Moving online: knowledge of online forums or groups for faculty

[trales]

I teach college chemistry, and a few other lab bases college science courses. I need to move them all online for the rest of the year. That also means labs?!?! Anyone know of any online groups where i can talk to and bounce ideas off other professors in the same position? It is spring break, so I have one week to make this happen. I think I have the lecture portion figured out, but the labs. One class is the chemistry of brewing and is ALL hands on/ lab based. The other is a senior research projects, luckily all data collection ended this week, so it is only writing and editing, which I can do remotely. But Gen Chem II labs. This is tough and need a village.

[KpbS]

I might have a contact for you. We homeschool and do online classes. I will reach out to my contact and ask if she would be available to offer insight, advice, experience if you like. You can PM me your contact info.

[jent]

Friends who are teachers/academics who have been sharing this online: https://anygoodthing.com/2020/03/12/please-do-a-bad-job-of-putting-your-courses-online/

It makes the argument that now is not the time to be crafting the perfect online course.

[trales]

Thank you,
Let me tell you, I am not going for perfection, I am just trying to meet learning objectives and course outcomes! If there is a canned thing out there, I want to use it and hold lots of virtual office hours .

As of last night it looks like a lot of companies are offering free programs for now, I just have to find them!

[gatorsmom]

Thank you,
Let me tell you, I am not going for perfection, I am just trying to meet learning objectives and course outcomes! If there is a canned thing out there, I want to use it and hold lots of virtual office hours .

As of last night it looks like a lot of companies are offering free programs for now, I just have to find them!

Will you share your contact when you find one? I think a friend of mine would appreciate it. She just started teaching chemistry this year (she was a SAHM for several years) and I think she would definitely be interested.

[gymnbomb]

Thank you,
Let me tell you, I am not going for perfection, I am just trying to meet learning objectives and course outcomes! If there is a canned thing out there, I want to use it and hold lots of virtual office hours .

As of last night it looks like a lot of companies are offering free programs for now, I just have to find them!

Are you using a textbook? If so, I would contact your rep and see if they have any lab simulations or similar available online. I am also in the process of transferring my classes online, but fortunately the only one with a lab component is one I have taught fully online before and have some things prepped for (not same field or I would offer to share!).

Another place to look is open educational resources repositories. I found a good lab simulator for one of my classes there.


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[♥ms.pacman♥]

my husband (non-tenure track staff at university) is dealing with this right now. it is madness. unfortunately he is dealing with an engineering senior course that is a hands-on group project capstone course required for graduation. project groups of 5-6 students, a year long project. and now the last 7 weeks of school is basically gone. there is really no way for folks to be able to complete the projects at all with the rest of semester going on. for now it seems like there just will have students write reports on what has already been completed.

i think the other issue was considered is that moving this type of project to be completed all online-only is not feasible for all students. this hands-on class is done in an on-campus engineering design studio that is now closed indefinitely due to COVID-19. while some stuff could be done online, this is a commuter school with many students with kids of their own or living with family, many disavandatged students who many not have easy way to have internet access (htey have a phone but don't have their own laptop, etc). it is a really sucky situation.

[trales]

I think I found virtual labs to replace my gen chem classes, my brewing sciences class is going to be harder. I am going to taking advantage of open course ware for lectures, b/c I can't replicate the quality of the video's and the way the equations are shown, so I am not going to try. I will offer zoom office hours for working through problem sets during regular class hours and my office hours. I will ask them to email me ahead of time so I can work with each person.

My senior capstone course is another story. All their projects are in incubators, or growing or fermenting or doing stuff. They should all be done this week. I will run in by myself, grab video and results, send it to them and they can analyze and write at home.

I did check in with all my students and it seems they can move online without too much issue. For that I am very grateful. Now I just have to put it all together. Thank goodness for spring break.

I fear this is a little bit of a lost year. There are some kids in my kids school district, who even with everyones best efforts, just ended school until september. For some families the barriers to digital access are just too great, even with free resources.

My family is privileged and we don't have a device per person, but I took care of that today.

[jent]

Thank you,
Let me tell you, I am not going for perfection, I am just trying to meet learning objectives and course outcomes! If there is a canned thing out there, I want to use it and hold lots of virtual office hours .

As of last night it looks like a lot of companies are offering free programs for now, I just have to find them!

Sorry- after I posted that, I realized it might seem like an unhelpful response- but really wanted to share in the vein of being kind to yourself/don't try to be perfect.

I really feel for all the teachers and students, but especially lab-based classes. This must be immensely hard for you all.

[trales]

No offense take at all!! this is just craziness. I have seen a lot of people on FB and other places wanting to know right now how this or that is going to work and I just hope everyone can simmer down and realize we are all doing our best and most of us have no training and experience in delivering online content. It's going to be messy.

[NCGrandma]

No offense take at all!! this is just craziness. I have seen a lot of people on FB and other places wanting to know right now how this or that is going to work and I just hope everyone can simmer down and realize we are all doing our best and most of us have no training and experience in delivering online content. It's going to be messy.

I’ve been retired for 10 years, from a position with both teaching and administrative responsibilities. This is the first time I have been truly glad I am retired. If not, I would have part of the group trying to teach other faculty how to deliver online content, as well as doing all that behind-the-scenes contingency planning, projections of the financial impact, dealing with students who want answers NOW, etc etc. One of my family members is in the throes of this, and it’s overwhelming.

Trales is right — everyone needs to realize that we're all doing our best, and it’s not a devious plot to ruin your senior year. (Ok, I’m no longer part of the "we" but I can still relate.)


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[zukeypur]

I attended a webinar for Labster yesterday, which seems fantastic for general sciences like chem. Unfortunately for me, not so good for medical laboratory technology or histology. I’m scrambling to find a lab substitution for microbiology and blood bank, and clinical rotations are all canceled indefinitely. I just went to my office with a suitcase and brought all of my books and lecture manuals home.

ETA I am happy to share the recorded webinar with you if you’re interested.