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Teaching In the Shadow of COVID-19
The spring semester and summer sessions of 2020 were unprecedented at Mars Hill University and across the nation. From March through August, all classes at MHU were conducted online and professors that have long built their teaching style around the value of personal contact suddenly found themselves teaching across the impersonal space of the internet, many for the first time. One professor shares her thoughts and those of her colleagues during this time of intense adjustment.
This spring semester, I taught composition classes and an interdisciplinary class on the undead. In the course, my students and I explore the role of the zombie in contemporary literature, film, and other artistic forms of expression from across the world. Before March, I’d never taught online. I knew that this semester would be different for my colleagues across campus: the Information Technology Department gave out laptops and WIFI hotspots, the Center for Student Success moved their tutoring services online, and faculty adjusted their courses with little time for preparation. I normally spend hours with my ENG 111 students in my office reading rough drafts aloud and discussing revisions. In ENG 112, we use the library resources to find, evaluate, and utilize research materials--easy to do with a classroom located in Renfro Library. In the undead class, we watch films, discuss Haitian religion and history, touch on concepts from race and gender in film to Bella Lugosi and George Romero. From March to May, I met with my students on Zoom or over the phone to talk about their papers: instead of 15-minute conferences, we met for 30 minutes. Instead of interactive classroom activities, I created videos, online quizzes, and interactive digital exercises. We peer reviewed by email. Students texted me their papers or photographs of assignments. They submitted work in the days following funerals and hospital visits. I relaxed
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by Felice Lopez Bell Assistant Professor of English deadlines and did away with the attendance policy.
One afternoon my home internet connection was weak, so I walked to Cornwell Hall to grade poetry, short stories, comics, and short films about zombies. When I left the building, the sun had disappeared. The streets were deserted: the sidewalk in front of Papa Nick’s was empty. It was the same street, the same buildings, the same students, but it felt eerily and completely changed. The virus may have killed the semester that we expected, but the semester rose again and shuffled toward the future.
In the Fine Arts
Shane Mickey, assistant professor of art, highlights the brighter side of the shift to online classes: “Mars Hill has a schedule that does not allow studiobased courses to have long contact hours like most other institutions. That means some things are harder to cover in depth such as art history, contemporary field work, and deeper critical discourse beyond students’ work. I used the move online to fill in some of those gaps! Scott Lowery, our drawing and painting professor, at first was perplexed by what to do and started with standard approaches, terminology, research etc. Scott saw an opportunity that would require some work. He used a copy stand to video his demonstrations for his drawing techniques class and had students attempt them remotely. Studio professors are not able to make suggestions and corrections in real time with online processes, but
Scott made a great and successful attempt at this! The sudden move to online models, while challenging and not ideal, did have its upside. Professors were able to look at their pedagogy in new ways, think creatively about how to disseminate information, and prepare for whatever the fall and spring semesters may bring. After all, that is what we are known for: creativity!”
In the Sciences
Dr. Nicole Soper Gorden, assistant professor of biology, said, “I knew that I would have students with poor or no internet, students with unstable living conditions, students who had to work more or help with childcare or caregiving, students dealing with stress and anxiety, and students with a hundred other challenges in their way. And more practically, students were without textbooks and couldn’t use lab equipment.” “One of the most difficult transitions was trying to replicate hands-on learning experiences, like science classes get in lab periods, in an online environment...I had to think about each lab I had planned for in-person instruction, pick apart its most important goal, and find an activity to address that same goal. For example, one of the big goals of my plant taxonomy lab is to teach students how to identify plants using field guides, dichotomous keys, and other resources. Since we couldn’t do this together at MHU, I instead had each student find and photograph five plants near their home and identify them to species.” “Despite the stress, despite the challenging conditions, despite the extra work and disrupted schedules, students overwhelmingly stepped up. I had student meetings while students were getting ready to go to work or were babysitting younger siblings. I had students with almost non-existent internet access who I could only reliably contact by phone. I had students who were struggling with course material, but they were willing to struggle through it with me until they figured it out. And those students all blew me away with their tenacity, strength, and grace under pressure. So if there’s one thing I hope everyone gets from last semester’s trials, it’s this: our students are fierce, and I’m proud of all of them.”
