The New Normal. Throughout 2020, College of Education faculty found ways to use the pandemic as a teaching opportunity. By Katie Grieze I don’t think I have this perfect yet. How’s it going for you? What do we need to do differently? Susan Adams, Professor of Education, has asked those questions to her students again and again throughout the academic year. Even as she adapts to teaching in a hybrid learning environment, with a few students attending her classes in person and most tuning in on Zoom, she’s been making sure to explain her choices, ask for feedback, and create learning opportunities for future educators. “We are finding ways to make hybrid learning work,” Adams says. “I am super comfortable on Zoom—I had already been using it for five years before we went virtual last spring. But the difference for me, in education, is that I also have to be a model for my students: ‘Here’s how you do this. Here’s what I’m thinking. Here’s why I’m making this choice.’ I’m trying to be transparent
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and vulnerable, letting them watch me struggle out loud with those decisions.”
One way Adams has done this is through implementing a practice she calls “class notes.” The shared documents are somewhat like weekly syllabi, outlining detailed plans for each class period and providing links to all the relevant resources. But unlike a typical syllabus that covers a broad schedule and might be updated once or twice throughout the term, “class notes” also serve as collaborative online spaces for students to share thoughts and reflections with one another. “This is something I never would have thought of if we weren’t partially virtual, but I’m not going to stop doing it after the pandemic is over,” Adams says. “It’s just so beautifully practical, and it’s another way for me to be transparent about our class plans and my thinking behind them.” Other faculty across the College of Education (COE) have also made the most of hybrid learning, using it as a lesson on the need to stay flexible in the classroom. COE Professor Deb Lecklider, MSE ’89 serves as Director of Butler’s Experiential Program for Preparing School Principals (EPPSP). When it first became apparent last spring that
