We’re now 3 weeks in to our virtual spring term.
This is the point where we should be in some sort of rhythm. Students know us better, we know our students better. The students know the expectations: what happens in a class period, how should I prepare for class, what’s due when. The faculty understand the class dynamics and manage class periods and expectations accordingly. Everything should be humming along.
But that’s in a normal term.
I do think we’ve reached an imperfect rhythm. Faculty at this point have pretty much figured out what technologies to use and what to let go — although many of us are still learning how to use them effectively.* Course structure is pretty much set. I’ve developed my own rhythm for preparing and posting materials for each week, and settled on a Moodle structure that seems to work ok.
I’m still trying to develop rhythms around grading and keeping track of student engagement. I thought I’d found a good structure for grading — and then my course staff student found a number of flaws and technical issues with that structure. Technical issues aside, I’m still trying to wrap my head around what should I be evaluating vs. what do I feel comfortable having my course staff student grade. (Also taking into account what they feel comfortable grading!)
Student engagement is trickier to keep on top of. Sure, Moodle lets me check student completion (and download this into a spreadsheet), and sure, I can probably check my Zoom logs to figure out who attended a class and who did not. But these feel unnatural. In a normal term, I pay attention to who’s attending and not attending class, which I can do by quickly scanning the room. I note who dominates small group discussions and who’s clearly tuning out or shutting out. I rely so heavily on visual, physical cues. Honestly, trading those instincts and skills for reviewing logs is exhausting, even though it seems like it should be much easier to measure engagement quantitatively than qualitatively.
Course rhythms aside, the constant uncertainty is clearly starting to wear on us collectively. Everyone seems a bit more fragile and frayed, quicker to jump to conclusions or to snap. It’s hard to focus when there’s so much up in the air.
This is the time of year where we should be finalizing plans for summer research, where planning for next fall ramps up. In our department, we’re still trying to hire a visitor for next year. I’m in charge of next year’s Comps (senior capstone projects), and we’re drafting project descriptions and reviewing each others’ drafts, in advance of the big topic reveal on May 7.
But we still don’t know whether we’ll have summer research this year, or if so what that looks like. And we have no idea what fall term looks like, either. So every plan we make needs at least one contingency plan, if not several. Will this Comps project work if we’re still virtual this fall? What does “mentoring new faculty” look like when everything is virtual? If we’re on campus but socially distancing (if that’s even possible, which I doubt it is), and we have to severely limit the number of students in a physical classroom, how badly does this torpedo our carefully-planned schedule? How do we ensure that our current majors (and the 50-some new majors that just declared) get into the classes they need to graduate if class sizes are severely limited?
I don’t want to end this post on a low note, and while things are challenging I also don’t want to leave you with the impression that everything is doom and gloom. So let me share a couple of positives from this week:
- My 7th grader and I, pre-pandemic, had a standing coffee and bagels date every Friday morning. We’d go to a local coffee shop near her school and I’d drop her off at school afterwards. We’ve found a way to continue that — every Friday morning we drive to an awesome local coffee shop in the next town over, go through the drive-through, and then sip our drinks as we drive home. It’s been a nice little grounding ritual for both of us.
- I’ve started including a bonus “hey, if you click through to this optional resource and watch/read it, respond to this set of bonus questions on Slack” in one lecture or activity per week. Not many students share out on Slack, but the ones that do post thoughtful and insightful reflections. This week’s option involved Microsoft Bob, and I appreciated the way they analyzed what Bob did well and what it got wrong. Reading these bonus reflections always makes me smile.
Wherever you’re reading this, and wherever you are in your term or semester or life, I hope you are staying safe and healthy, and that you’ve found a routine of sorts that works for you.
*Yesterday I learned — in real time — what Zoom co-hosts can and cannot do. Hilarity sometimes ensued.
This is what a computer scientist looks like 