Faculty and students alike were eager to return to the classroom this fall — in-person, online or a hybrid mix.
Knowing the fall semester would look like none before it, faculty and staff invested countless hours over the summer to ensure students benefit from the full TCU experience and world-class education. All across campus, TCU community members are innovating and working together to maximize success — Horned Frog style.
Virtual hello
AddRan College of Liberal Arts professors found new, virtual ways to welcome students back to class, such as YouTube class preview videos. In addition to traditional classroom methodologies, instructors added new ways and modalities for students to participate — at all levels and from all locations. Whether attending from the classroom, dorm room or other locale, learners are getting the same quality class experience as always, professors assured their students.
Flipping the narrative
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic made online learning a new reality for many, Sean Atkinson, an associate professor of music theory in the College of Fine Arts, started using the flipped classroom strategy — a blend of virtual and in-person education — in his classes.
The flipped classroom uses recorded lectures, video content and relevant readings that are assigned to students in between scheduled class times. This type of virtual instruction reinforces important course topics and provides opportunity for deeper discussion when classes meet in person or online.
Social distancing won’t keep students in Department of Design instructor Jan Ballard’s “Professional Recognition for Graphic Designers and Portfolio and Marketing” from getting hands-on, real-world design experience. Students are participating in exciting projects like branding a mobile app to connect residents in food deserts with local farmers, creating marketing pieces to support a new Fort Worth Public Library branch and branding hypothetical retail stores. The difference this semester? Initial meetings, periodic consultations and peer critiques that would typically take place face to face are being shifted online via discussion threads and various digital workspace tools created specifically for collaborating and sharing designs virtually.
In the College of Education, students in Professor Michael Faggella-Luby’s “Study of Exceptional Students” also are experiencing a flipped learning environment with short prerecorded videos of his teaching, links to related education resources and digital textbook materials prior to class each week. The flipped classroom allows Faggella-Luby to support students in real time as they develop lesson plans based on course content for use during their field experience.
Students in Assistant Professor Steve Przymus’ “Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Field Experience” course are getting real-world experience in placements as virtual teaching assistants with the Fort Worth ISD’s International Newcomer Academy for immigrant 6th-9th grade students. The course also includes a culturally responsive book study with TCU students and INA faculty. Przymus will measure the effectiveness of the book study on his students’ culturally responsive learning and teaching with a goal of sharing his findings for the benefit of other educator preparation programs and PK-12 schools.
More opps for guest speakers
Some classes offering experiential learning opportunities to Bob Schieffer College of Communication students will look a little different this fall. Faculty members are altering their typical lesson plans and thinking creatively in order to provide students with the meaningful learning experiences their classes are known for.
In her “Advanced News Production” class, Patty Zamarripa, assistant professor of professional practice in journalism, teaches journalism students
how to think on their feet and adapt — lessons future journalists need to learn now
more than ever. This fall she is taking a deeper dive into how students can make remote
reporting and newscasting look professional with a few critical tips and tricks. Additionally,
she’s inviting some local TV news reporters to join her live Zoom sessions to talk
about real-world experiences they are dealing with and to give feedback on her students’
work.
In the College of Science & Engineering, Associate Professor of Professional Practice Rebecca Dority is using the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic to incorporate new components to her “Contemporary Issues in Nutrition” course. While the course and lab are taking place online, students will interact with new subject matter experts as guest speakers on such popular topics as sports nutrition and eating disorders.
“The online delivery has surprisingly provided me with more flexibility to explore
topics that we do not always have time to discuss in class,” Dority said. “I do not
have to worry about finding local guest speakers or asking those speakers to take
away from their personal commitments in order to travel to campus. Instead, they can
join us on Zoom for a designated time frame.”
Virtual yet real world
This fall Carol Howe, Paula R. and Ronald C. Parker Endowed Professor in Nursing and associate professor in the Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences, is using her funded project with Safer Care Texas within the UNT Health Science Center — called WebLitLegit — to provide practical experience for her students. Her public health nursing students will work virtually with about 200 Texas Can Academy students, helping them discern between reliable and unreliable health information on the internet and social media.
During the pandemic, Harris’ resiliency elective seems especially timely. It teaches evidence-based, practical skills and techniques for students to stay mindful and grounded through difficult life experiences. Students learn about topics including mindfulness and mindfulness meditation, keep journals and interact with one another virtually.
The pandemic has illustrated that no business is immune to crisis. In a recent audio interview with Harvard Business Publishing’s “How I Teach” podcast, Mary Waller, a management professor in the Neeley School of Business, discussed her holistic approach to teaching crisis management to TCU MBAs and how the discipline — and her way of teaching — is evolving.
More than games
Coming to TCU with multiple years of experience teaching online, Wendi Sierra, an assistant professor of game studies in the John V. Roach Honors College Honors, feels ready for the fall semester. She designed her “Games and Learning” course to provide students with a unique virtual experience that she hopes will keep them both enthused about and engaged in the material. Sierra plans to use Minecraft: Education Edition both to illustrate games as a learning tool and as a break from Zoom meeting fatigue.
Two key takeaways from her previous experience in teaching remotely: consistency and compassion.
“Because you don’t have the innate check-ins [online] that you have in an in-person class, you want to consistently have the same types of assignments due at the same time each week,” she said.
“Compassion is the most important thing at the end of the day,” she added. “You have to have compassion for yourself and for students and what they’re navigating right now.