This weekly series–a continuation of the CFD summer publication and workshops–will showcase faculty discoveries, strategies, and innovations emerging from HyFlex\/remote teaching.<\/p>\n
If there is a teaching tip you would like to share, email Mary Balkun, Director of Faculty Development, at <mary.balkun@shu.edu>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Daniel Cymbala, English Department<\/i><\/p>\n
Some ideas from my little back-to-the-future classroom:<\/p>\n
Rory Murphy, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department<\/i><\/p>\n
My Aha Moment is to try something I read about in what I recall was a NYT<\/i> opinion piece about increasing student engagement. The suggestion was to use more of an Oxford type model of meeting with the students individually. While I have too many to do that, what I\u2019ve done is broken the class up into small groups of five or six and meet with them every week for at least thirty minutes over Teams. I do this instead of office hours for the students in my class. In these meetings, I have started with having the students introduce one another and talk about how to handle college. I try to get each one to do a little talking and engage a bit. It is still early, but I have hopes that it will give the students some connection to me and to each other. I suspect once we have our first test, the questions will come.<\/p>\n
I also find it helps me to feel less isolated from the students. I\u2019m giving HyFlex lectures, but the spread out room, masks, and other physical distancing measures limit the ability to engage the students as I would like. As I have a hearing impairment, not being able to see their faces and maintaining physical distance makes it tough for me. This way I can do more of what I used to do before and after class. Going up to the student, chatting a bit, and getting them to open up.<\/p>\n
Bryan Pilkington, School of Health and Medical Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n Community Responsibility: Sharing the Burden to Avoid Second-Class Citizenship in a Hyflex Classroom<\/em><\/p>\n I have concerns about the pedagogical soundness of the HyFlex model. Those concerns are, in part, due to the \u201csecond class citizen\u201d status of those who are not physically in the room. The challenges of occupying this status can be exacerbated when only a few student screens are visible on the monitor in the classroom, and when moving between the main screen, in-class students, lecture notes, and slides can keep me from noticing the usual cues. The cues I have in mind are those indications from students that indicate a question they have but don\u2019t want to ask, a thought that should be offered but needs encouragement, or an insight \u2013 that wonderful light bulb \u2013 that should be praised and highlighted for everyone. I\u2019ve spent 15 years teaching in different undergraduate and graduate capacities but, until this term, never employing a HyFlex model. I\u2019ve struggled with how to hone, in just a few weeks, the kinds of sensibilities that took me a while to develop and that are essential to good teaching.<\/p>\n In trying to remedy this defect, two possibilities emerged. I could center my focus on the laptop screen \u2013 all the in-class students are on their computers anyway and, in essence, I could run an online class while being physically in the room. This option is not as available to me as you might think because I\u2019m not comfortable forcing students to keep their videos turned on. It would be nice if they did, but knowing that students join the class discussions from different locations, with different resources, and with different demands on their work spaces, I know there may be reasons that they don\u2019t have their screens on. Forcing the issue \u2013 even for some \u2013 would highlight this for all.<\/p>\n Instead, I embraced the idea that we\u2019re all in this together. As corny as that may sound, it is and has been true of the kinds of classrooms I seek to be a part of. Once I reflected on this, a better answer became clear: ask all members of the classroom community to become a bit more comfortable cutting me off during a lecture and paying a bit more attention to their peers. This means that if I miss a hand raised or a line in the chat while unpacking some argument on a slide, I have 35 community partners who can unmute and draw my attention.<\/p>\n I doubt this will work for every classroom, and even in those I am a part of, my concerns about failing the \u201csecond class citizenry\u201d haven\u2019t been fully assuaged. However, I\u2019d encourage faculty to invite students both to a greater awareness of their classroom community members, but also to jump in, even if they would be cutting you off. Briefly talking over one another is a cost I\u2019ll happily pay for a collective awareness that might substitute, even if imperfectly, for the sensibilities that haven\u2019t translated to HyFlex encounters.<\/p>\n TECH TIPS FROM THE TLTC<\/b><\/p>\n Cybersecurity Month Tip:\u00a0<\/b>Update and secure your devices.<\/p>\n Any device that connects to the internet should be considered vulnerable. Keep both hardware and software up to date, use anti-virus, firewalls, and ensure home Wi-Fi routers are secured.<\/p>\n