Maintaining community and connections in remote learning through discussion boards and virtual office hours
During the spring 2020 semester, Jash taught two sections of Acting I in the Theatre Department at CU. After the move to remote learning, Jash’s pedagogy was focused on a student-centered approach. To maintain the community that Jash had built over the first eight weeks of class she modified her syllabus for the best possible learning outcomes.
For this, she introduced discussion boards so that students would have the opportunity to stay connected with each other as well as share their learning experiences among classmates. Additionally, Jash had multiple online office hours a week for students to attend. The purpose of this practice was to encourage the students to check-in with her to share their classroom experiences and collectively reflect on them. She did this by increasing her online presence for them to stay connected and facilitate a continual learning experience. This practice worked as the students from both sections of the course interacted with each other and with her regularly on Canvas, via email and face-to-face via Zoom during her office hours.
Many of Jash’s students appreciated how she was able to transition to the remote classroom and commended her on the care she took to maintain these connections. By providing space to share in and out of class, she was able to truly embrace the term “we are all in this together.” Many students remained in class and some had to travel home or elsewhere as the transition was occurring. Jash utilized the Office of Information Technology’s SensusAccess software to convert readings into audio files so students could listen on the go as they moved or worked. Additionally, as students were unable to perform a dialogue for their final course project, Jash modified the assignment to utilize a recorded monologue. This provided a sense of relief for many students as they were able to do something they were familiar with from earlier in the semester and could therefore focus on themselves and other priorities during a difficult time. This process gave Jash the ability to provide flexibility while maintaining her focus on the students and the learning outcomes of the course.
Students provided feedback as follows:
"Amazing class, flexible office hours, ability to grow was amazing."
"[Jash] is an incredibly knowledgeable and compassionate [instructor] and has the well-being and learning of her students at the top of her priorities, and this course reflected that. The structure of the course was easy to follow and highly accessible, and blended a great many of activities, lectures, assignments, and partnered work to create a balanced variety of learning styles, and her engaging instruction made the class extremely fun as well. She also did a great job at facilitating relationships and respect between the students, as we did a lot of hands-on and physical partner work to produce and rehearse scenes we performed in front of the class. [Jash] is greatly adept at observing and listening to the needs of her class and making changes in the course where necessary in order to facilitate the best learning environment and program possible. I learned a great deal in this course, and one of the main reasons I took this class was because Jash was teaching it, and I am so glad I decided to take this class. I have grown so much in my craft as an actor in this course, and it is due to Jash’s knowledge and efficient and accessible way of relaying feedback and constructive comments on our performances, I cannot speak highly enough of this outstanding [instructor] and her course."