Lessons Learned: Making the Transition to Online Teaching

May 22, 2020
By WRRC Research Scientist Jean McLain
 
In mid-March, University of Arizona faculty were informed that all teaching would be transitioned to online and that no face-to-face classroom teaching would be done for the rest of the spring semester. I am fairly new to classroom teaching, having taught Scientific Writing to UArizona undergraduate and graduate students each semester only since Fall 2017. The thought of quickly adapting my 3-hour Friday lecture to an online format was terrifying. 
 
Now that my final grades have been posted, I am looking back at "lessons learned" - what did this experience teach me, and how will these lessons improve my future teaching, both online and in the classroom? 

Lesson 1: There are a myriad of options for assistance at UArizona - including weekly online "teaching support groups," where I learned how to navigate delivering my lectures via Zoom, including the use of breakout rooms, white boards, and Google docs to engage students in the lectures; 

Lesson 2: Students love to learn that "professors are people too!" Each week I would begin my lecture with stories of social distancing, and would encourage the students to talk about their lives. Each student in my class was experiencing upheaval, and providing them with an opportunity to talk about life during the pandemic, and to share my own personal upheavals, made us all feel less alone; 

Lesson 3: Students are resilient. After 5 weeks of online lectures, each student turned in a well-written scientific review paper on a unique topic. Paper topics included: measurement of bacterial irrigation water quality, the history of Native American water policy, how to grow mushrooms for food, and using biochemical tracers to monitor surface water contamination. 
 
In the end, did I enjoy online teaching? No, I did not. As a teacher, I rely on student facial expressions and body language to discern how my lectures are being received. Without this feedback, I was often running blind and hoping that someone would speak up if they didn't understand the concepts I was covering in the lecture. I also missed seeing the students roll their eyes when I told a stupid joke, and missed seeing their faces light up when I pulled out my "snack box" filled with granola bars and chocolate (after all, it was a 3 hour Friday lecture!). But, thanks to UArizona and thanks to my students, I am now a much better online teacher - though I hope to be teaching face-to-face in the fall, my terror at the thought of teaching online has abated. 
Photo: medium.com