{"id":8721,"date":"2020-03-31T00:39:10","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T00:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2020\/04\/01\/teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:32:36","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:32:36","slug":"teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching in the time of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Furman community is much more than a physical location. Click below for a special message from our faculty and coaches:<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe data-src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/402588069?color=ffffff&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Before the COVID-19 pandemic began wreaking havoc in higher education across the United States, leaders in<a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academic-affairs\/\">\u00a0the Office of Academic Affairs<\/a> at Furman University rallied around a singular cause: to preserve the university\u2019s standards of academic excellence and student engagement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInitially, the biggest challenge was trying to be proactive in decision making when the environment was in constant flux,\u201d said Suzy Summers, interim dean of faculty. \u201cAnother challenge was figuring out how to support faculty who had to pivot mid-semester from in-person to remote instruction without losing the essence of a Furman education.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>From the beginning, the nine-member Academic Leadership Team, made up of administrators and faculty leaders, met daily and sometimes twice daily to shape how Furman would go forward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a huge responsibility to make sure we are observing accreditation and meeting requirements for the students,\u201d said Jeremy Cass, an associate academic dean. \u201cI\u2019m intensely proud that our focus was first setting priorities that were most meaningful to Furman,\u201d namely establishing the level of student contact and the key elements for course content without overwhelming faculty and students.<\/p>\n<p>From day one, Summers was struck by the sheer number of faculty who jumped in to offer their expertise. And to proactively shepherd emerging issues among faculty and students during the transition to online learning, the university formed an ad hoc committee composed of personnel from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/faculty-development-center\/\">Faculty Development Center<\/a>, the Office of Academic Affairs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/center-academic-success\/\">Center for Academic Success<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/accessibility\/\">Student Office for Accessibility Resources<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/libguides.furman.edu\/library\/home\">Furman Libraries<\/a> and academic liaisons.<\/p>\n<p>While students spent an extra week on spring break, Diane Boyd and Ben Haywood, executive director and assistant director, respectively, of the FDC, met, in a virtual way, with 200 faculty members in five days. They worked with Susan Dunnavant, director of Learning Technology Services, to develop integrated workshop offerings and build \u201csandboxes\u201d where faculty could tinker with and test Zoom video and other software tools, and to conduct multiple one-on-ones with faculty to get them quickly up to speed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe asked (faculty) to take a moment to pause and reflect on their teaching values and how they enact them,\u201d Boyd said. \u201cRepeatedly, colleagues mentioned interaction with students and fostering critical thinking as foundational to their courses. With that as our collective starting point, choosing which course content or goals to cut became slightly more seamless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWitnessing our collective care for students and learning, and our collaboration with ITS and the library,\u00a0is one of the great joys of the last few weeks, one that affirms us all as we interact in the brave new world of remote learning,\u201d Boyd said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone stepped up,\u201d said Linda Bartlett, the Carey Shepard Crantford Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures and chair of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/modern-languages-literatures\/\">the department<\/a>. \u201cI can\u2019t thank the staff at FDC and (Information Technology Services) enough for their incredible support. They have been on the front lines providing so many training opportunities at the drop of a hat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ability to reconnect, even virtually, in a suddenly disconnected world has blunted COVID-19\u2019s isolation factor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFaculty are so excited to see their students again,\u201d Cass said. \u201cIn the first few days, we had a lot of colleagues using their Zoom meetings literally to check in with students. We\u2019ve even heard of Zoom courses with virtual hugs because students were so excited about being back together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, other groups on campus, like the senior-level Emergency Management Team and the Emergency Operations Team, both of which are made up of members from each division on campus, are meeting regularly to tackle other complex issues and address health and welfare concerns of students, faculty and staff.<\/p>\n<p>While \u201cback to normal\u201d in higher education is clearly a moving target, and business as usual in unusual times is at best taxing, Bartlett remains hopeful about the path ahead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe people at Furman have again proven to be adaptable and resilient,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I think that\u2019s encouraging to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Furman community is much more than a physical location. Click below for a special message from our faculty and coaches: Before the COVID-19 pandemic began wreaking havoc in higher [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":8722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,20,52,16,30],"tags":[123,246,255,262],"class_list":["post-8721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-business-and-accounting","category-library","category-modern-languages-and-literature","category-top-stories","tag-academic-affairs","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-pandemic"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}