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Pre-COVID-19 Pilot Program Strengthens This Summer’s Courses at UNC Asheville

By UNC Asheville

May 28^th, 2020

Back in 2019...

Remember then? Back before you would have imagined the need to stay at home or wear a face mask?

Back then, a small group of UNC Asheville faculty applied to join a pilot program designed by the University’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), developing asynchronous online courses to be unveiled this summer. There was no prescience about the pandemic, just a desire to learn new pedagogical techniques, and offer more options to students.

“This asynchronous format allows students to also have jobs, to take care of a family member – it really opens the door to access to the material,” said Jason Wingert, co-chair and associate professor of health and wellness, and one of five professors from different disciplines who took part in the pilot program and are debuting new online courses this summer.

With more than 1,000 students registered, summer online courses – both synchronous and asynchronous – are proving a popular choice. The five pilot courses represent just a small portion of the 105 courses UNC Asheville is offering online this summer, but they could prove to be models, since the five faculty involved invested months of training and thinking into their development.

The Role of CTL

Melissa Himelein, interim dean of social sciences and director of the CTL for the past decade, developed the program, and the training to faculty was designed and delivered by CTL Instructional Designer Anne Ogg and Instructional Technology Specialist Laurie Miles.

“I am not expert in online teaching and I relied very heavily on the people in CTL, which is staffed with extraordinary people with immense talents,” said Wingert. “Our first meeting was in January, where we started to learn about the instructional technology and they encouraged us to think about the online format of our course – things like, ‘How are you going to introduce your course? How are you going to create an online classroom community? How are you going to do testing?’ These are critical issues and we started in January, so we had a head start on COVID-19.”

Wingert, whose asynchronous online course in anatomy will begin in Summer Term I starting June 8, credits the work with CTL with helping him flip his courses online successfully in March. “I was meeting with Laurie Miles weekly and the cohort monthly to work through issues and that was very helpful.”

That head start on COVID also was helpful to other faculty participating in the pilot program, including Marcia Ghidina, chair and professor of sociology and anthropology. “Technology just doesn’t roll off my fingertips, so it was really instrumental in helping me get the course set up and enabling me to navigate online platforms, so when spring came, I was ready,” she said.

Jason Wingert, Co-chair and Associate Professor of Health and Wellness

Renovating Pedagogy

“I’ve been teaching for almost 30 years and here was an opportunity to try a totally new kind of pedagogy, and even before the pandemic, it was clear that online teaching was going to happen in some form,” said Ghidina, explaining why she applied to join the pilot project.

During Maymester, Ghidina is teaching online, asynchronously, the same introductory sociology course she has taught in person for so many years. But it isn’t the same. “I use everything from John Oliver clips to things in the textbook, some narrated PowerPoints, some animation, and in the future, I’ll probably record some mini-lectures. In-person, I’ve always tried to present a variety of material, but I’m doing that even more this summer since I’m not in the classroom to discuss things with them.”

She also has placed a reliance on students’ reading and writing. “At this stage, it’s more of the classic form. I wanted to start by getting a basic model, a foundation in place. But even after teaching just a handful of classes online, I’m already thinking of other things to add and refine. In the future, I may incorporate assignments involving student-produced multimedia.”

Marcia Ghidina, Chair and Professor of Sociology and Anthropology

A Clearer Picture on the Small Screen

Carrie Tomberlin, lecturer in art and art history, is also taking part in the pilot program and teaches an Arts and Ideas Program course on visual culture that she feels is a natural online fit. “In the class, we explore the ways images influence culture and how we consume various types of images, from fine art to advertising, mass media to social media, even the snapshot. In an online format, I can show more images and videos, and students can go back and re-watch them as they please. As we go through the semester, we exchange related images and videos which is difficult to do in a traditional classroom. I can even include images that are being used to fuel the current news cycle in real time.”

Carrie Tomberlin used these images as a banner for her online summer course

Wingert also has come to value how online platforms enable students to work individually and see things up close, and in the case of his anatomical dissections, doing it online brings no risk of cutting the wrong thing and ruining the ability to examine the body structure clearly. “This app that I’m using allows the students, in a perfectly clean, sanitary environment, to efficiently get to the structure that they’re looking for. As you click a button to remove a muscle, you see the muscle that’s below it, and the images are extraordinary,” he said.

Screenshot from the Visible Body app that Jason Wingert uses to teach anatomy

“With the online teaching technology I’ve learned in this pilot project, I’m able to switch from a camera view of me and my slides, and flip seamlessly over to the body structures. I can dissect structures while I’m recording and the students have access to that app so they can repeat what I’ve been doing, and spend time practicing, which is the really critical element here,” said Wingert.

But Can We Discuss This?

“If you think about college, so much happens in those minutes before class starts, and with non-verbal interaction during class, listening to other students’ questions in class and verbal interaction, and then in the minutes after class,” said Wingert. “So there will always be a place for the in-person classroom because so much comes from that interactive experience.”

But Wingert and his colleagues have found that a lot can come from online discussions too. Carrie Tomberlin feels that many students are very comfortable sharing their thoughts online since they have grown up with social media.

“Over the seven years I have been teaching this class, I have seen a marked increase in the amount of time we all spend online and in the time students invest in social media and their online persona,” said Tomberlin. “We’ve had some really good discussions that help the students think more deeply about how they go through their everyday life in terms of how they’re portrayed, how they consume news, and what they should be questioning. It becomes more and more relevant, and now in class discussions, students are relating the course content to COVID, and how we’re dependent on the internet like never before.”

“There’s a big difference between live and online, and one benefit to online is that students who might not feel comfortable jumping into live discussions often flourish in the online environment and make poignant contributions,” said Tomberlin. “I also feel that the ability students have to share ideas and supporting materials with each other really shines in the online format, and this often creates richer discussions then we could have in a live setting.”

Carrie Tomberlin, Lecturer in Art and Art History, with canine companion Arlo

Ghidina has made room in her online course for both asynchronous discussion threads, and optional live online chats. “Having both options really works – having the online discussion forum allows a safer environment for some students who would be hesitant to speak in class, where they can think about things to articulate in writing, without the pressure to speak up on the spot. And for those who like the option of speaking face-to-face virtually, doing that a couple of times a week is helpful.”

Marcia Ghidina used this news photo of an anti-lockdown protest at the Michigan state house to start a discussion thread.

Tomberlin keeps things asynchronous, but has a steady online presence. “I’m always trying to think of new ways that I can cultivate a better online community. I try to show that I’m engaged by participating regularly since they can’t see me. I just think as an instructor, you have to be purposeful in that."

Participants in the pilot program are also purposeful in sharing their learning with the rest of the faculty. Even during a busy Maymester, Ghidina and Tomberlin both led well-attended online faculty workshops.

“Even though it has been a chaotic time to get started, I hope that people can still appreciate some of the benefits of online learning,” said Tomberlin. “Even when we’re teaching in person, it’s good to have a hybrid component that extends the curriculum, especially since we’ve all put in so much effort to get our online classes together.”

While Tomberlin’s and Ghidina’s courses will end for this year as Maymester comes to a close, Wingert’s Functional Anatomy class, and two other pilot courses, Video Game Studies, and Nature of Mathematics all begin on June 8.

Please see the Summer at UNC Asheville page for more information, and if you are a student at a high school or another university and would be interested in taking an online UNC Asheville course this summer, please see the Visiting Students page.

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