Adventures in Remote Teaching
Introduction
The spring of 2020 caught many faculty members by surprise: mid-semester, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty and students across the United States switched from the traditional face-to-face mode of instruction to remote teaching, a term that many learned for the very first time. At the time of this paper, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still felt around the country and most institutions of higher education still rely on delivering instruction remotely.
We can safely say that most instructors started their adventures in remote teaching by using video-conferencing software such as Zoom or Skype and exchanged the classroom with a seat in front of a computer. My experience with Zoom was discouraging. I could no longer see the faces of my students since very few of them chose to keep the camera on. I could no longer see and hear their immediate reactions to my words and my gestures. I felt cut-off from them, and I was afraid that they felt the same. I had to remind myself that behind the mostly black screen with a few names and pictures there are thirty or more real souls, students, possibly as unhappy with not being in a real classroom as I was. The learning experience was in danger and I no longer felt confident in guiding my students through the adventure of learning.
After spring came summer and I offered to teach summer specifically to have an opportunity to experiment and look for better ways to deliver the learning materials. During the summer of 2020, I taught one section of CE2030 Civil Engineering Materials lecture and 2 sections of CE2030L - the co-requisite lab. In all I had 30 students. And I knew that I needed to go beyond Zoom to keep the students engaged and to regain confidence that instruction does happen, and students are learning.
Teaching a Remote Materials Lab
One of the greatest challenges was teaching a laboratory remotely. At Cal Poly Pomona, we are embracing experiential learning and hands-on labs are a staple of the Civil Engineering program. In the materials lab, students would normally “get their hands dirty” and make and brake concrete cylinders, asphalt concrete test specimens, and run various tests on aggregates. But how could any of this interaction and experiential learning happen remotely? I tried two different strategies which I will describe next: a more immersive experience in Zoom; and a simple test kit that students used to perform some tests on their own, at home.
To provide a more engaging experience in Zoom, I used two separate devices which translated into two independent windows in Zoom. The first device was a laptop computer with the camera facing the whiteboard in the lab. I would normally start Zoom on this device first. The second device was an iPad installed on a Swivl robot. After logging into the same session from the iPad, I would position the robot to capture the areas of the lab where I would perform experiments. The robot was installed on a tripod which I moved occasionally. While fixed in terms of position and height, the robot could rotate left and right and also swivel up and down to follow the presenter, much like a cameraman following an actor in a movie. Movement of the robot is guided by a sensor that the presenter wears on a lanyard around their neck. The result is that the presenter is always in the image captured by the iPad, even when moving. The setup is illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Video screenshot of instructor performing a test in the laboratory while a laptop camera (in the background) offers a view of the whiteboard with notes and results.
The duo of devices gave students two views into the lab: one fixed, usually pointed at the whiteboard and the content written on it, and a second view, very dynamic, that followed my movement in the lab as I performed and described the laboratory tests. Occasionally I would go to the whiteboard to add more information, such as measurements and test results. To ensure clear communication between the instructor and students at all times, I used Bluetooth headphones connected to the laptop computer. This way, students could hear me and ask questions during the lab.
However, I knew that a more cinematic zoom would not compensate for the hands-on experience. The second strategy I used was to prepare test kits for students. In large zip-lock plastic bags I included the following:
• 1 lb bag cement
• 2 lb bag sand
• 1 lb bag pea gravel
• 0.5 lb bag reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP)
• 0.5 lb bag coarse gravel
• 4 inch spatula
• 3 inch x 6 inch plastic cylinder with lid
• 12 inch precision ruler
• kitchen gram scale
• a pair of nitrile gloves
• one dust mask
• long plastic spoon
• wood coffee stirrers
After making 30 kits, at a cost of less than $50 per kit, I asked the students whether they would be interested to use a kit to perform some tests at home. The answer was a resounding yes. I then offered students the option to choose from two grading schemes:
a) all grading based on experiments done by the instructor in the lab
b) 50% of the grade based on experiments done by the instructor in the lab and 50% of the grade based on experiments done by students at home, using the test kits.
More than 90% of the students chose option b) which was obviously more work but gave them an opportunity to touch and feel the materials and to conduct tests themselves. The following tests were performed by the students at home:
1. moisture content of fine aggregate by using a microwave oven, the sand sample and the kitchen scale.
2. bulk unit weight of coarse aggregate by using the provided plastic cylinder, coarse aggregate sample, plastic spoon, steel ruler, and the kitchen scale.
3. workability of fresh concrete and mix design by using the cement and aggregate samples, kitchen scale, spatula, and the plastic cylinder.
4. concrete specimen weight, dimensions, and unit weight by using the ruler, kitchen scale and a mold stripping tool.
5. wood flexural strength - using the scale and the wood coffee stirrers.
Figure 2 shows a photograph submitted by a student that performed the bulk unit weight of aggregate test at home.
Figure 2: Bulk unit weight of aggregate test performed using the home test kit.
Needless to say, these were small scale versions of the test performed in the lab, using less materials and less expensive equipment. The concepts however remain the same even when the scale of the experiments is reduced. To help students perform tests safely at home, I also conducted the home version of the tests in the lab and included it in the recorded videos.
Teaching in a Virtual World
The third strategy I explored over the summer was teaching in VirBELA, a virtual world originally designed and hosted by the School of Business at University of California, San Diego. Much like a role-playing computer game, VirBELA allows users to create and customize an avatar that can move and communicate in a virtual three-dimensional world. The Open Campus is free to visit and use by anyone that can install the software on a personal computer. In addition to the Open Campus VirBELA hosts virtual conferences, virtual office suites, an exposition pavilion, and for some entities a complete private virtual campus.
When our students graduated in the spring of 2020, they did not have the opportunity to go through the traditional graduation ritual because of the COVID 19 pandemic. Our department organized a Zoom celebration followed by an invitation for all to “meet” on the soccer field in Open Campus. Several students and faculty were “present,” had an informal chat, kicked the ball on the virtual soccer field and then visited the beach where students and faculty enjoyed a fireworks show and some students took a boat for a ride.
Having experienced VirBELA firsthand, in the summer I experimented with teaching the materials lecture in the board room of a private conference suite in VirBELA. The boardroom included 9 tables, each with 5 chairs, so there was enough room for all my students. The room also included one large main screen, two drop-down screens on the sides of the room, and an additional smaller screen in the back of the room. I used the main screen to upload my presentation slides and present using the laser pointer feature. I also used the side screens to bring up videos during the class or as a whiteboard. It was an interesting feeling to go in VirBELA minutes before the time of my class and to upload slides and prepare the screens. It felt a lot more like going to work and preparing for an in-person class. A screenshot from one of the Zoom recordings of the lecture in VirBELA is shown in Figure 3.
The Civil Engineering Materials lecture includes a project assignment where students are encouraged to work in groups of 4 to 5 students. The private suite came with 18 small offices where groups of students could “sit down” at a table and discuss their project in private. Each office comes with 2 screens and students had the ability to upload or access Google Docs files to collaborate with their group. A screenshot of students working in a private office is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Students working on the class project in a private virtual office.
Some students however had technical issues using VirBELA reporting that their computers slowed down or came to a complete freeze. For this reason, I kept running Zoom at the same time and shared my VirBELA screen on Zoom.
Student Survey
At the end of the summer session, students were invited to complete a survey about their recent learning experience. Twenty students responded and the questions and answers are summarized in Figures 5 through 11.
Figure 5: Answers to survey question 1, where 1 is “Not very” and 5 is “Very much.”
Figure 6: Answers to survey question 2.
Figure 7: Answers to survey question 3, where 1 is Very dissatisfied and 5 is Very satisfied.
Figure 8: Answers to survey question 4.
Figure 9: Answers to survey question 5.
Survey question 6 asked students to share their opinion on virtual world classrooms. Opinions varied with some students feeling more engaged in a virtual world while others preferred Zoom for its simplicity and reliability.
The last three questions on the survey were about the home test kit for the lab:
Figure 10: Answers to survey question 7, where 1 is “Not very” and 5 is “Very much.”
Figure 11: Answers to survey question 8, where 1 is “Not very” and 5 is “Very much.”
The last question on the survey asked students to share their opinion on the home test kits. Students had very positive feedback, considered the kit fun, instructive, and a great way to compensate for their inability to attend the lab in person.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Judging from the occasional feedback received from students, the two-camera system used in the lab improved the learning experience and students appreciated the dynamic nature of the video from the combination of iPad and Swivl robot.
As it can be inferred from the survey results, the home test kits were a real success and more than 50% of the students indicated that they would purchase non-expensive items to conduct such tests at home. Based on this initial experiment, recommendations for items readily available to purchase online could be made. It would also help to produce a laboratory-style manual and supporting videos to accompany the test kits and help students interested in performing the tests at home. Developing similar kits for other engineering disciplines could also be explored, for example for water resources.
Teaching in VirBELA was preferred by more than 50% of the students and overall, the students that did not have technical issues, rated it as a better experience than Zoom. It would probably help if VirBELA became available as an app for mobile devices and if the demand for computing performance could be reduced.
For me as an instructor, VirBELA was a significantly better experience in comparison with Zoom. I enjoyed seeing students’ avatars walk into the classroom, take their seats and wait for the class to start. I also enjoyed “walking” into the classroom minutes before class to add presentations and websites to different screens and prepare the room for lecture. While I am not an expert, I believe that there are psychological aspects of the experience in VirBELA that address some of the shortcomings of Zoom:
• Student avatars appear to “breathe” and are “present” in the virtual world. In comparison, Zoom windows may be dark with a static photograph or only a name written across the window.
• Users of a virtual world can choose who they talk to, in which direction they move next, etc. There is little room for choice in Zoom.
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