Friday, August 7, 2020

Virtual Teaching v1.0

This post is an update of a post from May (Virtual Teaching, Mixed Synchronous-Asynchronous).  Fall is approaching, and we're sadly in worse shape regarding the pandemic. My institution and others are going with virtual for fall 2020 and like the entire 2020-21 academic year. 

Last spring I taught Calculus 2 (quarter system). We started and ended virtually. My thoughts on organizing class are in the embedded slides below. Ideas apply to STEM and potentially HS.

Setting aside labs and clinical subjects, good teaching is good teaching. Whatever the format, we can teach effectively in virtual formats. It doesn't have to be horrible.  The false choice that is unfortunately presented in the media is (a) in person awesomeness and (b) deleterious virtual teaching.  We can do an outstanding job teaching Math virtually, and we can help and support students learn this year.

Quote from a student in Spring 20: “I actually took [Calculus 2] last quarter and got a D, learning hardly anything. This quarter though, the learning style you are using is super helpful to me. I am way less stressed…. also am significantly better at solving the very same calc problems!”

Slides on a virtual teaching: