Simon Perez took a picture with his students the day before he dismissed them for spring break.

“I had a feeling this would be my last chance,” said Perez, an associate professor of broadcast and digital journalism at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

SU, along with schools and colleges across the country, has suspended on-campus learning and moved all courses online for the remainder of the semester due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Professors told The Daily Orange that SU’s decision has left them concerned for their students’ well-being as their courses undergo changes and has made them miss spending time with their students in person.

The novel coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has infected at least 859,556 and killed 42,332 worldwide. There have been at least 249 confirmed cases in Onondaga County, and one person has died.

When the university announced days before spring break that it would transition to online courses until at least March 30, many professors said they spent the next week and a half learning how to use online teaching materials and transitioning the remainder of their coursework online.

SU’s Information Technology Services and faculty with more experience in virtual learning provided training on the online classes, professors said.

“It’s been a lot of work,” said Theo Cateforis, an associate professor of music history and cultures in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Many of my powerpoints are twice their initial length as I try to find new ways to discuss and deliver my content.”

Online courses can be offered either synchronously, with real-time interaction, or asynchronously. Many professors said they are conducting their classes synchronously, using online video conferencing sites such as Zoom, Google Meet or Blackboard Collaborate.

MaryAnn Monforte, who teaches ACC 151, an introductory accounting class required for all Whitman majors and accounting and finance minors, said she is holding live classes through Blackboard Collaborate twice a week for each of her four course sections.

“This basic accounting knowledge is the language of business. Everyone needs to know it,” she said. “I didn’t have an option to simply record my lecture and then hold virtual office hours because many of my students are freshmen, and they need that live touch point of a classroom setting.”

While professors said this form of teaching ensures that students have the ability to engage with material in real-time, they said it can also pose challenges for students living in different time zones and those who have difficult home environments.

“My initial challenge is that my students live in many different time zones, and my class takes place at 9 a.m.,” said Blake Segal, an adjunct professor of acting in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. “I’m especially thinking of the Californians in my class who would have to tune in at six in the morning. That’s not a great time to learn how to use your voice.”

Asynchronous classes are not held in real time and instead involve prerecorded material such as videos or audio files that students can access and learn from. Professors said they have been conducting classes synchronously and asynchronously to allow students greater access to material.

Louise Manfredi, an assistant professor of industrial and interaction design in VPA, said she is producing instructional videos for some of her software-based classes so her students can watch and follow the instructions for their building projects, just as they would in a classroom.

Each student will work on individual assignments and meet in real time during the following class to discuss them, Manfredi said.

Walter Freeman, an assistant teaching professor in the physics department in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he’s begun videotaping himself doing the problems that appear on his students’ homework. He provides commentary throughout the videos and uploads them to YouTube so students who missed his live lecture can access them.

“We need to make sure that students aren’t left out of what we are doing because of their living situations, or their access to internet bandwidth, or the computing hardware they have,” Freeman said.

The physics department will also continue to offer a virtual “physics clinic” through a continuous Zoom meeting so students can access help whenever they need it, he said.

Many of Freeman’s students who have returned home to China don’t have access to platforms like YouTube, he said. In response, the physics department hired a student to mirror the course’s content on a YouTube-like website based in China for the students who live there, he said.

“We are trying to throw all the electronic doors wide open for students to communicate with us and ask for help in whatever ways possible,” Freeman said.

Some professors said they’ve also had to significantly change their curriculum and grading methods for the remainder of the semester.

Freeman said he will now offer all exams offline and for 24 hours. All his students have a “guaranteed grade promise” that if they were set to pass the course before spring break, they will pass, he said.

“Our top priority right now is supporting students and making sure that motivated, honest, diligent students do as well as they can,” he said.

In his news producing and presenting class, Perez’s students create a broadcast television show, something he said they can’t do remotely.

Rather than producing the show, Perez said he plans to have students study professional newscasts from across the country and compare them. He also hopes to introduce guest speakers to the class so students can see what happens once they enter the workforce, he said.

“Is it going to be the same and is it going to be as good as in person? No, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” Perez said. “It still doesn’t mean that we just give up and don’t do it. We are going to make the best out of this situation.”

Professors are going to learn the technology and adjust their class so students get the education they deserve, even if it’s not what they expected, Segal said.

While many professors said they are beginning to adjust to online teaching, they also said it feels strange not seeing their students in person.

“I can honestly say when they first started with this platform for the rest of the semester, it made me feel so sad,” Monforte said. “My students bring life to the classroom. They are why I do what I do, and not being able to have that touch point and to not have them physically present is heartbreaking.”

Freeman said he understands that faculty and students both have more on their minds than just what’s on their course syllabi. It’s important to validate and acknowledge that to support each other through times like this, he said.

“Students are going to get acquainted with their professors’ cats and dogs and kids and see what our homes look like, and it’s all very humanizing,” he said. “It can be a challenge but it can also be an important opportunity to, in a way, be more human with our students.”

Published on April 1, 2020 at 12:24 am

Contact Maggie: mehicks@syr.edu | @maggie_hickss