Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
The pandemic’s technology buildup now giving colleges more options
Students and staff can have it both ways: In-person and online college classes.
Whether it’s on a screen or in person, the way college students and instructors now interact due to the pandemic really hasn’t changed much.
It’s all about getting that personal touch and connection, which can happen in both remote classes and inperson classes.
Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Eryn Travis said that West Chester University students and teachers are open to different ways to learn.
“We have more options now,” Travis said. “We’re flexible and can adapt and it benefits the students.”
For West Chester University, classes were conducted on a remote basis for the first two weeks of the Spring 2022 semester before in-person classes started.
On the first day of class, Travis asked students tuning in via Zoom an icebreaker question: “Sheetz or Wawa?”
At the beginning of the semester, and as a way to connect with students, the professor also asked students to name their favorite song. At the beginning of each subsequent class, Travis then plays a student’s favorite.
“There was remote learning and pandemic learning,” Travis said. “Remote learning was not new. What was new was the fact that we were all doing it at the same time.”
One of the ways Travis connected with her students during remote learning was reminding them that they were sitting behind a screen, and they are visible and not alone.
West Chester went remote during the pandemic and is now back to in-person instruction.
Jeffery Osgood Jr., deputy provost and vice president for academic operations, said that during the shorter summer and winter semesters, students were taking more classes via Zoom than they did before the pandemic.
He talked about the ease and flexibility of online learning. This gives the chance for students to not have to step foot on campus for a bit.
The university taught teachers with no formal online training how to teach virtually during the pandemic.
Osgood said that the university recognized that today’s students are different.
He maintains that students’ perform better in the classroom and can suffer from Zoom fatigue.
“The way you approach online learning is very different,” he said.
“Students don’t want to go to a physical office,” Osgood said. “It’s a generation of students that want to text the university and get a response.”
And the university has responded with some of its offices now, including the registar, by serving students virtually.
“These options didn’t exist before. We’re used to them now,” he said.
Gwynedd Mercy University
Kirsten Swanson, director of marketing, communications and social media at Gwynedd Mercy University said that other than online courses/programs — which were online pre-COVID — the school’s traditional, undergraduate classes have been held in person since August.
“Zoom has enabled more flexibility for things like adviser/faculty meetings, study sessions, etc. but it isn’t used for traditional class instruction,” she said. “However, Zoom does provide the university the flexibility to pivot and keep business as usual if the need arises.
“For example, in the midst of the omicron surge, faculty were able to take their classes remote using Zoom for the first weeks of the spring 2022 semester if they felt more comfortable and to allow students to test and/or quarantine.”
Zoom can be used as needed at Gwynedd Mercy.
“For our online courses, Zoom has allowed faculty the ability to have synchronous remote learning when needed for those classes, which are mostly asynchronous online courses.”
Technology changes the school environment.
West Chester’s Travis said that using Zoom is a
challenge but also a benefit.
Guest speakers who wouldn’t normally travel to the campus can visit via Zoom. Travis talked about a speaker from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who talked to students while still in Baltimore.
Virtual learning has changed attitudes at West Chester, which has been developing online teaching for several years, according to Rui Li, assistant vice president of digital learning and innovation.
“It’s still possible to interact with students and to facilitate and change mindsets,” Li said.
With virtual tools, students can participate on their own schedule, which many find more convenient.
A student doesn’t now have to be present in the classroom to hand in an assignment. And progress can be immediately gauged.
Albright College
Carey Manzolillo of Albright College said that technology use has definitely grown, but maybe not in the way people would expect. And students are absolutely not staying away from campus.
“Although we pivoted to online classes and teleworking in March 2020, more than 1,000 of our students
never left our campus,” Manzolillo said. “These students, for one reason or another, were unable to go home, felt unsafe going home, had no home to go to, or had food or shelter insecurities.
“Since then, the vast majority of our students made it clear that they wanted to be on campus, even if their classes were online. Grades and quite a bit of class information already resided on platforms like Canvas, so students were used to looking at those things while speaking with faculty.
Zoom was utilized, with a personal touch at Albright.
“Zoom, of course, made it possible to faculty to continue having those ‘face-toface’ classroom and advising conversations,” she said. “During the pandemic, we utilized Zoom for classes and virtual events, and Microsoft Teams for staff collaboration.
“We learned quickly that some areas of campus were able to work well remotely. After vaccines became available, the college launched a new flexible work and teleworking policy that allowed employees to continue working from home up to 40% of their normal hours.
“Whether on campus or at home, many of us continue to use Teams functionality to collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, quick chats and large, crosscampus meetings.”
Students and staff can have it both ways.
“Many of our events are now held in-person and virtually, so Zoom is used to allow more people to (virtually) attend large events,” she said.
‘Not one size fits all’
Bessie Lawton, a professor of communication and media at West Chester, said that technology has made the college life more innovative and flexible. Students are able to access the internet on their own time.
School paper deadlines are more flexible. Mental health issues are better addressed through technology, Lawton added.
Graduate students have embraced online learning.
Not surprisingly, with good time management and organization skills, graduate students embrace technology. Graduate students are better at juggling work, family, jobs and school.
“There is more to college than just attending class,” Lawton said. “Part of student success is respecting different styles — not one size fits all — we have to respect different learning styles.”