Like\nmany universities across the nation, the Fort Hays State University on-campus\nacademic experience changed considerably this year. This fall, our students\nwere offered three types of classes: on-campus, face-to-face courses, offered\nin a condensed, eight-week format (the first half of the semester); hybrid\ncourses \u2013 classes offered through both face-to-face and online; and online\ncourses offered completely online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every\nsemester, I talk to students about their classes. Many share stories about how\nmuch they are thriving in an environment rich with challenges. Others tell me\nthey have figured it all out. And some tell me about their struggles. The\ncollege journey is about all of those experiences. The key to success is, I\nbelieve, how our faculty embrace those very different realities and create\nsupportive learning cultures that both challenge and support students. In the\nmidst of this atypical year, I find our faculty working even harder to do just\nthat \u2013 creatively challenging and supporting our students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr.\nBetsy Crawford, assistant professor of teacher education, has daily \u201cmorning\nmeetings\u201d with students at the beginning of each class to find out how the\nstudents are doing. In the first two class periods, they researched and\ndiscussed the use of morning meetings in K-12 settings. \u201cEach of my hybrid\nclasses chose how we would use the best practices of morning meetings in our\nclass. Not only does this allow my students to practice a sound classroom management\nsystem now, but it also allows me to gather information about them and how they\nare doing. I find out if they are worried about COVID-19, don\u2019t understand an\nassignment, or want to tell me something exciting that is happening in their\nlife. Also, the students get to hear from each other. They are thus building\nrelationships between students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another\nstrategy Dr. Crawford utilizes is the old-fashioned art of note writing (I,\ntoo, am a fan of notes!) Betsy shared, \u201cI love to send (and get) handwritten\ncards. This semester, I have set a goal to hand write a postcard to every one\nof my students, advisees, and the students in the Learning Communities. As\nsomeone who teaches future teachers, this is an excellent opportunity for me to\nreach out to the students and also a model for them how they can reach out to\ntheir future students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Managing\nthe physical space is also a great technique. For example, Dr. Cheryl\nHofstetter Duffy, professor of English, takes advantage of her smaller classes,\nby moving chairs into a circle \u2013 maintaining a 6-foot distance \u2013 so that the\nclass discussion can be more conversational, more person-to-person. Dr. Duffy\nsays, \u201cThis also makes it easy for students in this configuration to \u2018pair off\u2019\nfor discussion simply by turning toward the person sitting next to them (well,\n\u2018next to them\u2019 at a 6-foot distance).\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nher larger class, when students are on their laptops participating in a\npeer-response group with two other classmates, Dr. Duffy has students move\ntheir chairs so that each group of three forms a triangle \u2013 again, maintaining\na 6-foot distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo\nwhile they are not sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and exchanging printouts of\ntheir essays as we used to do, they can still see one another and ask direct\nquestions as they read and responded to essay drafts in the online discussion\nboard. Some groups of three involve one or more classmates who join class via\nZoom (because of quarantine and other reasons). In this way, they can see one\nanother and still visit\/discuss through the \u201cchat\u201d feature in Zoom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fun\nis also a great connector. Dr. Duffy said, \u201cDuring one Zoom class session for\nmy Advanced Composition class, I was Zooming from my campus office. Since\nstudents don\u2019t have a chance now to visit my office in person, I gave them a\n\u201csquirrel tour\u201d of my office\u2019s many squirrel features \u2013 everything from a\nsquirrel pillow to a reading squirrel figurine to a singing squirrel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several\nprofessors, as well as other leaders, talk about the importance of\nvulnerability. For example, Dr. Crawford shared, \u201cI am transparent with my\nstudents on the struggles I am having with adjusting to teaching students\nface-to-face and on Zoom at the same time. We are all learning the best way to\nmake it work, and the students feel comfortable providing feedback so I can\nimprove my processes. They have great ideas that I can use to improve my\nteaching.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faculty\nare also using technology to facilitate one-on-one connections. \u201cStudents have\nalways had access to an app that syncs with my calendar. They can schedule a meeting with me at a time\nthat is convenient for them. This practice saves countless emails back and\nforth to establish a mutual time to talk,\u201d Dr. Crawford said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last\nweekend, I met with a group of students. They talked about how impressed and\ngrateful they were for the many ways in which faculty were connecting and\nworking with them. Our students embrace technology and therefore really\nappreciate our faculty who are using calendar apps and a variety of other\ntechnologies to help connect with students and track assignments and due dates.\nThe students describe, with great appreciation, how their professors have \u201cbent\nover backwards\u201d to ensure students in isolation and quarantine were not being\nleft behind. They described FHSU professors as flexible and caring and shared\nhow truly impressed they were with how faculty are embracing creativity to\namplify teaching and learning at Fort Hays State University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I join these students in expressing my deep gratitude and admiration for the Fort Hays State faculty who continue to embrace excellence in teaching \u2013 no matter what challenge is placed in our path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tisa Mason is president of Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like many universities across the nation, the Fort Hays State University on-campus academic experience changed considerably this year. This fall, our students were offered three… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12323,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Mason-Tisa-040A6662.jpg?fit=750%2C1050&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56406,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56405\/revisions\/56406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}