We are now six months into the Covid-19 pandemic and the end is still not in sight. For me it has been an inconvenience, a disruption to my routine. For many other people it has been a serious problem. Now that we are into a new school season, its impact has been magnified.
There is general agreement that the abrupt shift from conventional classes to remote ones last Spring was less than satisfactory, at every level. Educators did their best to adapt to new challenges, frequently with disappointing results. This Fall is a different story – they have had four months to modify methods and curricula.
As I write this, Pitt is two weeks into the new semester. The University has decided to begin completely on-line, with the possibility of some in-person contact beginning in mid-September. I am helping with the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department’s Senior Design Projects program. It is being presented totally remotely; I am quite pleased with its progress so far.
Each year the program’s first hurdle is to organize about forty students into individual teams and make sure each team has a meaningful project to implement. Program coordinator John Sebastian effectively used an interactive on-line spread sheet to match student preferences with opportunities; we now have ten four person teams.
The team I am mentoring has the challenge of preparing a plan to replace an existing short bridge over the spillway of a dam at a hunting/fishing club in Armstrong County. The club’s focus is on cost-effectiveness, which immediately presents technical challenges of different materials and different design concepts.
My daughter Elizabeth also teaches at Pitt, in the East Asian Languages and Literature Department. This term she is presenting two courses completely on-line. Preparation for remote teaching is much more extensive than for the conventional approach.
In effect, she records each lecture ahead of time. Students are expected to prepare for class by watching the lecture and by doing the assigned outside reading. The on-line session is then devoted to a brief review of the lecture followed by discussion of the topic, an approach that works only if the students do the required pre-class preparation.
Like me, Elizabeth’s approach to teaching depends heavily on personal contact with each of her students. When I was teaching, it usually took me five or six weeks to establish rapport with all the students in a class of forty or fifty. I’m not sure how that can be accomplished in the remote, on-line environment.
My grandson, Ian, is experiencing this situation from the other side, as a Freshman at the University of Colorado. He has one class, “Introduction to Theater”, in-person, the others on-line. After one week it appears that he has survived and acquired a new circle of friends. One of his courses is “The Influence of Nordic Mythology on J. R. R. Tolkien”; I would love to audit that class!
My brother has three grand-children in college, with dramatically different situations. David is a pre-med student at the University of Minnesota. He has a part-time job in a laboratory and is taking all his classes remotely. Amanda is a Civil/Environmental Engineering student at the University of Maryland. Half of her classes are being presented in-person.
Lauryn spent the summer at North Carolina State taking courses and being trained as a mentor/resident advisor. Last week she learned that the campus was being closed down and that all classes would be remote; she is on her way home to Meadville and a computer in her bedroom.
Things are equally confusing in the elementary/secondary schools. My grand-daughter Rachael will be a Junior at Quaker Valley High School. They announced a voluntary hybrid program, but pushed back the start date till after Labor Day to accommodate needs of “at-risk” teachers. Rachael’s parents have decided to keep her at home, learning remotely.
Nora and Claire are entering seventh and tenth grade respectively in the Fort Collins, Colorado school system. Their mother is impressed that the programs are much better organized than the makeshift ones last Spring. Both girls are quite social; they are disappointed that their programs will all be presented remotely. I am not sure what can be done to make up for the absence of interpersonal contacts and the social awareness they produce.
I think Rachael has continued to be active in the French Club, remotely; perhaps that is a partial solution. I know she is a member of a teeny-bopper Book Club that has met, at the proper social distance, in a park this summer. Her biggest problem, of course, is the absence of an orchestra experience this year.
The concept of neighborhood pods is intriguing. One of our neighbors is an elementary school teacher in New York. She is currently in Los Angeles, where her husband has a temporary assignment. When schools open there, she is going to operate a pod consisting of six first graders living in the same neighborhood.
The children will meet each day in one of their homes. Her responsibility will be to monitor their efforts responding to the on-line lessons. This seems like an excellent solution to a difficult situation, especially for parents who are unable to spend full time fulfilling that function.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the pandemic finally subsides. I suspect that many of the experiments we are performing in the field of education will result in basic changes to the whole concept. To quote the old expression, “When you are stuck with a lemon, make lemonade!”
Several homes in our neighborhood with children in elementary school have yard signs proclaiming “Open Our Schools!” I’m not sure what I would advocate if I were in their situation. It’s easy for me to worry about children bringing infection home to families with elderly “at-risk” members, not to mention my concern about exposing older teachers to that possibility.