DePauw Stories

Teaching at DePauw changed abruptly last spring when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the university to close campus. What lesson about teaching did you learn as a result of the change from traditional to remote teaching? 

Since I came here in 2003, my department has been focused on improving student learning, and we're constantly redoing our curriculum. We've always been interested in helping students learn how to be critical thinkers in chemistry and biochemistry.

I feel like last spring really helped me get better at that because, when I got rid of tests in my class and worked toward helping students make sure they were learning for themselves, it was very easy to see which material was just rote material that I had been asking students to memorize. I really was able to focus on the things that are challenging students to learn, and that's something that I’m going to keep in my classes going forward no matter what.

How will you stay informed about your students' progress when they attend class remotely? 

I think one of the most important things about virtual learning that I learned last semester is to make sure I check in with my students all the time. Last semester, it was really different. It happened under emergency situations and we had to be as flexible as we could be. So, I actually didn’t require students to come to class because some people were in places where they didn’t have internet or in different time zones and it was really challenging for them to work remotely.

This semester, I'm having all my classes meet synchronously so students can all check in with me all the time; we’ll all be meeting. If a student can't come to class virtually, I'll ask them to check in with me at different times so we can make sure that they're on target and that their learning goals are being met. I think that having those opportunities to talk to my students, both in class and then separately, one-on-one in advising or just in study-session meetings with smaller groups of students, will be really important to make sure that I know where each of my students is moving through the semester.

Were there any silver linings to teaching remotely?

I think one of the advantages of remote learning was recognizing which things had been most effective about my in-person learning. Now I’m working to figure out how to bring those to all my students, even when they're working virtually.

For instance, I know that using models of biomolecules like proteins that students could touch was a really effective mechanism for teaching. During the spring, I had to ask students to make models using things they could find in their kitchen or craft materials from around their house. Those worked fine in the spring, but this fall I’ll be finding more intentional ways to have students make these same models. That actually will be true even for students in the classroom because I can't have a class of 12 students all touching the same models. So, our remote learners will have an experience that’s almost the same as if we were all in the classroom together.

We like to say that the liberal arts teach students how to be adaptable and creative. What liberal arts lessons are there to be found during this pandemic?

One of the reasons I think it's still important that we're teaching this fall and bringing back as many students as we could safely bring back to campus is that our mission at DePauw is to help prepare students to deal with these complex problems that are out there in the world. COVID-19 and this pandemic that we're living through is exactly why liberal arts colleges exist, because we need students who can bring scientific knowledge and communication skills and ethical thinking together to figure out what the best ways are to solve problems. And I actually think that's what the hundreds of people who were meeting all summer on campus to figure out the best and safest way for us to move forward as a university. That's exactly what all those people brought together.