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How to Make Your Online Pivot Less Brutal By KEVIN GANNON
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ell, this is not the semester I ordered. My university, like dozens of others, has decided to enact a “social distancing” policy, effective after spring break. Any gathering over a handful of people is discouraged, or has been canceled. All of our face-to-face and blended classes will be moved into a fully online environment. I knew we were heading to this point, but I’m not sure what I expected. Honestly, I’d silently been preparing myself for something like the parade stampede scene at the end of Ani-
c o p i n g w i t h c o r o n av i r u s
mal House, with me and my teaching center collectively serving as the Kevin Bacon character screaming, “ALL IS WELL,” before getting trampled. In actuality, there’s a sense of calm determination on my campus — that, while this is a crappy hand we’ve been dealt, we’ll play it the best we can for our students and their learning. The stark reality is there’s not really a blueprint for any of this: “moving online” at such a scale, with breakneck speed, and often with merely hours’ worth of advance notice. (Maybe that’s why that movie scene was playing in
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t h e ch ron icl e of h igh er educ at ion
