How I Can Best Teach in the Fall

Ah, the good old days.  Source: https://www.gsecclesfoundation.org/

The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported that there will be students on Utah System of Higher Education campuses this fall, including the University of Utah.  This has been discussed in numerous faculty meetings I've attended via zoom in recent weeks, so it is no surprise.  The devil is in the details, however, and those details remain murky as I've yet to see a detailed announcement from the University of Utah administration. 

In an article in today's Salt Lake Tribune, they reported that:

• Each school should prepare to monitor outbreaks, be able to contain them, and have a shutdown plan
• There won't be large auditorium classes
• Class sizes will be kept small
• Some classes will remain online for those at higher risk of infection, including both students and professors
• A few classes will be hybrid where half a class may meet in the room and half may join via video conference or half of the instruction days are in person and the other half virtual
• Desks will be spread 6 feet apart
• Each school will deep sanitize every building and space where there are students
• Universities can com up with individual plans

I continue to think about my own situation and how I can most effectively and safely teach my assigned classes in the fall.

Those classes are in Synoptic-Dynamic Meteorology and Weather Analysis and Forecasting, the latter involving student-led discussions.  These are classes that in the pre-COVID era involved a mixture of lecture, group discussions, individual active learning exercises, and computer based activities.  Often, I would look over student's shoulders or sit with them at the computer while they worked on an activity, moving around from one to another.  The class is taught in a cramped, interior computer lab with poor ventilation.  Enrollment will exceed capacity with distancing requirements.

I believe the worst-case scenario for me to teach these classes is one where the class is split between those physically in the room and those on video conference.  Such an approach can work for a traditional lecture class, but it would be very problematic for many of the activities that I lead normally.  Students at home would not have the same software as those in the computer lab, for example.  I would essentially have to prepare two separate plans and try to execute them simultaneously, which is a recipe for disaster.  

The best options for me would be either fully online or hybrid.  For fully online, I would probably teach via zoom, exploiting breakout and annotation capabilities to enable as much interaction as possible.  This would not be the same as what students could to in person, but I could design the course in a way that it would be better than trying to juggle both in-person and online instruction at the same time.

Hybrid is also attractive.  Under this scenario, I might pre-record some lectures and have the students watch them before class.  I would take my 75 minute class period and divide it into 35 minute halves with a 5 minute gap between for computer cleaning.  Half the class would attend the first period and half the last period.  Distancing would be possible, although I would probably need to use zoom with screen sharing to see what students are doing.  This will be slower than just walking around seeing how they are doing.  The one unfortunate thing about this would be that I'd have to fully separate the lecture from the learning activities, whereas I normally switch from one to the other pretty regularly.  However, this too would be better than trying to juggle both in-person and online instruction at the same time.

My hope is that the University will provide some flexibility for faculty to decide what approach is best, both for instructional quality and safety, after consultation with the enrolled students.  "In person" is going to be different than it has been in the past, and it could be that the best option for some classes this fall is to still be online or hybrid.