UConn Early College Experience was founded in 1955 and is proud to have offered hundreds of thousands of Connecticut high school students the opportunity to take college courses in high school over the past 65 years. UConn ECE is the nation’s longest running concurrent enrollment program.
By Nicole Hyman and Cody Olson
Over this past year, hundreds of thousands of couples have had to move or postpone their wedding day due to Covid-19. Is it the responsible and safe decision? Yes, absolutely, but, that doesn’t make it any less difficult. A wedding takes months to plan and coordinate, and there are so many variables to account for. Countless engaged couples are now grappling with the arduous task of rethinking their special day, and all the difficult feelings that come along with that process. We, at UConn Pre-College Summer (UConn PCS), can’t fully relate to this feeling, but we know a thing or two about having to cancel a “special day.”
After months of planning, we made the difficult decision to cancel our 2020 Pre-College Summer program to prioritize the health and safety of our students, faculty, and campus partners. As a team that works year-round to prepare for a few special days in the summer, we did not make this decision lightly.
While we did not host a program, we made sure our summer did not go to waste. We spent time reflecting on the best aspects of our program, rethinking a few of our offerings, and retooling as we prepare for next summer. Our 2021 program will certainly look different, but that doesn’t mean it will be any less engaging, exciting, or enriching. While we were planning and preparing this summer, we came to the realization that we
would need to figure out how to marry our typical offerings to the university’s e-learning and technological capabilities. Weirdly enough, the marriage of technology and our program was not the only wedding related thought we’ve had. In fact, as we reflect on the work we completed since March, we can’t help but notice a matrimony motif emerge. Our efforts may be best categorized with the old wedding day adage: Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Our major projects from this past summer reflect these categories, and we are optimistic they are helping us work towards a “ring”er of a summer.
“Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Our major projects from
this past summer reflect these categories, and we are optimistic they are helping us work towards a “ring”er of a 2021 summer.”
Something Old: Rethinking Student Workshops
For the UConn PCS team, summer 2020 meant adapting an older and integral component of our program: exploratory workshops. Traditionally, workshops allowed students a safe, in-person space to explore a wide variety of emerging academic and personal interests in addition to their class. Many of our wonderful workshop presenters worked with the PCS team to transition their work shop into a recorded virtual mini-workshop that was shared out with students who registered for the program. We understand that many students spend their summers preparing for their futures, and we were pleased to continue supporting students in their college and career preparations in a virtual space. These workshops all pertain to college preparation, and can still be accessed on the Pre-College Summer YouTube Channel.
Something New: A New Graduate Assistant
For the UConn PCS team, summer 2020 brought a new teammate: a new Graduate Assistant, Deanna Gallegos. Deanna joined the team in August and hit the ground running working on social media and preparing to recruit, hire, and train our summer staff. While summer 2021 is looking different than those prior, Deanna is working to ensure that our student staff will have a safe and engaging experience. She has spent the last month rethinking the role our student staff will play and making sure that by the end of the summer our staff will have enhanced their leadership capabilities and grown in their professional competence. Deanna is from West Sacramento, CA and graduated from the University of California – Davis in 2019 with a double major in English and Chicana/o Studies. She is now pursuing a Master’s in Higher Education and Student Affairs in the Neag School of Education at UConn. We are elated to have her on the team!
Something Borrowed: Relationship Building and Benchmarking
Collaboration is a key component of our work as a program. Conferences provide our team with opportunities to connect and network with other pre-college programs across the country and the partnerships we’ve formed with other UConn offices are integral to creating a dynamic summer program. Building and maintaining relationships has been a challenge as of late, but this summer we set out to create a community of practice with similar programs on and off campus.
The community we are building came to fruition after our Program Coordinator, Cody Olson, conducted a benchmarking analysis this past summer. Since the completion of that project, we’ve been able to develop stronger relationships with other programs, share new and innovative ideas with our peers, and in many ways “borrow” unique practices and strategies that we will
implement in coming summers. A project like this would not have been possible to complete in a typical summer, and the community of practice we are building will benefit us for years to come.
Something Blue: A New Pre-College Website
For our new website and branding, “something blue” means adopting a dynamic, minimalist design to bring us closer to our UConn Nation roots. This summer, we had time to develop a new website and rebrand the program- a major undertaking and something we may not have been able to do without the extra time we had this summer. It’s not just the look of our website that has changed. We have also restructured the website to better address the specific needs of three different populations. We want to directly communicate with students, parents and guardians, and high school and community partners as well as other program stakeholders. With education entering a new age of online and blended learning, we are excited to share our new website and to use it to better serve our students and their families.
Rain Date: Planning for Summer 2021
Like most happy couples planning to celebrate in 2020, we have a rain date for Summer 2021. We are thrilled to be in the midst of preparing for this upcoming summer as we utilize the old, new, borrowed, and blue ideas from our unexpected summer of collaboration and growth. We are excited to announce that #SummerAtUConn for 2021 will be held virtually. This includes online course offerings, workshops, and social programming for our student participants. Students can now submit an application at no cost by navigating to connect.pcs.uconn.edu/apply. For a list of courses that will be offered, please see this link: pcs.uconn.edu/courses. Among the many courses that will be offered, we have a great opportunity for students interested in Geoscience. Through a collaboration of UConn’s Department of Geoscience & UConn PCS, scholarships will be awarded to students to participate in the three-week virtual GEOPATHS: Introduction to Geosciences course at no cost. Visit pcs.uconn.edu for more information on this scholarship and overall program details.
2021 Summer Dates:
• Session 1A & 1B: 6/14/2021 – 7/2/2021
• Session 2A & 2B: 7/5/2021 – 7/23/2021
“We want to directly communicate with students, parents and guardians, and high school and community partners as well as other program stakeholders. With education entering a new age of online and blended learning, we are excited to share our new website and to use it to better serve our students and their families.”
By Elizabeth Kindt
Being a high school student is difficult enough without any additional pressures or major world crises going on. In March of 2020, Connecticut high schoolers experienced a sudden switch to online learning due to COVID-19, and just two months later on May 25th witnessed widespread political action in the United States in response to the murder of George Floyd. Between the uncertainty and fear brought on by the pandemic, and the injustices of our country finally coming to light, our students are facing extreme global events as they try to navigate their own personal and educational growth. To better understand the challenges our UConn ECE Students are facing during these trying times, UConn ECE staff conducted interviews with some of our students to learn more about how the online educational changes and the current political discourse has impacted them in both their education and lives at home. We asked each student two specific questions to start the conversation; “How has the current political discourse and injustice affected you? How has it affected your classes and learning both inside and outside the classroom?”
Valerie, a UConn ECE Student from Cromwell High School answered, “For the first part of the school year, I have been virtually learning from home and I must admit, it has been challenging in multiple ways.” Her response to courses switching online was similar to other students, who found the transition difficult at first, but manageable towards the end of the school year. In making the most of a challenging situation, Valerie has been using her time at home to “continue to educate myself and keep updated on what has been going on in the world. I’ve also been making sure to keep myself in the mindset that there is always room to learn and improve.” Valerie concluded, “Overall, the current political discourse and injustice has really made me see how much I can do to help the community become a better place and continue to encourage others to do so as well.” Once again, her response mirrored other students who wanted to help their communities, despite setbacks as a result of the pandemic.
Another UConn ECE student, who wishes to remain anonymous, explained how the political discourse has affected their learning directly. This Manchester High School student answered, “[The political discourse] affected my classes and learning because more people are talking about it and spreading awareness to it, so more people…can take action.” This was a common theme among students as many wanted to discuss what was affecting classroom learning. This student also mentioned that, “The most memorable [course] was UConn Human Rights because we were able to talk about current situations happening in the world.” Many other UConn ECE Students mentioned that in courses such as UConn Human Rights, and UConn U.S. History, instructors allowed for a more open discussion about the current events going on in the U.S. since these topics were aligned with their course curricula. Students were pleased when this happened and open to a discussion about how these events affected them and those around them.
We also had the opportunity to interview Camila Lopez, a sophomore at J.M. Wright Technical High School who spoke about the political events that affected both her family and her education. When asked about how her peers were getting involved with political issues she answered, “Here in Stamford, there have been a lot of protests downtown,” and continued by saying, “there are issues going on that need to be spoken about, and I’m a big fan of peaceful protesting.” When asked if today’s current events have also been addressed within the classroom she said, “Yes, especially since I’m taking the UConn ECE Human Rights course our teacher was like, ‘yeah we’re talking about this’. What I really like about it, and what a lot of students I’ve seen like about it, is there’s more real-world subjects.” She went on to say that she liked the platform students were given in class to speak their minds, especially in her UConn Human Rights course. She mentioned that, “What I like about it is the flexibility that the teacher has, like if there is a problem going on [our teacher will say], ‘does anyone want to talk about it?’ He’ll give us the platform so we can say what we’re thinking and then we start discussing it. There aren’t necessarily debates or arguments about it, it’s just discussing it in general which is really nice.” Camila also mentioned that she and other students believe bringing up these issues in class is the first step to bringing about change. “There’s a curriculum but because it’s a human rights class you can kind of go off of it in different directions. You can have an assignment on race, but because there are still racial inequalities today, you can talk about what’s going on today.” Camila also mentioned that although students were quieter in their online classes, once a conversation was started on a controversial topic or current event, students were more willing to jump in and share their thoughts. She reminisced about being in the classroom in the beginning of the year and explained, “Once one person starts [the conversation], it kind of goes from there, and with a couple of people joining it leads to more. I feel like with online classes a lot of kids are quieter than I’m used to seeing in class.” And although high school students may not be as outgoing or willing to participate over Zoom, Camila emphasized that their voices are still being heard. Towards the end of the interview, we asked Camila how the political discourse had affected her family. Her response was, “I’m Guatemalan and I love talking about politics with my dad.” Once again she mentioned that talking about these issues is one of the most important things students are doing. At the end of the interview Camila reiterated how important it was to spread awareness about current topics in the class room, and to keep students involved in the conversations.
Although this school year has been an unexpected one to say the least, we found that
students are ready to get involved in both their communities and classrooms to make positive changes in the world. Despite the pandemic, many students feel more empowered and encouraged, even if it is through a computer, to speak out on the current political discourse and other issues they are passionate about. As we reflect on 2020, we are hopeful the new year will bring peace and good health to all our students and community partners, and the passion for change, dedication to taking action and raising awareness will continue to grow and their voices will be heard.
We invited the UConn ECE community to respond to Living & Learning in 2020 which resulted in some impressive student artwork submissions. Most of a spring semester, a summer, and the majority of a fall semester were like no other for students across the United States. The pieces selected for the Winter 2021 cover of the UConn ECE Magazine provide insight to how UConn ECE Students interpret living and learning during this time and in many ways depicts what many of us have been feeling: isolation, growth, and social injustice.
COVER: On the Inside Looking Out
This is an 18” by 24” acrylic painting that I created at the beginning of the pandemic for my studio art class. Essentially, it’s about seeing one’s friends or family being together and feeling the fear of missing out. We are just spectators, watching other people live their lives while we try to maintain our health. I’m trying to convey the hopelessness of seeing loved ones together and knowing that you could just go out and be with them, but being unable to. It’s just out of reach and it’s the dilemma that we all face at this time. Thus, this raises the question: how can one balance their social needs with their health? – Kara Rondinelli
RUNNER UP: Light in Darkness
My understanding of Living and Learning in 2020 is the concept of growth. As individuals, this time in our lives has asked us to expand and all for copious amounts of personal growth which has evidently changed and matured our communities as a whole. It is clear that though the future is cloudy, as the mirror in this piece represents, we will continue to grow, change, and learn from each other. This time will be forever captured in history. – Rosemarie LaChance
RUNNER UP: As the Sun Rises
This painting depicts the situation of Korean comfort women, which has been a politically divisive topic as well as a source of modern animosity between Japan and Korea for many years… In this painting, a lone comfort woman sits in the corner of the room while the parted curtains allow the sun though. I made the sun the Japanese imperial flag, the rising sun, to show that although the women are “free” from enslavement, Imperial Japan still dictates their legacy and future. The girl sits beside five empty beds, all of which have the traditional Korean dress, hanbok, folded at the edge. – Madison Lee
Crosby High School, Waterbury
Cathleen Newmark, Interim Principal
“Crosby High School is an urban school in the City of Waterbury. It serves 1,220 students and has a staff of 140. The demographics of the student populations are: 733 Hispanic, 303 African American, 135 White, 20 Asian, 17 two or more race categories and 12 American Indian.”
J.M. Wright Technical High School, Stamford
Phyllis Bartoli, Principal
“There are 450 students who are currently enrolled at J.M. Wright Technical High School. Our students primarily come from Stamford; however, other communities represented are Greenwich, Norwalk, Wilton, Westport, Darien, Fairfield, and Bridgeport. There are 9 trades (Automotive Technology, Carpentry, Culinary Arts, Digital Media, Electrical, Health Technology, Hospitality Management, Information Technology, and Plumbing & Heating), each with 2 instructors. On the academic side, there are 20 teachers.”
The Woodstock Academy, Woodstock
Christopher Sandford, Head of School
“The Woodstock Academy is an independent “Town Academy” which was founded in 1801. There are only 22 Town Academies in the United States and three of them are in Connecticut. The majority of our day students come from six of our nearby towns. In addition, we have day students from the local area who pay tuition to attend along with up to 200 students who enroll through our boarding program. This boarding environment attracts students from all around the country and the world. In total, we have about 1,100 students in grades 9-13. While our school sits in a very rural area in northeast Connecticut, we have students in our boarding community who come from more diverse areas all over the world.”
Xavier High School, Middletown
Brendan Donohue, Principal
“Xavier High School is an all-boys, Catholic, College Prep school located in Middletown, Connecticut. We are co-sponsored by the Xaverian Brothers and the Diocese of Norwich. We have 662 students enrolled in grades 9-12. We have 55 full- and part-time teaching faculty.”
Principal Confidential–People, Places, & Pedagogy
By Brian A. Boecherer
They say, tough times make for resilient people. If so, we are in a period of reinforcing our resilience and as a result we have become and will even still become stronger and wiser. What have we learned in 2020 that challenges and also reinforces our previous thinking and what will we carry with us into the future? As the pandemic rages on, most of us are still trying just to manage the current situation. Instructors are thinking about which parts of their curriculum can be restructured to fit a new course pace and how to offer compassionate assessments that suit the moment, but still require students to deeply engage. Principals are thinking about their students as well, along with district mandates; the health, well-being, and obligations of their teachers; and their high school as a cohesive society. This became clear from my interviews with four UConn ECE high school principals [introduced to the left]. They are thinking about the people, the place, and the pedagogy.
These four high schools show four very different spaces and highlight unique situations as well as some important similarities. To set the scene, all four schools have different demands based on whether their students are mostly onsite, mostly remote, and somewhere in between. The students who attend Xavier High School are mostly in-person, with a small percentage of students opting for distance learning. The Woodstock Academy, on the other hand, has gone completely remote, although they have a residential student population to consider as well. Crosby and Wright Tech are hybrid, with the majority of their students at a distance, but about a third of their students are on campus at any given time.
How does structure influence teaching and learning?
Cathi Newmark, Crosby High School: “Waterbury Public Schools is in a hybrid learning model. ALL students and their families were given the option to choose to attend school in-person or enroll in the district’s Virtual Academy. At Crosby, ALL students (in-person and virtual) participate in synchronous learning every day from 7:20 to 11:20 a.m., with an additional 80-minutes of asynchronous learning when they return home. In addition, all students and families are afforded the opportunity to meet with teachers from 1:25-2:00 p.m. for additional individual/small group assistance.”
Phyllis Bartoli, J. M. Wright Technical High School: “Because students at J.M. Wright Technical High School manage two programs – trade and academic – they operate on two-week cycles. On their academic cycle, students have been divided into two groups (virtual/in-school) [to de-densify the building]. There are approximately 33% of students on campus daily. There are about four students per class, and they travel in cohorts. Teachers have designed their classroom so that students are sitting six feet apart. On the trade side, all students stay in their shop except for lunch. There is very limited hallway “traffic”. It is the students’ responsibility to recognize when they are to be on campus and when they are to access their academic program from home. Even with this model, [with all students and instructors wearing masks] there are families who have opted to do their learning completely virtually.”
Chris Sandford, The Woodstock Academy: “About six years ago we started a one-to-one program where every student has been given an iPad. This initiative has been a game changer in terms of technology, equity and shifting our overall pedagogy throughout the entire school. It has led to new courses being created or courses being restructured in almost every department which has expanded our ability to meet our mission as an institution.
“Also, we have offered online classes in the evening for those students who may find those type of classes better suited for their schedule. We have eliminated snow days to provide a continuous educational experience that limits the movement of commencement. Right now, we are considering shifting our weekly schedule to one that has only four in-person days each week. This might be a way for students to become more familiar with the virtual format they will undoubtedly see in college, while providing more valuable and precious professional development time for staff.”
Brendon Donohue, Xavier High School: “Normally, Xavier has a seven-period day; 45-minute periods. This year we returned fully in person with a small percentage of students choosing to learn remotely due to family medical reasons. As part of our reopening plan, we reduced the number of classes per day and lengthened the periods. We now have five-periods a day [with] 60-minute classes. This was done in large part to minimize the number of times students are passing through the hallways. Of course, we have many other protocols in place that I am sure are universal in other schools. Designated dining areas [with plexiglass], directional signals in hallways, one-way stair wells, hand sanitizer in every room and in common areas, no lockers, etc.”
What is the most difficult part of managing a high school during COVID-19?
Cathi Newmark, Crosby High School: “Students have varying responses to this new way of learning. Some are more comfortable and prefer learning at home, sharing a greater ability to focus with less distractions in place, while others miss the routine and social interaction of the traditional school day. They have all demonstrated resilience and an admirable ability to adapt to the pandemic and the uncertain times we are all navigating through together.
“While we recently had a change in administration at Crosby, the staff continues to navigate the challenges of teaching and supporting students during a pandemic with resilience. The faculty has stepped up and they offer each other support and guidance where and when they see the need. They share teaching tips with each other on our new platform, ParentSquare, which is a communication tool our district launched this year. They support each other emotionally and have demonstrated empathy and understanding when challenges arise.”
Phyllis Bartoli, J.M. Wright Technical High School: “What’s most difficult is that the schedule changes daily. It is imperative to communicate the schedule on a weekly basis to families, students, and staff. Students are managing as well as possible. To establish consistency, online norms were created: Video on; Audio off, unless speaking; Arrive to class on time; Follow their schedule; Check their email; and Dress appropriately, preferably in uniform. Faculty are having a difficult time with hybrid teaching, namely, there are only a few students in their class and the rest of the class is virtual. Web cams were donated by the Parent Faculty Organization (PFO) to enhance video clarity. They feel, overall, comfortable with the way administration has managed the schedules and students. Communication is extremely important, so weekly staff update meetings have been scheduled.”
Chris Sandford, The Woodstock Academy: “Our largest challenge rests with meeting the social and emotional needs of our staff and students. Both our school goal and many of our Board of Trustee’s goals for this year were created with this focus. Fortunately, we have had very few issues with technology, but with our community so spread out and diverse, we are always concerned about the isolation of our students and staff.”
Brendan Donohue, Xavier High School: “A key characteristic of Xaverian education is “enduring personal relationships”. This is a hallmark of the Xaverian Brothers who have always had a presence at Xavier and who sponsor the school though the Xaverian Brothers Sponsored Schools network. Throughout the pandemic it has been hard to conduct many of our programs in the same manner that we typically do. This has hampered our ability to interact with our students in the manner we are accustomed to. Of course, it is also difficult to maintain these relationships with those students learning remotely. The freshmen are of particular concern.”
What is the biggest silver lining in teaching and learning that came from the pandemic?
Cathi Newmark, Crosby High School: “One of the greatest milestones we have achieved as a district is the increased access to technology for our students. The bar has been raised for educators and students to utilize technology to improve instructional practices and student assessment while using various online tools and platforms. This year, teachers have been afforded a wealth of professional learning time (daily) and have been using this time to focus on SEL [Social and Emotional Learning] practices, engaging students in the hybrid learning model and gaining certifications in the areas of Google and Kami as tools to guide their instruction.
“We have a very active Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) team that acknowledges and rewards both staff and students on a regular basis. We recognize that this is a difficult time for all of us and have increased our efforts to boost morale among our students and staff. Some of the initiatives that have taken place include sending handwritten postcards to all students and staff that are currently learning/teaching virtually and a FALLOWEEN celebration where we distributed treats to all students as they exited the building. We have implemented a walking club during our lunch block to encourage healthy practices and camaraderie amongst our staff. We promote FineArt Fridays and Music Mondays on our social media platforms where we post Crosby student pieces. We also announce an SEL quote of the day during our student-led morning announcements.”
Phyllis Bartoli, J.M. Wright Technical High School: “Wednesday is now a virtual day for students. They also operate on an early dismissal schedule. While teachers are on campus, the teaching portion of the day ends at 11:30am. They can have lunch delivered to the high school or step out. They then can use the rest of the day for collaboration and planning.”
Chris Sandford, The Woodstock Academy: “While it has been a struggle, I can say that I have never been prouder of the individuals that work and study at The Academy. This has not been easy on anyone, but what I have seen from adults and students has been nothing short of inspiring. Sitting with students in the boarding community around a fire pit and just chatting about how things will be different after the pandemic, or meeting with students (virtually) as they advocate for social justice issues, or hearing how people have coped while struggling with sick parents or family members (or their own sickness), has brought some important things into focus this year. Even though we have been forced to distance ourselves, we have never been more connected together.”
Brendan Donohue, Xavier High School: “People are resilient and innovative. They rally around each other in difficult times. That has been the greatest takeaway for us here at Xavier. Because of the pandemic, everyone has been forced to try new things. We have had to learn new ways to educate. Many of us find this very uncomfortable. I have watched our faculty and staff and students roll up their sleeves and figure it out. When this is all over, there will be many things that we will be glad to see go, but there will also be things we retain because the challenge has made us better – better educators and students, better people. I am eager to see what a Xavier education looks like in the future because of this. Some things will always stay the same – academic excellence, enduring personal relationships, a strong moral foundation rooted in Catholic Social Teaching and Xaverian values. How we do things might look a bit different because of this experience. The Xavier community will be better because of this pandemic.”
By Dr. Christopher Peter Malinoski, Laboratory Manager, Department of Biological Sciences
BIOL 1107 is a large introductory course at the University of Connecticut, Storrs campus, servicing nearly 1,300 undergraduates on an annual basis. The course guides students through a rigorous life sciences curriculum delivered through both lecture and laboratory components.
The laboratory portion of the course is focused on teaching both concepts and techniques. Units of lab exercises are offered focusing on various broad topics, like biochemistry, cell physiology, and molecular genetics. Students are also taught to use basic laboratory equipment, like microscopes, spectrophotometers, and pipettes.
I mention this to emphasize that the laboratory curriculum was designed to provide students with an authentic laboratory experience. To say that we were unprepared for the sudden emergence of SARS-CoV2 and the COVID19 pandemic is perhaps an understatement. When the difficult decision was made to offer BIOL 1107 via distance learning during the Fall 2020 semester, I knew that a significant challenge lay ahead.
The Process of Adaptation
The concept of adaptation is a common one in biology. You might as well consider the sudden change from in-person to distance learning labs as a rather radical shift in the learning environment. In a biological sense, then, we were being asked to alter the structure of the laboratory portion of the course to better fit the limitations (and strengths) of this new, online environment. How could we adapt a course designed to provide in-person, hands-on experiences for a fully hands-off format?
I began by searching for existing commercial products. Those that I found varied in approach to the material. Some were essentially online textbooks with inline questions and feedback, whereas others offered simulated virtual lab environments, like sophisticated educational video games. The simulated lab products were technologically impressive, but I had concerns that students might not own computers powerful enough to run the software. Further, while the simulation might provide a good visual representation of a lab exercise – for example, clicking and dragging a micropipette to a given solution – such an activity was really only assessing a student’s ability to arrange the steps of a procedure in the proper order. While this might help the student understand the order of operations, so could an ordering of question-types in our typical Blackboard LMS environment (HuskyCT).
Ultimately, both solutions had a fundamental problem; neither would provide students with the tactile experience and muscle memory that comes from physically working in a laboratory. While I did not – and still do not – have a solution to this problem, I was not convinced that these commercial products offered significant value to the student beyond what we might be able to develop ourselves.
With the support of the faculty instructors for the course, we began to adapt the BIOL 1107 laboratory content to the online-only format ourselves. The general course format was as follows: Teaching Assistants would hold synchronous lab meetings at the regularly scheduled times using the Collaborate video conferencing tool on Blackboard. During these meetings, Teaching Assistants would remotely administer password-protected quizzes and deliver lectures on the relevant lab topics for the week. Students could be split up into smaller break-out groups and tasked with participating in discussion topics relevant to the current exercise. Additionally, on their own time, students are required to read through the exercises in the lab manual and to complete weekly assignments.
I was bolstered in my decision by the fact that the course was not starting from square-one; the BIOL 1107 labs already had a robust online presence in place. In 2015, in conjunction with the eCampus Learning Team and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, a modern Blackboard site for the laboratory portion of the course was developed. In addition to redesigning the layout of that site for more intuitive navigation, I created student-centric learning objectives for each lab exercise. With the help of several Teaching Assistants from the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, all the laboratory quizzes were redesigned to fit an online format that students would access in-lab using University-owned tablet computers. Much of these existing resources could be used in the distance-learning lab environment with little to no additional alteration.
We would supplement this online experience with as many additional online resources as we could. In the time since the collaboration with the eCampus team, I spearheaded a project to create introductory background videos covering topics from each lab exercise. Students could watch these videos to supplement the synchronous lectures and being available online meant that students could watch and re-watch the concept videos as needed. With the increased dependence students would have on these videos in the new course format, I tried to incorporate best practices wherever possible. Some videos were edited into 5- to 7-minute segments, and others had to be filmed again.
Next, thanks to the invaluable contributions of the BIOL Lab Services staff, we began the laborious process of planning and filming a series of demonstration videos. These varied from simple equipment tutorial videos to full overviews of performing the laboratory exercises. Staff were able to capture the needed footage using smartphone and tablet cameras over the course of just a few weeks. I then spent several more weeks editing the videos, adding title cards and speeding up sections of the video demonstrating repetitious physical manipulations. For exercises where it made sense, we filmed videos demonstrating experimental results, and we took photographs of samples both before and after the exercises so that students would be able to interpret experimental results for themselves.
To once again address the elephant in the room, these demonstration videos are not a 1:1 replacement for the traditional BIOL 1107 laboratory experience. Obviously, watching a video of equipment being used does not create the same type of muscle memory gained by physically working in the laboratory. However, to put this in another context, if I were going to try to change the brakes in my car – I will be the first to admit that I am not mechanically inclined – would I rather try to do so on my own, or with the assistance of a YouTube tutorial video? For many visually oriented learners, seeing the laboratory equipment being properly used in a video can be a valuable supplement to the experimental protocol written in the lab manual.
The Evolution of a Course
As I said up front, reconsidering the BIOL 1107 laboratory experience in the face of the pandemic was a significant challenge. However, it was important to realize that it was also an opportunity. How could we best utilize the strengths of the new course modality? What skills could we teach that would be equally as valuable and better suited to the online format? (The question is meant to be rhetorical, but the answer in our case was renewed focus on the principles of the scientific method and on scientific writing skills.)
These types of compromises were necessary in adapting the BIOL 1107 laboratories to the distance-learning modality, and I would like to emphasize that these were not easy choices to make. I think the following sentiments are ones that many educators will identify with: the prior course design was not broken, and years of iteration had resulted in the what we considered to be the very best laboratory experience that we could offer. At many times during the adaptation process I felt as though we were being forced to leave behind some of the best and most valuable parts of the student experience. I could not shake the feeling that I was somehow betraying the natural evolution of the course.
However, I realized that I was making a fundamental mistake in my understanding of evolution. Anyone that has taught evolution knows that it is a common misconception, the idea that evolution results in organisms that are perfectly adapted to a given environment. But that’s not how evolution works. Evolution’s dirty secret is that it often only results in solutions that work well enough. To adapt to the pandemic environment, the BIOL 1107 laboratory experience would need to be different by necessity. The experience might not be perfect, but it would be different.
And it would work.
By Melanie Banks
A. This semester I am teaching a graduate seminar on Professional Development in Anthropology and Anthropology 1500, a large introductory general education course on Great Discoveries in Archaeology. The introductory course satisfies two general education requirements, so it is typically popular with freshmen looking to check off two requirements at once and explore a topic that they may not have been exposed to before. This semester 150 students are taking the class, and a class of this size can often feel impersonal, even when the class is held in person. At the beginning of the semester, I felt that it was important to welcome each student individually, so that everyone felt that they had at least one faculty member they could reach out to and realize that, despite physical distancing, we are all still part of a bigger class and college community here at UConn. I feel really lucky to be teaching this course—I have been teaching it for more than 15 years and love it! Last year, well before anyone had heard of COVID-19, I worked closely with Betsy Guala, a course designer here at UConn within the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning to develop a fully-online version of the course. While the online course was developed with a much smaller group of students in mind, having the online course shell available made it easier to pivot to online instruction this fall. As an aside, for any interested instructors out there, this course has been approved as a UConn ECE course and the online shell is available for you to use!
This semester, I am assisted by two Teaching Assistants, who help oversee weekly online discussions. About four weeks into the fall semester, I conducted a class survey to check how everyone was doing and I asked the students to share top tips on surviving the unusual circumstances we are all facing. Many students shared strategies they had developed for managing their struggling with time management and the many and varying demands placed upon them by their different courses. Some students reminded their classmates of the importance of eating, breathing, and sleeping and I have to agree—eat well, breathe deeply, and get good sleep! Students are juggling many sets of deadlines and technology-related learning curves on top of the course content. This has been overwhelming for some. I try to make the technology and time management pieces for Anthropology 1500 as easy and straightforward as possible, by sending out regular updates and reminders, and checking in with students who appear to be falling behind. Given that so many freshmen take the class, I firmly believe in the need to provide instruction on strategies that help students succeed in college. Alongside discussions of archaeology, I provide links to resources on campus, strategies for approaching readings and taking useful notes, and exercises that help deepen critical thinking. It can be easy to focus on the challenges that many of us have faced as instructors in light of COVID. There are some silver linings too! As part of the online version of Anthropology 1500, students get to explore archaeology and engage with cultural heritage in a very different way—after watching a lecture on early art, for example, they can now dive straight into a virtual tour of Chauvet Cave in France (archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet/en/virtual-visit). Or they can virtually explore the galleries within the British Museum in London (blog.britishmuseum.org/how-to-explore-the-british-museum-from-home/) as part of our ongoing discussions of cultural heritage—or they can admire the view from the top of a the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán in Mexico (www.360cities.net/image/pyramid-of-the-sun-teotihuacan) as part of our consideration of state-level societies in Central America. By diversifying the range of instructional materials, and allowing students to progress as their own pace, the course is, in some ways, better suited to a wide range of learning styles than the in-person version!
Q. Professors in the humanities and social sciences are uniquely positioned to read the news and put it in a larger context. How do you engage with the news in your classes and give structure to the moment we are living in?
Anthropologists are very well placed to provide instruction on cultural diversity, race, and racism, and I feel that we have an ethical responsibility to do all that we can to share this knowledge and enhance the cultural-literacy and sensitivity of our students. As part of Anthropology 1500,* students explore how colonial histories have shaped diverse views of the past. In addition to gaining a deeper understanding of the diverse ways of life of people across the globe and through time, students also gain a deeper appreciation of the complex relationships between the past and the present, and learn to discuss and debate multifaceted issues relating to cultural heritage from multiple perspectives. Issues relating to cultural heritage rarely have one simple correct answer. I believe that providing a safe space for discussion to allow students to explore new ideas and change their minds, possibly multiple times, is particularly important right now in light of the divisions we sometimes see in the media.
New archaeological discoveries often appear in the news—these are included as part of a “New Discoveries” forum within the class. Students are also provided the skills that they need to read a news article and evaluate it for thoroughness and potential accuracy. In additional to obtaining cultural sensitivity and emphasizing critical thinking, underscoring the need to evaluate readings for accuracy is essential for today’s students.
* The Anthropology Department is now offering two courses through the UConn ECE program: ANTH 1000: Peoples and Cultures of the World and ANTH 1500: Great Discoveries in Archaeology, both of which explore issues of race and cultural diversity throughout the world. Fully-developed online course content shells are available to certified UConn ECE Instructors to use as resources. If interested in learning more about ANTH 1000 or ANTH 1500, please reach out to Alexia Smith (alexia.smith@uconn.edu).
Q. While you give structure and context for your students, how do you advise students who come to you confused, disaffected, and/or angry and not knowing how to make positive change?
A. Sometimes students new to archaeology or the social sciences struggle with the way that information is structured. If a student is confused, I review the structure and scaffolding that archaeologists use to gather and interpret data. My background spans the sciences and the social sciences so I can often emphasize with the difficulties that students may be going through as they approach the topic, having experienced them myself!
I haven’t experienced too many students who are angry this semester, but I have interacted with a few. I know that technology struggles can sometimes push people over the edge, myself included! In those instances, I ask what the main issue is and brainstorm potential solutions. In one instance, I connected a student with a resource that could help provide them with access to a laptop. For students who are disaffected, it is a little more challenging this semester—I often send emails checking in to ask whether everything is ok and whether there is anything I can do to help. Oftentimes, this makes the student realize that they are not “unseen” or anonymous in a large online class and they re-engage. Sometimes they don’t engage, however, and that is the hardest part—given that email, or communication tools within the online course, are the only ways I have to communicate with students, I feel somewhat limited in those instances. I can only interact with them if they choose to reciprocate.
In some cases, it is clear that a student is experiencing difficulties well outside my area of expertise. I make sure that students are aware of the range of social supports or mental health resources we have in place on campus and ensure that they understand how accessible these resources are. More rarely, when I have sensed a deeper problem, I have reached out to the Dean of Students’ office to ask them to call a student to see if they are ok. The help is always there—sometimes the students just need a little guidance finding it!
By Melanie Banks
A. One thing I’ve been telling teachers and students is that writing is a technology designed for bridging gaps between people. If we’re all in the same room anyhow, we don’t actually need to write. Going online or being physically apart helps students see the need to consider audience, situation, and the goals of writing: who needs to hear this and how can I affect them? We’re using writing, more than ever, to locate ourselves in a conversation and see ourselves in relationship to others.
Q. Professors in the humanities and social sciences are uniquely positioned to read the news and put it in a larger context. How do you engage with the news in your classes and give structure to the moment we are living in?
A. Our focus this semester is on education itself, which allows students to share experiences and write as experts, since they are themselves, of course, deeply involved in educational systems. Additionally, because education is supposed to be a place for engaging with and we hope changing the world, we talk and write about where our schools and courses come up short and what we might want them to be. What should a school be leads into questions of inequality, injustice, and systemic racism, and we’ve read about and explored a range of possible responses to the emergent needs of our world in 2020.
Q. While you give structure and context for your students, how do you advise students who come to you confused, disaffected, and/or angry and not knowing how to make positive change?
A. I am entirely online this semester, which makes the personal interactions with students, most of whom are in their first semester of college, much harder to initiate. I worry quite a bit that we’re not hearing enough from students in need. My personal style is to be talky and energetic in videos, constantly sending emails, writing individualized notes to them, being present in online conferences. It takes time, but I think many or most begin to trust that I am telling the truth when I insist that I am here to help them. Our course is a seminar, which means it needs their contributions and will go in a direction they choose. My role is to help them see that school can be a resource for them to do and make things that interest them.
By Melanie Banks
I think that COVID-19 has really focused public attention on the collective health and mental well-being of those around us. It has also laid bare the racial and economic inequities in our society. As faculty, it is incumbent on us to help students understand the origins of these disparities in institutional racism and racist ideologies that have produced such gross inequities.
A. I think we’ve had two different moments in the crisis. The first came with the abrupt lockdown when the campus community was told on Friday, March 13th that we would not to return to campus following spring break and that we were to transition our classes online. We were all scared as no one knew much about how the disease was transmitted, such as whether we could catch it from our mail or our groceries. We all know so much more now and as educators, we know that informative, concrete, empirical data is power. Science should not be political.
So, in Spring 2020, I moved my Sociology of Law class online to an asynchronous format. Since I believe that students learn best when they are engaged in thoughtful discussion, I thought that it would be harder to accomplish that goal on WebEx, so I made online-based discussion a graded requirement of the class. What I found really surprised me. First, the shyer students participated equally, and this allowed more people to engage fully in the discussion. Second, I made the discussion questions which were posted on HuskyCt very targeted, requiring close engagement with the readings. I found that in responding to my discussion prompts, students referred more closely to the readings and because everyone had to participate, they engaged more fully with the text.
I heard from many students who did not have easy access to the internet or who, because they were now living at home, had to take on more responsibility such as caring for younger siblings who were struggling to attend school online. As students reached out, I was able to make accommodations as needed. I found out that one of my advisees was living in a homeless shelter, going to the public library to take her online classes and do her homework. Together with UConn staff, we were able to find her housing and to improve her situation.
In my graduate class, we continued to meet online synchronously. We generally started each class with a check in where we learned that some of us were introverts and adapting well to the isolation, others were single parents struggling to balance work, school, and home as they took care of small children who no longer had daycare or playdates. In short, the lockdown provided more of an opportunity for us to know each other as people and to understand how the constant struggle for work-life balance affected each of us differently, and how that struggle was accentuated because of the pandemic. I think that the pandemic has provided for many of us an opportunity to practice compassion and understanding.
This fall 2020 semester, things feel a bit easier. We understand the disease better and know what we should do to keep ourselves as safe as we can be. But the struggles for students with younger siblings or family obligations or for those who have to work with the public that increases their exposure to COVID-19 continue. As a teacher and advisor, my go to question for students who are struggling, is, “What is keeping you from being able to complete assignments or keep up with your classes? Can we come up with a plan to make things easier?” This opens the dialog to greater empathy and to think through ways to support our students.
Q. Professors in the humanities and social sciences are uniquely positioned to read the news and put it in a larger context. How do you engage with the news in your classes and give structure to the moment we are living in?
A. Sociologists are uniquely positioned to place the disparate effects of the pandemic in a broader context. We can raise and discuss important questions such as why are Black, Brown, and indigenous people disproportionately affected by the pandemic and why are they dying at higher rates than their European American counterparts? Who has access to healthcare and who does not? What explains these differences? What has the pandemic taught us about how society is organized, what we would call the division of labor? After all, we depend on the people who continued to work at the grocery stores and of course all of the healthcare workers which, without them, we quite literally would not survive. Who keeps them safe? What are they paid? Why do some people react with compassion and others with fear?
Q. While you give structure and context for your students, how do you advise students who come to you confused, disaffected, and/or angry and not knowing how to make positive change?
The unequal racial impact of the pandemic has brought the racial inequities of our society into stark relief. For many European-American people, the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota laid bare the racism embedded in the criminal justice system and sparked uprisings across the country. For Black and Brown people, the police murder of Floyd was one more example of a criminal justice system where Black and Latinx people who constitute approximately 25% of the population make up 59% of the prison population. Compared to similar nations, the U.S. incarceration rate is five to ten times higher. Understanding structural racism is a critical part of what sociologists study. With the increased organizing for racial justice, there are myriad ways for students to get involved and they can start by looking online. For those who do not feel safe protesting in person, many social movement organizations now meet online which I believe for many makes participation easier, though of course, we all miss the in person contact. Whatever issue you care about, whether it is climate change or voting rights or something else, you can find a group that is working for positive social change.