in our approach to education.鈥�
鈥淔or those students new to thisonline world, I hope our creativity shows them that taking online classes doesn鈥檛 have to be as frightening as they might think,鈥� added DiPonio. 鈥淗opefully professors will discover that teaching them doesn鈥檛 have to be frightening either!鈥�
