I am no stranger to virtual instruction. Roughly a third of my teaching experience since leaving grad school 4 years ago has been in virtual versions of my classes. So when my institution switched to fully online classes in the Spring of 2020, I felt prepared. What I have heard from students then and since was that they wanted to know what was expected of them. That certainty and clear guidelines was what they wanted. Some of this was, I am sure, driven by the uncertainty in the world. Covid-19 was confusing and spreading, students on their Spring breaks were suddenly told not to come back, and, to some extent, the ongoing US presidential election increased everyone’s uncertainty about the values of the US (in addition to who would be President).
In the Spring, my face-to-face course went into a sort of Triage mode. I was already teaching 2 courses fully online (an MBA course on Organizational Learning as well as my standard undergrad class on Project Management). Those courses remained largely the same (with some adjusted deadlines due to an extended Spring break) but the students were already prepared to be prepared. The face-to-face course was also in that sweet-spot where a lot of my face-to-face exercises had already happened and (because I had already developed some material for online delivery) I was able to pivot quickly to covering the remaining material. The projects which are always the culmination of my class (it is Project Team Management after all) had to be abandoned as they nearly all involved face-to-face interactions. Instead, I had students submit the planning material that they should have been developing. It wasn’t an overly satisfying conclusion I’m sure for the students but it was something where they could demonstrate knowledge.
Going into the Fall I was planning for online delivery but there was the waffling that we are all familiar with about the extent to which face-to-face course delivery would be allowed. I developed some new material, re-recorded lectures, and shifted my traditional class to the Wikipedia development project the online version of my class has been doing for years. Thus far, the semester has been moving okay. I think that my structure helps students know that they should do, but my leniency also (as is the case in a normal semester as well) leads to more procrastination. The projects are due in 2 weeks so we shall see whether the work that has been ‘theoretically’ been happening in their virtual teams is successfully demonstrated. I know that some of my virtual teams have been struggling (though they sometimes due in a regular semester as well), but I think that student priorities have also affected their ability to be successful. I know of a number of students who have taken on additional work (in addition to more responsibilities within the household) during the pandemic. Time management is not always the forte of undergrads and that has become more evident as the university is expecting more and more students to withdrawal.
20 days to grades are due.