{"id":831,"date":"2023-02-02T11:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T19:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/?page_id=831"},"modified":"2023-02-06T14:02:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T22:02:33","slug":"blog-post-30","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-30\/","title":{"rendered":"From Denial to Acceptance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Preparing for an online fall semester<\/p>\n

By Amber Foster, Ph.D. – April 29, 2020<\/p>\n

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Whenever I look back on this spring semester, I feel like someone who has passed through the five stages of grief. I started with denial (\u201cit\u2019s temporary\u2014we\u2019ll be back in the classroom in a couple of weeks!\u201d), moving through the stages (\u201cmaybe if we all wore masks?\u201d) until, finally, arriving at acceptance\u2014realizing that this situation may continue on far longer than we ever believed or hoped it would.<\/p>\n

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With only days to shift my courses online, spring semester was an exercise in resilience. Although I had experience in online instruction prior to the crisis, moving a course online halfway through a semester was like trying to change a recipe halfway through cooking.<\/p>\n

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In my denial stage, a little voice in my head wouldn\u2019t be quiet. \u201cIf you have to teach this course online in the fall, you\u2019ll need to\u2014\u201d it would begin. It won\u2019t happen, I\u2019d interrupt. I missed my old life, the life where I strolled across campus on my way to class, dodging students on penny boards, nodding greetings to colleagues as they did the same. I missed my bedraggled office, hardly larger than a closet, but whose door opened on a hallway full of students and colleagues and rich intellectual life. I missed walking into a classroom and feeling buoyed up by energy of my students, confident in my ability to read the subtle social cues that told me which questions to ask and when it was time to move on to the next activity\u2014something impossible to replicate in Zoom.<\/p>\n

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But as the novel coronavirus crisis trudges on, with no vaccine or reliable treatment in sight, we must accept that an online fall semester is on the horizon, and, this time, we can do things differently.<\/p>\n

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Much of the stress of Spring 2020 came from the need to hit the ground running, jumping over obstacles as they arose. With summer, however, comes the opportunity to recharge our batteries, to slow down and take stock of what we\u2019ve learned. The insight we\u2019ve gained from this ad-hoc spring semester can help us to design courses with the intention of being online, even if they will never be the same as they once were (nor should they be). We can still meet course objectives, and teach students what they need to learn. We can do this because we must\u2014because our collective grief for face-to-face instruction should not come at the cost of human life.<\/p>\n

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Below are some of my own \u201cnotes to self\u201d\u2014things I want to think more about, as I begin to reimagine my courses for a virtual classroom. I hope they help you as well.<\/p>\n

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Dedicate class time to community building<\/h4>\n

Students will be missing college life. They won\u2019t be hanging out in residence halls or coffee shops. Greek life will be dramatically changed, if it happens at all. For freshmen, our classes may be their first college experience. Even just five or ten minutes of class time, giving students a chance to talk to each other, can make for a better learning atmosphere\u2014students will be eager to come to class, both to learn and to make friends.<\/p>\n

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Design participation and attendance policies with online instruction in mind<\/h4>\n

We all know the struggle: we have students in different time zones; students who keep audio and video off (either because of technical difficulties or because they\u2019re multitasking); students who caught the virus, or who have family members who have caught the virus; students who need to take care of siblings or children during the day; students without quiet work spaces; students who have to share their Internet with the rest of the household\u2014the list goes on. One thing is clear: attendance and participation policies need to be more flexible, but also more clearly articulated. If our departments do not standardize this, our syllabi will need to state our expectations for \u201cparticipation\u201d and \u201cattendance.\u201d Some questions I\u2019ve been asking myself lately include:<\/p>\n

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