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by��Christine Attai, Shane Gautsche, Elizabeth Mason, Eric Ochsner and��Brennan Paganini

Defining the Problem

How can CU Professors/Administration keep students motivated to engage with the material at a level needed to be awarded credit for a college level course while still offering the flexibility and understanding necessary to accommodate the diverse and fluctuating needs and abilities of students during this economically, medically, socially, and politically unstable time?

Is online learning providing an equal and adequate learning environment for students?

Pros:

1. Allows students to continue important education that will give them credentials to continue on their degree path.
2. Gives students positive and productive work to do during quarantine.
3. A simplified, online class structure allows professors to focus on important/key concepts that students can follow along with at home. As a result, students are held more accountable for their learning, promoting independence.
4. The online structure and assignments students are expected to attend/complete are inherently designed towards a more self.

Cons:

1. Loss of the quality of education that you get from working in the classroom with professors and other students.
2. COVID-19 affects families and schedules on a day to day basis, so students may be tasked with varying ranges of responsibilities at home that will take them away from their studies unlike an academically concentrated campus environment.

   • The ability to change classes to pass/fail without penalty does, however, accommodate the diverse needs of students and their ability to complete necessary coursework.

3. Due to inconsistent course structures among the different colleges at CU and within several departments, professors are not evidently collaborating with other departments/colleges in order to provide a fair and flexible curriculum to accommodate student’s needs.
4. Asynchronous vs synchronous classes can enhance and/or degrade the learning experiences depending on the student, course, professor, etc.

Some Students’ Opinions Regarding the Overall Structure of Online Schooling

“It allows me to continue learning and achieving credits, but I feel I am losing the quality portion of my education that will actually prepare me for my field of work.”

“Online schooling is the best alternative to in person classes given the circumstances, but the need to rapidly transition to this learning environment has left students vulnerable to insecure online environments due to the unrestricted freedom Zoom classes offer to the outside world. How can I ensure that I am safe from the unknown threats that can come from this online setting? Professor’s throughout CU have been confronting ‘Zoombombing’ incidents differently if at all, so as a student, I would like to see CU informing, educating, and ensuring all professors are able to navigate their online teaching tools to maximize student safety during virtual classes.”

“Moving to online classes was the best option that Boulder could’ve gone to. All of this is being made up on the fly because of these unprecedented times. There are limitations with it and going online can pose other problems like what if your power/wifi goes out or the Zoom servers crash?”

“We were thrown into having to do online school. There was no second thought about it. We weren’t really taught how to do it. While it’s the best option for now it's extremely hard to make the transition from face to face, to online without much guidance from my professors, some of who are equally confused with using these online platforms.”

Background Thoughts that Relate to Structuring an Online Class

• It’s hard to keep up and maintain a relationship with students if they don't join a Zoom call, use online office hours, and/or watch pre-recorded lectures.
• ��Something could have happened in their life and there’s no way to know
• School increase someone’s ability- with a lack of this skill growth goes down
• Inconsistent administrations of assessments (proctored vs open note vs group)
  • Assessments online can have many problems
  • Departments need to work together so that professors teaching the same courses, for example, administer their exams equally and design their exams in a manner that realistically uphold the expectations of the honor code
• Attendance and “participation
  • How can professors adapt the structure and expectations of their courses to motivate students to attend class and engage with the material even though participation/attendance points can’t be awarded as an incentive?
• This to create a secure online meeting/learning environment. Professors need to collaborate to create a secure learning environment and learn how to identify/report “zoombombers” to prevent further disruptions.

Feedback on Course Structure and Motivation

MCDB Department at the CU College of Arts & Sciences:

“Instead of clicker questions/group assignments used for participation credit, my professor posts a practice problem related to a topic in class on a private discussion board every week that each group can access on Canvas. We have until Saturday night each week to answer the problem as a group as if we were completing the problem together in person. This allows group mates to hold each other accountable for watching the lectures for the week in order to answer and understand the practice problems we are assigned.

My professor also holds lectures live (synchronously) during our regularly scheduled class period so that those who want/can watch live have the option while the rest can watch the recorded lecture after the live class. This has helped me stay motivated to go to this class because the scheduled live lecture gives me a sense of structure and self accountability, allows me to ask questions in the chat box (which our professor reads and answers live), and gives my professor the ability to split us off into breakout rooms to interact with my classmates and ask our TA’s questions. Students who can’t make the live lectures can watch the recording posted after each class on our class’s Canvas page. Overall, based on my observations, attendance for this class on Zoom is consistently 60% over the last month, and has been the best structured class I have had so far.”

*Further interviews will be conducted and added to this page weekly. We are also developing a survey that will be distributed to students from CU and other accredited universities that will provide numerical data on students’ experiences online, which are specifically aimed at measuring their motivation and levels of satisfaction with the structures of their classes.

We created and sent a survey to students from CU and other accredited universities that collected numerical data on students’ experiences online, measuring their motivation, level of satisfaction with the structures of their classes, and sense of security while using Zoom for synchronous classes.

A small selection of the survey’s results are shown below. .

References

Burgess, Simon, and Hans Henrik Sievertsen. “The Impact of COVID-19 on Education.” The Impact of COVID-19 on Education | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal, Vox, 1 Apr. 2020, voxeu.org/article/impact-covid-19-education.

“How Does Online Instruction Measure Up to Face-to-Face.” Focus EduVation, www.focuseduvation.com/how-does-online-instruction-measure-up-to-face-to-face/ .

Kamenetz, Anya. “'Panic-Gogy': Teaching Online Classes During The Coronavirus Pandemic.” NPR,

NPR, 19 Mar. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/03/19/817885991/panic-gogy-teaching-online-classes-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic.