Diana Degan

A response to the Outline Your SoTL Plan Activity
created by Diana Degan (@dianadegan)

Number of views: 487

Here is my SoTL Project Plan outline.

This semester, Spring 2020,  is the first full semester being taught completely remotely due to COVID-19. There has been no face-to-face component. With the Winter semester, you had the opportunity to teach the majority of the semester in the classroom, getting to know your students, learning their faces and names. This semester has been completely online. I am staring at blank black boxes instead of student faces for the most part when I conduct my class each week. It makes it more difficult to connect with students and to recognize whether they are struggling from the cues they are giving me. I have 50-60% attendance at class and, 70-80% assignment submissions. My initial inquiries led me to find out that a number of students are dealing with situations due to the pandemic where they have financial or family obligations requiring them to work or assist family members. This interferes with their class and studying obligations. I want to know if there are ways that I can adapt how the “standard” prescribed delivery of the course content — that is also being delivered by other instructors to approximately 5 other sections — can be enhanced to ensure students have the best chance of success in my class. I believe this is especially important given this course delivery method is likely to continue for another two semesters.

So, my SoTL plan is about being strategic in selecting the best learning techniques for student success during COVID-19 and required remote course delivery.