By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall | Illustrated by Sam Ward<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Just as it did on college campuses across the country, COVID-19 catapulted NC State\u2019s students and faculty into online learning last spring. Students suddenly found themselves listening to lectures, writing papers and collaborating on group projects from their apartments or childhood bedrooms. Professors scrambled to turn courses virtual, experimenting with Zoom, narrating PowerPoint slides and finding new ways to assess students\u2019 knowledge when it was impossible to proctor an exam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the learning curve was steep for plenty of faculty and students, spring 2020 wasn\u2019t the introduction to remote learning for many. Before the pandemic, thousands of NC State\u2019s undergraduate students were taking online classes each semester. Not because they had to, but because online classes fit their schedules or their style of learning. During the fall 2019 semester alone, some 8,260 NC State students in undergraduate degree programs took at least one distance education class. \u201cI usually take an online class every semester,\u201d says Ruben De La Calle, a senior geology major from Greensboro, N.C. \u201cI enjoy doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But these classes often call for more than just lecture hall lessons dropped into Zoom or YouTube, a practice that prompted grumbling about the quality of instruction from students and parents as the pandemic shut down in-person learning. A growing number of professors are leading orchestrated online productions that showcase not just their expertise in microbiology or business writing, but their creative and nimble use of technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are academic experiences that harness artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other emerging technologies.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
These are academic experiences that harness artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other emerging technologies to make it possible to digitally dive into the machinery of a feed mill or complete chemistry labs. And leaders expect the pandemic will only accelerate NC State\u2019s continued use of technology to teach as professors learn better ways to build a class\u2009\u2014\u2009whether it\u2019s conducted entirely online or held as a so-called hybrid class that alternates in-person and virtual meetups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was a lot of faculty who were reluctantly forced into this but have learned pretty quickly that there are tools out there that they can use, and they are starting to find out they can do it effectively,\u201d says Tom Miller, senior vice provost for academic outreach and entrepreneurship. \u201cThere will still be some who will say, \u2018I don\u2019t ever want to do this again after the pandemic.\u2019 But I think there is a good number who will. And it\u2019s because they had to deal with it, and by having to deal with it they\u2019ve learned that there are some really cool things you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u2018Cool Things\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Those innovations have stretched across subjects and departments. For remote and in-person classes, for example, faculty members in the Prestage Department of Poultry Science developed a virtual tour of a feed mill, using augmented reality that recreates the mill\u2019s machinery and processes and provides an up-close look at parts of the mill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teaching professor Maria Gallardo-Williams built a series of virtual reality organic chemistry labs that feature a teaching assistant who leads a remote student through a lab on topics like thin-layer chromatography or infrared spectroscopy. It was already in use when the pandemic hit, and then became popular at universities around the world as professors looked for ways to continue classes online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Computer science professors redesigned required classes so that students can digest the material through online activities to prepare for discussions and learning in the classroom. They used animation and applied game techniques to increase engagement and help students understand the complex subject matter. After one course was redesigned, the drop, fail and withdrawal rate decreased from by more than 40 percent from 2015\u201316 to 2017\u201318.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NC State professors typically aren\u2019t building these classes on their own. They work with DELTA, or the Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications office, a one-stop shop with grants for NC State professors to learn how they can turn their classes into virtual experiences or use technology to help them teach. Through DELTA, faculty members also can seek Quality Matters certification, a nationally recognized program that focuses on building online classes that offer the same quality as a traditional class. In just the last five years alone, David Howard, director of instructional innovation services at DELTA, says his team has worked on more than 100 courses, helping professors do something more than just talk at their class via video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
DELTA launched 20 years ago after North Carolina\u2019s General Assembly provided funding for distance learning for the first time. State leaders wanted to open higher education to remote and non-traditional students who, for a variety of reasons, couldn\u2019t spend four years on a college campus. The additional funding enabled NC State, which already had been offering distance education programs for years, to expand the program to serve even more students. DELTA helps to ensure NC State\u2019s online classes meet its high standards, Miller says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was really the turning point,\u201d he says. \u201cThis . . . was a signal from the university system and state legislators that they wanted distance learning to be part of the academic core of the university. We kind of adopted the philosophy early on that our online courses would be the same faculty, the same quality, the same rigor as our face-to-face courses.\u201d But the beauty of DELTA isn\u2019t just that its staff knows how to use technology, says Melissa Ramirez, a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. They\u2019re also experts in how to design courses, a skill many faculty members never learned in their own studies. \u201cI was never taught how to teach,\u201d Ramirez says. \u201cI was taught how to be a scientist at the lab bench.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The results are getting high marks from some students. Susan Francois, a senior from Holly Springs, N.C., who began her studies at NC State in the 1980s and returned as a full-time student in 2020 to finish a degree, signed up for an online Earth System Science class to tick off a science requirement. She was almost instantly absorbed in the content. Lisa Falk, the assistant teaching professor, had clearly laid out what students would learn, how the lessons fit into the goal of the course and what her expectations were, says Francois, who is majoring in technology and society. \u201cIt was consistent. It was well built,\u201d she says. \u201cIt rose to a lovely crescendo of what it was you were supposed to learn. And when I felt the organization and passion that was behind it, I found myself engaging with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Online learning has become active learning where you\u2019re having to do things and you\u2019re having to engage in the material rather than just sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture.\u201d \u2014 Christine Cranford, senior lecturer, College of Engineering<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Before COVID-19, the flexibility is what drew students to online sections. They can learn new material, take tests and finish projects on their own time, following the course syllabus. \u201cHaving that flexibility of forming my work schedule around my school schedule really helped,\u201d says De La Calle, the geology major from Greensboro, N.C., who has worked as a soccer referee while at NC State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elizabeth Porter, a junior from Pilot Mountain, N.C., juggles an internship with DELTA and an executive board position on NC State\u2019s American Marketing Association chapter as she works on her double major in communications media and English writing and rhetoric. \u201cI\u2019m an independent worker,\u201d she says. \u201cI enjoy being able to make my own schedule and figure out the best time I can be focused.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More undergraduate students, including Porter and De La Calle, have been coming in with experience taking online classes in high school\u2009\u2014\u2009even before the pandemic. But, without the benefit of regular in-person connections with professors, online courses can demand more focus from students. \u201cIt requires a lot of self-discipline,\u201d De La Calle says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More Than A Lecture<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Online teaching also requires more work from faculty members\u2009\u2014\u2009at least up front. Christine Cranford is a senior lecturer who leads online writing classes required for undergraduate engineering majors. Twenty years ago, she says, the focus when creating an online course was recreating the same experience of an in-person class. Now the focus is on designing something that offers students more than a semester of lectures, quizzes and tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnline learning has become active learning where you\u2019re having to do things and you\u2019re having to engage in the material rather than just sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture,\u201d Cranford says. \u201cWe\u2019re asking more from you, giving you more feedback and building things that reinforce the learning.\u201d That means pulling in technologies that will quiz students as they watch a YouTube video, finding ways to cultivate discussion in online forums and, especially during the pandemic, trading exams for things like final projects or papers. Before COVID-19, students taking online courses took exams at NC State\u2019s testing centers. Now, those centers are operating at reduced capacity, so professors often give students an alternate assessment instead of an exam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
George Hess, professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, revisited how he runs his classes when the pandemic hit, and decided in the fall to let students grade their own portfolios\u2009\u2014\u2009and defend why they deserve that grade. \u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s going to be a long-term switch or whether it\u2019s going to be a one-off to help with the mental health situation with COVID,\u201d Hess says. \u201cIt\u2019s just making me really think about how we evaluate things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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