Glory Reitz
Editor-in-Chief
As warm temperatures return, Crowder’s campuses have returned to class after two weeks of shut-down for low temperatures and dangerous road conditions. During the freeze-out, instructors used methods they learned for COVID-19 precautions to keep academics rolling.
With all six campuses closed, instructors couldn’t meet in person, so they reverted to the contingencies they’d planned for coronavirus-related shut-downs. Adam Morris, Crowder’s Vice President of Academic Affairs, said that preparation allowed the college’s academics to continue on schedule.
“Last spring was a good transition into this.” College president Glenn Coltharp told the Board of Trustees in Monday’s meeting. Coltharp had encouraged instructors to create online contingencies in case of short-term coronavirus shut-downs. In a manner much like last spring, when the entire college went online, instructors kicked their online components into gear to keep up with their deadlines. Only this time, they were prepared.
Heidi Gilligan, Education Department division chair, changed her online curriculum to make it more flexible. She created instructional videos several lessons ahead and opened up assignments early so students could work ahead. She said the first thing she told her students was that she was willing to work with them through the complications of online school, including rolling blackouts that slammed the country last week.
Bonnie Ray, a sophomore general studies major, said the time online allowed her a little extra time to catch up on work, but also left her without the key personal interaction of a classroom.
“One of my teachers did a zoom class for half an hour, just to touch base and answer questions, which one really appreciate, because there is a feeling of abandonment at times,” Ray said. She said it was challenging to keep track of assignments without class-times for reference. Ray emphasized that it is important for instructors to clearly communicate their expectations, and keep up with posting grades so students know they haven’t been forgotten.
Heidi Gilligan said her nursing students were worried about completing their required hours of classroom experience. But Gilligan said she has “a backup plan exactly for situations like this,” and will implement it for students who aren’t able to meet the requirement through the normal route.
Nursing students had similar concerns about in-person skills laboratories and clinicals which cannot be replicated virtually, according to nursing director Sandra Wilson. She said the students can make up the labs in the coming weeks, and the department is squeezing in missed clinical hours in and around spring break.
Wilson did not reschedule her exams, instead transcribing them into an online format. She said it was a time-consuming, difficult process, but “better than students having four tests on the first day back to campus.”
Leave a Reply