Pandemic Shifts (Asynchronous Session)
Innovation in a Time of Isolation: Real-time Remote Learning View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cristin Lasser
In order to best serve our students in urban, rural, and international contexts, we use a co-teaching model in the Master of Development Practice (MDP) and Master of Arts in Education (MAE) Programs that connects students online to create a online synchronous learning experience. In this study, I consider systems and structures we have put into place in order to keep students connected and engaged in real-time remote learning. Grounded in the guiding principles of co-planning, co-instruction, co-assessment, and co-communication, I discuss how co-teaching can be utilized to optimize students' content understanding. Through our modeling and guidance, our students (practicing teachers and development practitioners) are then able to transfer these strategies and skills to their own unique professional contexts. By utilizing co-teaching in remote learning environments, we have found it to be an effective and efficient way to connect students across modalities and contexts in order to best meet their learning needs.
The New Face of Education: Living in a COVID-19 Era View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Janelle Christine Simmons
This paper considers phenomena that have occurred in regard to education for those in K-12. The cause for this new reality is COVID-19. Due to this, most institutions were forced to switch from in-person learning to online learning. The case that will be introduced to explain this new reality is New York City - one of the epicenters of the COVID-19 pandemic.
High Impact Practices during Distance Learning: A Service-learning Community Diary Project to Document Experiences during COVID-19 View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Emily Acosta Lewis
In this paper I focus on moving a high-impact practice (service-learning) to an online setting during the time of COVID-19 when Sonoma State University’s courses were taught exclusively online. Service-learning is defined as a pedagogy that utilizes community service projects within the context of an academic course. It differs from community service as the experience is used as a “text” for the course; the projects are designed to meet a community need; and reflection is incorporated in order for students to process the experience. Service-learning is the only high-impact practice that underrepresented students are more likely to participate in. This service-learning project was in the form of a community diary project to support our community partner, the Sonoma County Library, who was collecting pieces, in the form of writings, art, images, or media to document this unique time in history. These items will be preserved and cataloged as historical documents for future generations to learn what it was like to live during this unique time in history. Faculty from various disciplines adopted this project and incorporated this this assignment in various ways-from the student’s own reflection to video projects interviewing underrepresented populations (e.g. elderly, non-English speaking, children, etc.) to creating art to express how students are feeling. In summary, I discuss how moving service-learning digital in a time of COVID-19 not only helped our community partner but it helped our students cope with their own feelings about living in such abnormal times.
The Transition from Traditional Classroom to E-learning in Chinese as a Second Language: Challenges and Opportunities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ming Wu
Before the 2020 pandemic, most of the teaching of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) happened within traditional classroom settings. With a sudden shift to e-learning due to COVID-19, teachers have been facing many challenges. However, the transition has also forced Chinese language teachers to rethink the advantages of digital tools and redesign class activities to make e-learning more fun. It has even inspired them to design new 100% online courses and bring more digital tools into the classrooms in the future. This research points out common challenges that CSL teachers have been dealing with during the sudden transition, such as: the lack of online teaching resources and reliable platforms; a shortage of training for online teaching; difficulties of creating an interactive environment online; sudden increased workload; and insufficient experience in conducting online assessment. It also analyses the rising opportunities of expanding CSL online courses and popularizing some digital tools. Not only this sudden change of teaching method during the pandemic will result in the rise of more interactive online CLS courses and bring a new trend to use the web for more communicative language learning, it will also fundamentally change in-person teaching where the convergence of online tools, classroom technology and traditional teaching happens.
Teaching Methodologies for Online Instruction Delivery: How to Increase Student Engagement and Retention View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stephanie Amedeo Marquez
Teaching methodologies for online Instruction delivery will present the learning theories of psychology as applied to fully online courses, and show the importance of dialog methods and instructor presence to create student engagement. The purpose is to show how curriculum flow and Gardner's multiple intelligences within a discussion can be organized to produce higher student engagement with the materials. The methods are case study, and student retentions, as well as selected qualitative anecdotes of naturalistic observations. Implications of my preliminary research may help inform other instructors in presenting course work fully online.
Perceived Leader Effectiveness in Digital Theatre Arts Internship View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Thomas Abruzzo, Brittany Williams, Susan Flaming Yeats
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused traditional in-person experiences in the arts to pivot to a remote format, vocational internships included. Remote internships not only give students additional opportunities to collaborate within a national and global context, but address typical equity concerns and potential barriers that students may face with an in-person experience. In this mixed-methods study, leadership effectiveness in Davis Shakespeare Festival’s (DSF) Digital Internship Program (DIP) was studied in the context of remote engagement. Four leaders were interviewed individually and seventeen internship participants completed a quantitative survey that measured perceived leadership effectiveness. Additionally, an ethnographic approach was used in order to measure company policies and procedures that promoted diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives. Using triangulation, findings concluded that despite having to pivot from an in-person internship experience to a online format, both company leadership and internship participants perceived leadership effectiveness as either very or extremely effective. Results also indicated that a online internship format did not negatively affect perceived leadership effectiveness or community building, despite the lack of in-person experiences. The value of this study lies in its evidence that internships in the arts can be effective even when operating remotely, thus finding innovative ways to fulfill traditional university internship requirements. As the findings suggest, one path to success is for organizations to continue to facilitate remote internship opportunities that foster collaboration, mentorship, empowerment, openness, diversity, equity, and accessibility and shy away from simply copying their traditional in-person experiences to a digital realm.
