Saving Three Semesters—eLearning Excels in Fully Remote Classes
It was March 2020 when it first became apparent that the COVID-19 pandemic would have a meteoric impact on virtually every aspect of American public and private life, and the education sector was impacted at least as hard as any. From elementary to higher education the challenges that administrators, faculty and students had to confront in this new reality were staggering, and UMass Boston was no different. If there was one advantage that UMass Boston had that perhaps some other universities lacked, it was that its Information Technology department knew it had to step up and take a leading role in how the university adapted to an unprecedented situation, especially when the decision was made that all in-person classes had to be transitioned to a remote delivery format on a moment’s notice.
Suddenly, nearly 1,000 faculty members were forced to switch from the in-person teaching they had done for their entire careers to teaching with an online/remote format, and understandably they needed a lot of help. The eLearning and Instructional Design team came to the rescue with remarkable speed, especially considering how little advance notice there was and how quickly they had to act before class time was lost. The team immediately started assisting faculty adapt their courses to fit a remote modality and help them prepare to teach using new technologies.
“Our entire team worked directly with faculty either individually or in groups meeting with them online, nonstop from nine in the morning until five at night,” said Paula Thorsland, Manager of the eLearning and Instructional Design Team. The team worked from when the university shut down in March 2020 all the way to the end of the Fall 2020 semester to assist faculty with the shift to online teaching. But in the beginning, when the transition had to happen as fast as possible, the team immediately worked to implement the Zoom application so it could be used throughout the university. This effort was led by John Jessoe, Director of Classroom Technology and AV Services. Of course, Zoom had been in use at UMass Boston prior to the pandemic, but the need for it to be available throughout the school curriculum created a major undertaking. Fortunately, Jessoe’s group was up to the challenge, and its success in this area allowed the school’s course schedule to continue with remarkably minimal impact.
“Rather than faculty having to hear information from four or five different channels, we made it our goal to come together to speak with one voice.”
Apurva Mehta, IT Associate CIO
Another critical piece of UMass Boston’s pandemic instructional response was making the Blackboard learning management system more universally accessible across the entire curriculum. As with Zoom, Blackboard was in use at UMass Boston in March 2020 but only by about half of the faculty and when the pandemic hit, what was once a technological option became a remote teaching and learning necessity. Blackboard became essential in almost every class for turning in assignments, running discussions, administering tests, making announcements, and distributing syllabi. And again, it was the eLearning and Instructional Support Team, managed by Thorsland, that facilitated the usage of Blackboard by that segment of the faculty that hadn’t done so before. In addition to that the team introduced other helpful technological tools to the mix, including an auto-enroll system for students and a live Zoom transcription feature. There was also an investment in a program called HonorLock, which maintains academic integrity and prevents faculty from having to proctor exams over Zoom.
Finally, knowing that faculty would continue to need tech support, the team created virtual drop-in hours to mimic the setting of in-person office visits. These virtual office hours provided faculty with just-in-time support for any IT related eLearning Excels in Fully Remote Classes “Rather than faculty having to hear information from four or five different channels, we made it our goal to come together to speak with one voice.” —Apurva Mehta, Associate CIO YEAR OF UNITY issues, as well as further eLearning training and one-on-one consultations. The drop-in hours were conducted via Zoom and staffed by the eLearning team, as well as by Lauren Luis and Zack Ronald.
So, thanks to the IT department and an amazingly talented and adaptable student body and faculty, the curriculum of the Spring 2020 semester was completed in its entirety. But the folks in IT knew there wasn’t any time to bask in their accomplishments. To roll-out the Fall 2020 semester in a smooth and organized way, Teach Fall 2020 was created. Apurva Mehta, Associate CIO, as well as representatives from the Office of Faculty Development, the Center for Innovative Teaching, and the Academic Technology Committee joined forces to create virtual listening sessions, workshops, and programs for faculty beginning in the summer of 2020. Teach Fall 2020 soon morphed into Teach Spring and Summer ‘21 to continue to provide faculty with the support they needed.
“Rather than faculty having to hear information from four or five different channels, we made it our goal to come together to speak with one voice,” said Mehta. “We wanted to streamline our messaging and find out what the faculty needed and wanted.”
The hard work and dedication of the eLearning and Instructional Support team did not go unnoticed by UMass Boston’s leaders.
“I’m so proud of the ethic of care, the ethic of responsibility, the smarts, the ingenuity, the creativity with which you’ve all stepped up to create solutions so that we could continue our work via this different medium,” said Chancellor Marcelo SuárezOrozco at a Teach Spring ‘21 session. “And you did all of this on behalf of our students, and I’m so grateful for that.”
“What I’ve seen from all of you and your wonderful colleagues throughout the University of Massachusetts Boston is the ability not just to pivot, but to embrace the challenge, to transcend the immediate hardships and stress and to work together to make sure that our students have the opportunity to learn and to grow and to thrive,” said Provost Joseph Berger at the same “Teach” session.