Some labs still on campus Online won’t cut it

BY ZOE RAMIREZ AND TRISHA ANAS

Some Pierce College’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs continue in-person instruction on campus despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including veterinary technology, automotive service technology and welding.

Alex Villalta, an automotive technology professor at Pierce, said in a Zoom interview that it was essential for some of the CTE programs to continue in person because of their hands-on requirements.

“The analogy I love to use is having the perfect swimming instructor try to teach someone how to swim over Zoom,” Villalta said. “He could be the perfect instructor and the student could be the best ‘A’ student but without having a pool or the buoyancy, you’re not going to know how to swim right.”

Villalta said that everyone is working hard to enforce proper safety procedures including social distancing, frequently sanitizing and limiting the class capacity. According to Villalta, the automotive classes were split into two smaller groups of around 10 students when normally a class size is around 35 students.

Villalta also said though safety was and continues to be a main concern, the staff and students feel lucky to be able to continue their training in-person.

Engineering Professor Elizabeth Cheung is one of the CTE professors who had to convert her classes online. Cheung said in a phone interview that she’s seen some of the challenges students have had to face since the online transitions.

“Some computer-aided design classes that require software won’t work with the Chromebook,” Cheung said. “A challenge that I’ve seen my students face is just the ability to have access to what they need to complete the class.”

Cheung said that it would be almost impossible to learn some of the CTE skills without any hands-on training.

“Nobody would consider somebody qualified to weld if they haven’t actually welded, and people don’t have their own welding equipment at home to be able to do that remotely,” Cheung said. “I feel that it’s very important for these classes to be conducted in person.”

Julia Melero, who studies AC and Heating at Pierce, said in a phone interview that the new safety measures put into place feels bittersweet.

“Mostly everything is online and they had to split the classes into two,” Melero said. “In a way, it’s challenging, but it felt good to have smaller classes. It’s more intimate”

Melero said that she receives half of her lectures online and receives the other half in-person every other week. Because of this gap, Melero said that sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming.

“Going in every other week instead of two times a week, I feel like it’s stripping all of my handson training experience because they cover a lot in one class,” Melero said.

Jennifer Adelini, director of Registered Veterinary Technology, said in a Zoom interview that shifting the vet tech program online has been a struggle for her.

“It’s just been very stressful,” Adelini said. “We obviously have the material that we use, but you know, converting that into an online platform is a lot more work than you think.”

Similar to welding and engineering, vet tech courses require many hands-on labs that can be helpful to a student's understanding of the material taught in class.

The program created a new learning schedule to adapt to the conditions of COVID-19.

“We initially changed our scheduling so that we would offer all of our lectures this semester,” Adelini said. “We were anticipating that we would then be able to move all of our labs to the spring. All the students are online for the lecture portion, and then next semester is the lab portion.”

Adelini said in-person labs are critical for the courses, specifically because students are required to be assessed in person.

Pierce Academic Senate President Barbara Anderson said the district has been dedicating much work toward making the environment as safe as possible for students by creating four COVID-19 response teams.

Team A is responsible for making sure the campus is safe for students and faculty. This includes designing entrances and exits, setting up PPE and ensuring proper protocol.

Anderson’s team, Team C, also known as academic integrity, aims to make quality courses available to students.

Anderson said how there has been different approaches toward going back on campus.

“Some departments said we’re going to front load all the lecture aspects of this program,” Anderson said. “And then people are just going to do hands-on and other components of this program later.”

Pierce College President Alexis