Students and staff of the University of North Georgia returned Monday from a two-week hiatus to continue instruction. But instead of returning to the college campus, they are adjusting to a virtual classroom while the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
Remote learning, as this new form of instruction is called, requires students to log into the university’s online learning management system, called eLearning@UNG or D2L, to access class material. University staff have created a separate webpage called Making the Transition to Remote Learning with tips and resources to help students during the transition.
Although UNG offers online courses each semester through eCore, the need for a quick transition to a virtual format has resulted in some major differences between the usual online course and remote learning. One of these differences is the rigor of the courses; remote learning courses are less in-depth than the typical eCore classes.
Dr. Chaudron Gille, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at UNG, explained that simplifying the remote learning classes helps accommodate learning for students who have less access to technology.
“We’re trying to keep it simple and use tools to teach that don’t require excessive band width,” said Gille. “[We’re keeping] things asynchronous so that students can continue their education with the lives they’re living now at home.”
Gille said the online format allows students to continue classes while adjusting to additional new challenges, such as sharing computers with other family members working from home and even caring for younger siblings.
Naturally the emergency transition from classroom to remote learning has presented some challenges for university staff, as well.
Dr. Allison Bailey, associate professor with the Institute for Environmental and Spatial Analysis at UNG, said her stress for remote learning comes from seeing what her students and colleagues are going through.
“Those students and faculty are dealing with so many other life stressors besides just trying to take classes or teach classes,” said Bailey, using examples of students and staff caring for at-home children, worrying about their jobs and getting food for meals.
“From the instructor perspective I find that I’m spending just as much time talking to my students about reassuring them that life is going to be okay and we’re going to make it through this together,” said Bailey.
Bailey said that she teaches online courses every semester and already had a lot of her material online, so she spent her two weeks off helping other professors who had never taught an online course.
“[I was] helping them figure out how to make an online test, how to set a calendar for due dates for assignments and so on because they just didn’t know how to do it,” said Bailey.
While students and professors are adapting to the new format, UNG staff are working to ensure all technology issues with the remote learning get resolved. The Making the Transition to Remote Learning webpage includes contacts for Information Technology staff in case students have an issue.
For students who do not have access to Internet, the university offers a list of providers on their Connectivity Resources webpage. There are also a limited number of computers loaned out from UNG to students who do not have one of their own.
For the most part university administration has not heard of any major problems associated with remote learning. Doctor Eugene Van Sickle, Assistant Vice President of Strategic Student Success Initiatives, said that recent numbers show that 80 percent of students were able to successfully access the D2L system.
Van Sickle said that communication, organization and planning are the three most important aspects to making this transition successful.
“Whether we’re faculty or staff or administrators, students, we’re all in this together,” said Van Sickle. “It’s a weird sort of reality right now, but we are here for our students and for our communities.”
Other universities from the University System of Georgia have adopted similar online learning plans. Classes at the University of North Georgia end on May 1st.
