The Year the Classroom Changed, St. Edward's Was Ready

By the end of February 2020, the students in Tere Garza’s Communication and Popular Culture course were dreaming of the big thinkers they could see during spring break: filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, singer and actor Janelle Monae, Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, 家庭装修明星奇普和乔安娜·盖恩斯.

他们在日历上写满了沉浸式讲故事的讨论, artificial intelligence, internet culture and the future of music. After two months studying pop culture, they would be part of the volunteer crew for South by Southwest Conference and Festivals, 世界上最大的艺术家和有影响力的人的聚会之一.

Garza, a professor of Communication, used SXSW as the ultimate lab for her Pop Culture course. 班上的学生将自愿参加会议, in return, 根据志愿者的工作时间获得“额外津贴”, including a badge to attend films, 他们可以参加演出和下一件大事的小组讨论. 节日结束后，他们会写一些关于艺术家和活动的评论 Hilltop Views，学生报纸，分享他们的经验与其他St. Edward’s community and couching their critiques in the theories they’d learned in class.
 
但在3月6日，这些计划戛然而止. 就在Covid-19被宣布为全球大流行的几天前, the city of Austin cancelled SXSW for the first time in the festival’s 34-year history.
 
此举对保护公众健康是必要的, 但这给加尔扎教授了21年的课程留下了一个巨大的漏洞. 随着学生们搬回家，准备在网上完成学期, Garza adapted the course to the new reality, 拒绝放弃SXSW提供的机会. The volunteer experience had evaporated, but students could still attend virtual events and write about their chosen artists for Hilltop Views. When classes reconvened remotely, her students described the live-streamed concerts they’d attended and debated ideas championed by the festival’s edgy futurists. The online edition of Hilltop Views carried their stories about the rise of virtual concerts and events.

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“We managed to have the same learning objectives, just in a different context,” Garza says.

2020年春季学期，圣何塞大学面临着前所未有的挑战. 爱德华和全国各地的大学. No one had anticipated that a global pandemic would force all classes to move online. But St. Edward’s was prepared to navigate the shift to virtual education because it has always focused on teaching — regardless of the format it takes. 为了鼓励讨论，这所大学的班级被故意控制得很小, debate and active learning. Professors can get to know students as individuals and nudge them toward opportunities where they’ll thrive, such as the McNair Scholars program, 富布赖特奖或者完美的实习机会.

Garza, like her colleagues, 一直把教学当作一项正在进行的工作, 以新的和更好的方式帮助她的学生与材料联系. Over the years, 她通过跟上当前的研究，解决了教学上的挑战, brainstorming with colleagues and meeting with staff in the Center for Teaching Excellence. 她会从教学技术办公室寻求新的技术创新, which had already introduced professors to the platforms that made remote learning possible. In summer 2020, Garza attended workshops hosted by both offices and exchanged tips with other professors as she retooled her classes for the online environment. 进入秋季学期，她和她的同事们准备用一种新的媒介进行教学, 他们对学生的承诺激励着他们来到圣. Edward’s in the first place.
 
“事实是，最好的在线教学确实是最好的教学,” says Rebecca Davis, 负责数字学习的副总裁, 谁领导教学技术部. “在这个校园里，我们已经有了非常强大的教学文化. That was our advantage in the spring, and that commitment to students has made all the difference.”

Garza arrived at St. Edward’s in 1998. She quickly absorbed the St. Edward’s ethos from professors who encouraged her or were her office neighbors in Sorin Hall: Cecil Lawson, Brother William Dunn, Brother George Klawitter, Innes Mitchell, Catherine Rainwater and Barbara Filippidis. “兄弟俩是伟大的榜样，”她说. “As faculty members, we carry their legacy in our dedication to educating minds and hearts.”

当她需要解决任务时, 她和卓越教学中心的工作人员讨论了这个问题, 自1991年以来，是什么帮助教师改进和提高了他们的教学方法. “The center is indispensable for helping you work through an assignment that didn’t go well, or just bouncing ideas around,” Garza says.
 
The center supports professors by offering individual consultations and discussion-and-action groups focused on research-informed teaching and learning. 主任Jennifer Jefferson与想要设计新课程的教授们一起工作, 对作业进行微调或与学生进行更深入的交流.

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“There is an idea of continuous improvement that’s embedded in how we view teaching at St. Edward’s,” Jefferson says. “人们会不断地尝试新事物, 寻求关于教学的建议和对话. 他们想要解决教学难题，以支持所有学生.”
 
加尔扎在该中心及其同事的帮助下解决了其中一些难题. From her first year at St. Edward’s, Garza incorporated active learning — like the Pop Culture course’s immersive SXSW experience — into her classes. She wove in group projects, 目的是让她的学生为毕业后的生活做好准备, 当他们必须在工作场所合作时.

随着大学采用了更多的教学技术, Garza and her colleagues learned new skills with help from the Instructional Technology team, now led by Davis. When St. 爱德华去年春天开始学习远程教育, 教师在线教学所需的大多数工具都已经很活跃了. Over the summer, Instructional Technology and the Center for Teaching Excellence offered more workshops to help professors get up to speed on the key programs: Zoom; Canvas, 一个为每门课程提供一站式服务的平台, with tools for posting syllabi, administering quizzes, and turning in assignments; and Google Drive, 谁的应用程序允许学生远程协作项目.
 
加尔扎在夏季的几个月里参加了至少五次讲习班来磨练她的技能, 以及与她的通信同事一起举行Zoom练习课程. In the early days of the pandemic, Zoom was evolving on a weekly basis with updated features that professors could incorporate into their teaching. 当秋季学期到来的时候，加尔扎和她的同事们都做好了准备.

On a Monday afternoon in November, the students in Garza’s Communication Theory course logged in to the class from on campus and across the country. Garza had launched Zoom early, as she always did, to give students a chance to ask questions or chitchat the way they would in a physical classroom. As she took attendance, 她向学生们询问了他们的宠物，以及他们最近在Netflix上看到了什么. “Who voted for the first time last week?她问道，一半的学生对着镜头挥手.
 
然后，加尔扎把讲台让给五位学生，让他们介绍当天的理论. 这种方法被称为“翻转课堂”.” Toward the end of the semester, students work in mini-communities (Garza’s twist on the group project) to present a section of the course text and lead an interactive game related to the concepts. The assignment gives students valuable, 具有在团队中提供复杂信息的相关工作经验. This fall, both the students’ planning meetings and the presentations happened entirely online.

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The five students took turns explaining the lesson, using a slide deck they had created. For the interactive game, they had filmed TikTok videos in which each person acted out a humorous sketch to illustrate one of the terms; the rest of the class guessed which concept it was by typing answers in the chat box. When the exercise was over, 每个人都点击了拍手的表情符号，为主持人鼓掌.
 
While she would have preferred to teach in person — to see her students’ eyes light up as they had an epiphany, to feel the energy of shared discovery — Garza says meeting and presenting on Zoom has prepared students for the reality of 2020. 每个行业都受到疫情的影响, 许多公司会在面试方式上做出永久性的改变, train and hold professional meetings.

“These students will be among the first to experience things like working from home or being hired through an online process like Zoom, 所以他们需要注意这些技能,” she says.

SXSW also moved online for 2021. 加尔扎再次调整了她的流行文化课程, 这一次的重点是流行病对流行文化创作者的影响. She built lessons to spotlight how musicians, artists, 电影制作人和喜剧演员正在适应虚拟环境. She is encouraging her students to research the type of software the creatives used, 然后在这些项目中获得认证，以增强他们自己的投资组合. Another new assignment asks students to reflect on how pandemic protocols might permanently change pop culture: Will live shows on Zoom become standard? 艺术家们会找到新的合作方式而不需要见面吗?
 
Garza’s online course, geared toward a virtual festival, isn’t a substitute for the “real thing.” It is an illustration of how St. Edward’s professors adapt their teaching to the realities of the world beyond the classroom and help students prepare to contribute.
 
“That means not just teaching their mind, 但也要让他们敞开心扉，成为负责任的公民,” Garza says. “The way to do that is to empower them, and to encourage them not to be afraid of change. 我想确保我们的学生有能力成为领导者.”

Photography by Chelsea Purgahn