(Pixabay, n.d.)

 

Spring is my favorite season with its fresh opportunities, new beginnings, and sheer beauty that cannot be contained in the flower buds and unfurling of leaves. Spring is a chance to begin anew. Each year it seems all too brief. But spring 2020 was so different. In March, educators on campus and around the nation were asked to turn on a dime; taking days to flip years of lessons from traditional classrooms to virtual Zoom rooms. Was there ever a semester when integrating technology with the purpose of keeping already (hurting) students engaged and purposeful? I cannot remember one.

Students looked to us to lead them, soldier-like through the pandemic dark to companionship and camaraderie in a little box, and for some, a smaller backlit view from a cellphone. Many moved virtually with ease, if reluctantly, while others who struggled to build stronger study skills in traditional classrooms continued their struggle as WiFi wavered in and out. As a nation, educators and administrators throughout school districts noticed the great technological divide socioeconomically, while in higher ed, many of us were lucky enough to cope with reaching out on behalf of only a few students for hardware, additional tech support, and balancing time zone trials as students who ventured thousands of miles away during spring break were unable to return to campus for months. One of my writing students attended synchronous class before dawn from Hawaii not wanting to miss anything, while clusters of others completed group projects asynchronously from far flung locales that included Saudi Arabia and India. I was proud to see so many rise to the occasion.

Our TLT Faculty Learning Community, Innovative Instructional Technologies in the Classroom, met virtually, smiling to see familiar faces looking back from our Brady Bunch-like squares on the screen, with hair a little longer, eyes a little more sleepy as spring sunlight poured in beside us from windows and doors defying us to give up.

While the book Courageous Edventures by Jennie Magiera continued as our signpost, we mostly talked about the projects we were doing using the tech check template Dawn had emailed us before we transitioned to remote learning. The worksheet helped us self-evaluate and focus: we were called to identify a problem, brainstorm a solution, and explore a desired outcome, as well as much more. Our talk seemed brief, like past spring seasons, as we strategized and moved into discussions that resonated with our daily, no longer long-term challenges. We gave and received advice about what was working and what was not in our remote learning communities. We learned from each other as best practices for tests were exchanged and using technology to keep students engaged moved up on a list of priorities. For many of us, even those used to teaching online, we were suddenly learning and using new software as the weeks passed. Zoom morphed into a verb – zooming, anyone? – and we smiled at ourselves, so perfectly imperfect as we worked to make an online space that balanced the rigor of Penn State requirements with the supportive learning space our students needed and continue to look to.

The passing of time feels so different as the pandemic continues. Perhaps we can now relate to that student who struggles with page length when the words just won’t come and one is just halfway through; it feels like that a little, this pandemic. As we pick up our meetings this fall, beginning again, I hope we continue to learn from each other and continue to grow as we support each other’s goals.