Brennan LaBrie
News Editor
The transition to online learning after Pacific Lutheran University’s spring break was first announced on March 7 and sent professors across PLU’s departments rushing to translate their courses for the following weeks onto an online format.
But before many instructors could figure out their gameplan, a March 15 email from PLU administration announcing the continuation of distance learning until April 27 sent them back to the drawing board, as many of their prior plans involved postponing assignments and labs until April and catching up on lost time.
Then an announcement on March 16 stated PLU will continue distance learning through the end of the semester and forced faculty to begin completely reinventing their classes as full-time online classes for the next two months.
“We’re having to scramble,” said English professor Rona Kaufman. “The learning curve is steep.”
Fellow English professor Scott Rogers said that creating online courses involves a great amount of planning beforehand, with the bulk of the work for a professor taking place before the class begins. It is very difficult for professors to design and teach a class simultaneously, he said, especially when they only have a couple of days, and they can only plan ahead a week or two and not a whole semester.
“It’s extremely time consuming,” he said. “I’m spending more time on my classwork than I was before we left the classroom.”
Rogers looks forward to using spring break to spend time carefully designing the remainder of his courses. He added that while some faculty, such as himself, have experience teaching online classes and were prepared for this transition, the situation is still very stressful for all instructors. Each professor’s experience adapting their classes can be starkly different based on their preference, expertise and disciplinary norms.
“For example, while I can easily imagine my writing and discussion-based course reimagined for distance education, I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be to move a lab-based course online,” he said.
In a letter to faculty, Chair of the Communication Department Amy Young noted there are faculty members who are unfamiliar with the university’s course management software that’s been used since she arrived 12 years ago.
English professor Rona Kaufman, like many other PLU professors, has been using Zoom video conferencing software to hold class during its normal meeting time.
“It was so wonderful to see everyone interact, and have people’s personalities come through the screen,” she said. “But it was exhausting. I think we could do that another week—but not another month. And more importantly – I don’t know if it’s what the students need right now. That’s ultimately what I keep going back to: what do my students need? What are they able to do? And what is most important to learn in this course?”
For Kaufman, even more difficult than teaching via Zoom has been “trying to maintain a sense of community while the community scatters, both geographically and psychologically.”
“Students are responding to the pandemic radically different ways, as are faculty and staff, and it’s hard to know how to meet everyone’s needs,” she said. “Some students are moving to different time zones. Some are working more hours. Some are taking care of families. I think we all crave normalcy and would love to go about our regular schedule and work as much as possible. But these aren’t normal times.”
Chair of the Economics Department Karen Travis empathizes with students who are dealing with a “barrage of emails” while determining whether or not to return home, while also perhaps caring for siblings, dealing with weak internet connections and losing work hours.
“I don’t know that faculty are aware enough of these challenges,” she said.
STEM classes and Distance Learning
PLU science professors have had perhaps the biggest difficulty in transitioning their classes online, many of which revolve around lab work. These professors are attempting to, as Geoscience and Environmental Studies professor Claire Todd put it, “bring the field and the lab” to their students.
“Rieke faculty are choosing a wide variety of approaches to share lab experiences with students, and for at least some of us it’s a work in progress,” Todd said.
Fortunately for Todd, her class had just finished gathering data over a two-week field lab that can now be analyzed remotely. However, for the rest of the semester she will likely have to join most of her peers in the Division of Natural Sciences in doing the labs herself and sharing the data for the students to analyze. Much of her spring break will be dedicated to developing online content, she said.
Physics professor Bret Underwood is busy adapting his Experimental Methods in Physics class, which had recently moved into a section of the course involving hand-on experience with equipment that he says “you just really need to touch in order to understand.”
In order to achieve his broad course objectives, he has to get creative. For one lab involving basic circuits, Underwood put together a “care package” of transportable equipment that students could take home and work on by themselves, in order to “keep the course limping along.”
“This took a large amount of effort to figure out how to modify, and it’s not yet clear if this mode of learning will be successful or not, oftentimes it’s just nice to have your classmates next to you to help out. Now that Pres. Belton has extended online learning for the rest of the semester, I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” Underwood said. “I feel bad that the students are losing this opportunity, but there’s not much I can do on my end.”
One bright note is that Underwood’s students’ lab books are on Microsoft OneNote and synced to the Cloud, allowing students to access their notes remotely and for Underwood to grade them.
Bill Le ‘20, a Chemistry and French double major, said that distance learning is difficult for him in his higher level chemistry classes due to the challenging topics taught.
“There’s a lot of meaning that is missed when you listen to a video instead of a live lecture,” he said. In addition, many of the concepts are “tricky and very niche,” and answers can’t be easily found online.
“You really need that face to face interaction, because that’s what we’re paying for ultimately,” he said.
Le is concerned about exams, as professors have resorted to assigning him “a weird mix of quizzes and homework assignments” to compensate for any cheating that may be done on take-home tests. He is most concerned about students who may not have access to wifi or scanners where they live. While this process has been difficult, Le appreciates the speed in which his professors have gotten back to his questions via email.
Looking on the bright side
Many professors note the positive aspects of this process. Travis credits PLU administration’s treatment of professors during this time.
“With one day of closing, we had a workshop available, laptops for faculty, ability to sign up for one-on-one help. Many faculty are stressed because they are not adjusting their expectations for how much content to accomplish,” he said.
Todd highlighted the collaboration between the science faculty staff as they develop new approaches to their classes while sharing their thoughts on best practice with each other.
Rogers pointed out an advantage to distance learning: The flexibility it offers students regarding when they do their coursework.
“This is particularly valuable in a crisis when our attention needs to be on families and our own well-being,” he said.
Advice
“I think I would like students to know that this is historic. No one has had a run through on this. We have fire alarms or earthquake drills but this is more like a war, really. Everyone needs to do be kind to each other and recognize we are all doing our best. Many Universities are also kicking students out of housing, so I also think students should be mindful that PLU is trying to care for students without other options.” Karen Travis, chair of the Economics Department.
“I’d encourage everyone to be patient and generous. Students, your faculty are doing the best they can. They’re learning a completely new way of teaching, many from scratch, in the middle of a course cycle. Faculty, your students didn’t sign up for this type of course, but we know PLU students are amazing and they are willing to adapt and to make the best of a difficult situation. Be as flexible as you can be.” Scott Rogers, professor of English.
Reporters Kiyomi Kishaba, Lucy Trenary, and Chloe Wilhelm contributed to this story.
