As one of the few universities across the country open to in person instruction, UI was successfully able to complete the semester with only one major outbreak on campus.
However, there are still so many things that need to be improved in order to make it all work as smoothly as possible for another semester. The pandemic isn’t over yet. Neither is the massive amount of stress UI’s students, faculty and staff were forced to take on.
We hope things can return to some sort of normal soon, but it’s important that the university prepares its students, faculty and staff for the likelihood of another wild semester. The lack of consistency among courses needs to be addressed before we start the spring semester.
In President C. Scott Green’s memos, he urged students to finish the semester strong by following the Healthy Vandal Pledge. Students, faculty and the university must be prepared for what may come our way in the near future.
As shown in memos through the semester, instructors were given the choice to deliver classes in different methods, remote and in person. The brunt of the responsibility of classroom safety was shoved onto instructors, who had no guidelines other than what they were given for COVID-19 safety.
UI was able to allow more flexibility when it came to how instructors formatted classes while being cognizant of the health and wellness of the community, but consistency of delivered instruction varied depending on instructors. There was a massive amount of diversity from class to class, even in the same departments.
Going into the spring semester there needs to be straightforward definitions of what hyflex classes are and basic outlines of how they should work across the university. A lot more responsibility fell on professors this semester, with both faculty and students paying the price for it. Each class approached the hyflex model differently and, while it was nice to have flexibility when COVID-19 spikes occurred, a lot of people got lost in the chaos of the process.
Online learning is going to be a large part of our education for now, but there are a lot of faculty members across the university who don’t have the knowledge they need on the platforms we’re using. If the university is going to expect them to use platforms such as Zoom and BbLearn, they need to better train them on how to use them. Many professors struggled with these platforms throughout the semester, having to use class time to figure out basic functions or ask their students for help.
Show our professors the basics of the platform: how to share their screen, how to check the chat and how to play sound with the videos they’re sharing would be a great place to start. Talk to faculty and staff about ways they can utilize these tools because they’re going to be around for a while.
Most professors managed to make it through the semester, but not without a plethora of new age problems presented to them by rearranging their courses, as well as their home lives, around a pandemic and learning how to use new online tools on the fly.
We understand the fall semester was never going to be perfect, but we can do better. Fall 2020 was about survival, let’s do our best to thrive in Spring 2021 and set our university community up for success.
-Editorial Board
Christian
What they need is compassion.