By Sara Boyer, executive director of academic affairs
How has SMWC’s long history of distance education best prepared the faculty and college to pivot to online-only delivery for all students – undergraduate and graduate?
SMWC has always maintained close relationships with our distance students. We know our students personally and work to help them be successful. Our full-time faculty on campus are also the lead instructors for our online courses. They have developed courses online and make sure that both online and campus students achieve the same learning outcomes.
The experience of our faculty ensures a quick conversion from the campus course material to the fully online platform. We have also discovered that several of our instructors were using the Desire 2 Learn (D2L) platform, our learning management system, in their campus courses. Syllabi, content and rubrics were already in place in several of our courses. We also have several of our courses where students submit their work in D2L rather than turning it in during class time. We have some departments assisting other departments in this transition. The faculty are excellent colleagues to each other and work collectively in the best interests of our students.
What sets a Woods online education apart from other colleges just learning to adapt to this new reality?
The Academic Affairs Office checks for student engagement on a weekly basis for online students, and now we are doing the same for our campus students now that they are learning online. If a student has not submitted work in the previous week, we contact them. In communicating with our students who are not engaging, we find out where they are struggling and offer solutions to help them be successful:
- The Learning Resource Center (LRC) has tutors who work with students to help them develop strategies for time management and organization.
- Students can seek input from the Writing Center for assistance and recommendations before submitting assignments.
- Some of the situations we become aware of are personal – knowing this helps us work with the student and instructor to ensure communication continues and the student can reach the best possible outcome.
All the work that we have done for years with our online student population, is now being implemented with our campus students while they are finishing their semester online. We have many students who continue to contact our team, their instructors and their advisors by phone, email and text. We are keeping in touch with our students and are a resource for them.
How has the crisis impacted your work with students; the students themselves?
I miss the students! I miss the face-to-face interaction probably as much as they do. Some of the stories we have heard are heart-wrenching, while some are of champions who have overcome incredible odds to be successful. All of the stories are why we do what we do and can’t imagine doing anything else!
We find that campus students are here for the face-to-face encounter and the campus experience. The good news is that we are seeing more campus students taking our online courses to help meet their demanding schedules. We are seeing a much higher success rate in campus students taking online courses. However, the challenge to our students is trying to juggle all their courses online. For students who live on campus, they are going to a completely different home environment to do this work. Some of them don’t have a quiet working space or high-speed internet or a device that works well to do their schoolwork. Some of them have added responsibilities when they are home. They also are dealing with very uncertain times and have many questions.
Our campus students are used to walking into the Learning Resource Center for Assistance, into my office if there is a problem, into their instructor and advisor’s office to ask questions or to have a schedule created during a sit-down conference. It is our job to help students know that all these resources are still available. We just need them to shift their thinking to virtual services, but still utilize them. As we speak to our students, they seem grateful for the connection and many have questions they need to have answered. We work with them to get those answers.
We are also partnering with the graduate departments to reach out to our grad population. Many of these adult students have many responsibilities along with their studies. While our hybrid model for graduate programs puts us in a great position to shift to online quickly, the students and instructors look to each residency with great anticipation. The collective work and learning that is done during the residencies is amazing. Shifting to an online residency will be challenging, but the talented faculty that oversee the programs will do an amazing job to keep the outstanding learning and sense of community throughout the semester.
What advice do you have for students during this time as they might be dealing with much emotion and circumstances in their home lives?
Communication is the key! We are here, and we want to assist you. Students may feel like they are alone. Isolation is something that distance students deal with on a regular basis. We teach our students that a Liberal Arts education is about the entire person. We look at each individual student and care about what’s going on in their lives. We may not be able to fix everything, but we can be someone to listen and give encouragement where we can.
As with every student, making a schedule to do your work is critical to success. Write down what is due for each class on a master calendar and then schedule the times when you will do the work and work the plan.
Most importantly, reach out when you need help! Don’t sit and work on a problem for hours and get stuck at the same point over and over. Send an email to your instructor, call the instructor or reach out to the Learning Resource Center. Many instructors as well as the LRC and my office welcome Skype meetings, video calls, phone calls and text messages.
0 Comments