Lessons from the deep end: Teaching and learning during the COVID-19 crisis.
Project Type
Faculty Scholarship
Scholarship Domain(s)
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Presentation Type
Round Table/Panel
Abstract
Presentation Location: Warming House, Olivet Nazarene University
Abstract
The abrupt nature of the COVID-19 pandemic caused massive shifts in how instructors taught their courses over the past year. Many were forced to experiment with new technologies, methods of content delivery, and teaching styles. It is imperative that instructors learn from these experiences in order to continue improving as instructors and adapting to continuously changing technologies. This past year, I flipped my introductory geoscience course, moving all of my lectures to a pre-recorded video format. Each video was designed to be ~10-15 minutes long. Major re-writing, organizing, adapting, updating, and streamlining had to be done in order to accomplish this goal. Unfortunately, however, my experience with the flipped classroom model, though begun with hopeful optimism, has caused me to seriously question the model. The segment of students who will succeed in this format appears to be quite low, and overall average exam scores are significantly lower. As a result, I cannot recommend this method of teaching to fellow instructors and do not plan to continue using it. Nonetheless, the process has been incredibly helpful for myself, and I am in the process of revising and re-recording all of these lecture videos again, taking the time required to complete the work as I envision it. Benefits include: 1) a substantially more organized, concise, engaging, and efficient set of course learning goals and content delivery presentation assets; 2) a newly found passion for online video education; and 3) ready-made, bite-sized material that can serve higher level students as critical review material.
Permission Type
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Lessons from the deep end: Teaching and learning during the COVID-19 crisis.
Other
Presentation Location: Warming House, Olivet Nazarene University
Abstract
The abrupt nature of the COVID-19 pandemic caused massive shifts in how instructors taught their courses over the past year. Many were forced to experiment with new technologies, methods of content delivery, and teaching styles. It is imperative that instructors learn from these experiences in order to continue improving as instructors and adapting to continuously changing technologies. This past year, I flipped my introductory geoscience course, moving all of my lectures to a pre-recorded video format. Each video was designed to be ~10-15 minutes long. Major re-writing, organizing, adapting, updating, and streamlining had to be done in order to accomplish this goal. Unfortunately, however, my experience with the flipped classroom model, though begun with hopeful optimism, has caused me to seriously question the model. The segment of students who will succeed in this format appears to be quite low, and overall average exam scores are significantly lower. As a result, I cannot recommend this method of teaching to fellow instructors and do not plan to continue using it. Nonetheless, the process has been incredibly helpful for myself, and I am in the process of revising and re-recording all of these lecture videos again, taking the time required to complete the work as I envision it. Benefits include: 1) a substantially more organized, concise, engaging, and efficient set of course learning goals and content delivery presentation assets; 2) a newly found passion for online video education; and 3) ready-made, bite-sized material that can serve higher level students as critical review material.