With a total of five snow days this semester thus far, Tufts professors are adopting alternative technologies to make up for lost class time.
Lecturer in the Department of History David Proctor explained that he has been exploring different solutions for his different courses, which include both lecture-based and seminar-based classes. He noted that for his classes with large lecture components, he has been recording his lectures remotely and posting them online for students to listen to at their own discretion for the three days that class has been canceled.
“I’ve been fortunate that in a way I can record my lectures at home, which is what I’ve been doing, post them on Trunk, ask the students to listen to them on their own time and then try to talk about some of the key pieces during our recitations,” he said. “So in those two courses I haven’t really had to make any significant adjustments to the syllabus — yet, at least.”
Proctoradded that the recorded lectures allow students to listen wherever and whenever is convenient for them, which is especially helpful in case of power outages or other complications due to the stormy weather. He further explained that the recorded lectures also allow students to listen to parts of the lecture more than once if they want.
“At least in my experience during a snow day or a hurricane day or something like that, there’s often people who might not have power, students who just for whatever reason might not have kind of on-going access,” he said. “By recording lectures, they can listen to it that day, they can sit at their computer, or they can be out shoveling snow and listen to it on their iPod or whatever, and doing it at the very time we would’ve been in class period. Or, if the day is too bad for them, then they can ... take the time and do a little bit of catch-up.”
Falling behind in either of those history classes would be very problematic given the amount of material covered in each class, according to Proctor.
For a class taught in a seminar format, the snow days have been a little more complicated, Proctor added.
“I’ve started to experiment a little bit more with the Forum on Trunk,” he said. “That’s something we’re using or trying to use this week a little bit.”
Proctor explained that he asked students to post questions on Trunk based on the assigned readings and then respond to their own or other students’ questions remotely. He noted that he also hosted online office hours using the Chat feature, adding that he found them less effective than in-person meetings.
Thus far, Proctor said he has not had to move exams, but he has adjusted the deadlines for some paper responses.
Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science Richard Eichenberg explained that he established a Twitter feed for his Introduction to International Relations course to communicate with students quickly.
“I don’t use it to actually teach the course, but I wanted to build community in the absence of class time, and it also provides a quick way to share news articles and even scholarly works that I can link,” he told the Daily in an email.
Eichenberg said he has considered hosting traditional make-up classes, but this may be difficult given differences in students’ schedules.
“I am exploring the alternative of providing “voice over” narrated PowerPoints, as they do in some biology classes,” he said. “However, it takes a little time to learn.”
Eichenberg underscored how helpful the Educational Technologies team, a subset of Tufts Technology Services, has been in aiding professors in using technology to make up for lost class time.
“These folks have literally been working overtime to help faculty who want to explore technologies for holding class or discussion online,” he said. “They answer our questions at night and on weekends, and provide the software we need almost immediately. I can’t say enough about the outstanding job that they do.”
Adam Grenier, who teaches Microfinance through the Experimental College, explained that he has also had to look for different ways to make up his class, which meets once a week on Monday nights.
“I’ve had to be a little bit more creative than usual. It has not been ideal, as you can imagine. My class is very much discussion-oriented … so the first week, the week of the blizzard … I didn’t really react that much -- I figured I could make it up, all the content in the weeks ahead, so we didn’t have any kind of contingency plan,” he said. “[Two weeks ago], when classes were canceled for the second time, I decided that the best resource that I had and the best thing I thought I could do was to host a conference call.”
Grenier explained that he has access to a conference call dial-in, so he gave students the number with an access code during the normally scheduled class time. He said he posted the class material on Trunk and used the Trunk Chat option to serve as a “hand-raising mechanism” by which students would send messages when they wanted to answer a question Grenier posed.
“I would basically call them out and let them un-mute themselves and share their thoughts with the class,” he said. “And to the extent possible, that was the best that we had … Usually I do a lot group discussion and activity and was not able to do that.”
Grenier added that he thought it was an effective way to keep the course on track and discuss assignments with students. He noted that aside from not being able to maintain discussions, the conference call also made it hard for him to conduct the usual weekly quiz. To make this up, he explained that he posted the quiz on Trunk, and then students downloaded it, filled in the answers and re-uploaded the document.
According to Grenier, the missed classes have also pushed back visits from scheduled guest speakers. The lost time may also affect whether he will be able to conduct a semester-long project he developed for the first time this semester.
“I know the students might not be getting as much out of this medium as they would in the classroom, but this is just the best that we have,” he said. “We’re getting through it, and that’s all we can do. I want to continue the learning experience for them.”
Senior Carolyn Peyser, who is a student in Grenier’s class, said that she would rather use the conference call option than make up classes on other days of the week given the difficulty in coordination, but added that this tool has its limitations.
“It’s been nice to do them because we can catch up with the material I think, but it definitely changes the dynamic of the class,” she said. “I’ve found that on the conference call the same few people participate the entire time, and it’s difficult for [Grenier] to engage more people. I think I’m personally more reluctant to speak over conference call -- it’s just more awkward and it’s hard not to see the teacher that you’re talking to.”
However, Peyser noted that she has appreciated that the course has not had to give up any material.
“I appreciate how structured the class is,” she said. “I appreciate how dedicated [Grenier] is to actually getting through all the material that he intended to at the beginning.”
Grenier said that during his six years of teaching, he remembers maybe only one snow day. Proctor,who has been teaching at Tufts since 1996 after completing his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Tufts, added that he has never seen a winter such as this.
“Things are a little different,” he said. “There’s a lot more congestion around Tufts. There’s a lot more activity. There’s a lot more cars. There’s a lot more people. And I think it makes it harder sometimes to get things cleaned up as quickly as might have been possible 25 years ago. And something like we’ve had this week or this month is just unprecedented.”
After five snow days, professors pursue ways to make up missed classes
