A New Normal

 

Before the fall semester began, I was very apprehensive about how it would go. I was worried about contracting COVID-19 and how that would affect my family. I was dreading wearing a mask, having to use a microphone to teach, and having a video camera in the room. I figured that we would be online within 3 weeks of starting the semester so why bother starting in person.

Today is the end of 5.5 weeks, and my classes are still meeting in person. Despite all of my fears, the semester is going well. I love being back in the classroom—there is nothing better than engaging with students in person. My students are learning a lot and are working hard, both at school and at staying safe by wearing a mask.

No, this semester is not the same as last fall because students aren’t studying in the building, hanging out in the Math Education Library, and faculty’s office doors are shut. But it is wonderful to be back on campus, to see my students in person, and to be in the classroom teaching. I have gotten used to the classroom technology and it seems to be working well for my students.

As the number of COVID cases rises dramatically in my state, I still feel safe going to work. More importantly, I look forward to going to work to see my students and to help them learn more mathematics. Fall 2020 is definitely a unique semester, but it has been a great one so far.

Silent No More

I have watched the events of the last week unfold and I have been silent; as a white privileged female what can I possibly say? I will never understand what BIPOC endure on a daily basis. However, I am very empathetic and after today’s actions, I can no longer be silent.

I am a teacher educator so my job is to prepare math teachers for their future classrooms. So I MUST speak up to set an example for my students. We all need to stand up for what is right, which is something that I have always done, even when it wasn’t popular. You can ask some of my siblings about that.

And while we are supporting #BlackLivesMatter, COVID-19 is killing thousands of Americans every day. In fact, these two things are tied together because COVID-19 affects BIPOC more than white citizens. Both the pandemic and the blatant racism have been fueled by an incompetent leader. The fact that he went into a bunker and shut the lights off at the White House tells us that he is not the leader that we need right now. In fact, he makes things worse every day and it needs to stop. I am pleading with all of you to contact your members of Congress and ask them to use the 25^th Amendment.

Even though the calendar says that it is 2020, I feel like our country has regressed 50 to 60 years. In my opinion, this regression has been caused by our current president. He has gotten away with being racist so some of our citizens think that this behavior is okay. It is NOT okay. Everyone in our country deserves to be treated fairly and justly.

I fear for the future of our country, for my BIPOC family and friends. We cannot stand by and let our country be ruined—we must stand up peacefully and take back America.

After Week 1 of Teaching Online

So my students and I have survived the first week of online classes. Some takeaways from this week are:

• Zoom is a great platform for synchronous classes and is easy for class discussions if you have less than 15 students.
• The breakout rooms feature on Zoom is great, but pre-assigning students to rooms hasn’t worked well for me yet. Some students ended up in the correct room, but I had to manually place most of the students in the correct room. It is still a great way for them to have small group discussion.
• Time seems to go faster than expected. In my 2-hour class on Tuesday, I intended to have discussion for the first hour and then give them an assignment for the second hour. We ended up talking the entire time. I definitely need to change that this coming week as many of my students have class from 8 to 12:15 that day and all classes were synchronous!
• In History of Math, I wanted to use COVID-19 as part of our conversation so we did a problem on Monday, where I asked them if every person in South Dakota could have a circle of radius 2 meters around them without the circles overlapping. And, we do have enough room for that—even extra to invite some friends.
• Then I asked the History of Math students to post on the Discussion Board their thoughts on what impact they believe Covid-19 will have on the History of Mathematics. It was an interesting discussion and I appreciated reading their perspectives.
• In our Assessment course, we had our annual Homework Debate, where we assign students to be either Pro Homework or Con Homework. Then they have to argue their side. They did a great job, but it wasn’t as fun as it would have been in person. We were all in agreement that there needs to be some middle ground in homework so they are writing their homework philosophies and homework policies for homework this week.

One question that I have consistently asked my students every class is “how are you doing?” They seem to be doing well, but some of them feel a bit overwhelmed by all of the homework and coursework this week. I am not sure that university faculty understand that we cannot possibly cover the same material as we had originally planned this semester. This is leaving the students tired, overwhelmed, and anxious. I was talking with a middle school teacher and she said that her administrator told them to “take what we were planning and cut it in half, and then cut it in half and assign that.”

How does one tell a colleague that perhaps you are expecting too much of your students without upsetting them?