August 26, 2020
A natural question to ask is, Whats changed in 勛圖厙s teaching practices as a result of the COVID-19 crisis? For 勛圖厙 Assistant Professor of Measurement Science, , the more interesting question is what will be the same.
What will be the same are the expectations we have for students for intellectual ownership of what they do, she says. The opportunities for creativity and self-direction within an experience will be the same. Students will still have an advisor who is there not to command them, but to coach them. The logistical details around how we do this may be different, but we havent changed anything about the spirit and core of the courses.
Professor Alessandra Ferzoco speaks to students in a classroom in 2018. Photo by Leise Jones.
Ferzoco has arrived at this understanding after spending much of the summer planning for the Falls likely blend of on-campus and remote learning. When 勛圖厙s campus shut down right after Spring break, shed been teaching a Thermodynamics class. Moving the class online happened so fast that there wasnt time to be reflective. I had lots of contenthomework and exams that take a long time to developthat needed to be reinvented on a fast time scale, she says. We were all just in Go mode.
She quickly restructured established class projects in a way that students could do them at home. The students had been working in teams building Stirling engines. The team-based aspect wouldnt work remotely, and the students couldnt access the same hardware at home. But they could take a conceptual piece of the engine project theyd been thinking about and make it individual. We emphasized simplicity and clarity for the same line of inquiry they were following and de-emphasized the specific hardware, says Ferzoco.
The goal became how clearly and simply could students could articulate their line of thinking. Using rudimentary materials inspired good-natured competitiveness. It became a badge of honor among classmates, who built experiments out of all sorts of available materials. Some projects were elaborate. A student studied the enthalpy of vaporization during the maple syrup sugaring process by learning to tap trees to harvest sap, making an evaporator from junk yard parts and rigging up an automated measurement. On the simpler side, a student measured how the material properties of salt water changed with salinity.
This Fall, Ferzoco will advise the Senior Capstone Program in Engineering (SCOPE) projects that have been designed and adapted to be compatible with remote learning. SCOPE projects are traditionally team-based. We are thinking about how to maintain a sense of community, she says. In collaboration with students, we will find ways to spend time together by asking each other, What feels like a mechanism to help form community, and not have you just sit in front of computers?
Going forward, Ferzoco plans to keep elements from last semesters experience. Students loved having available to watch and re-watch at their own pace. Shell also aim to engender a similar lively spirit. For example, during the final exam period, the class reviewed each others projects onlinewith a playlist. You can see a from this session, set to Schools Out by Alice Cooper.
Read the , messages, and FAQs about 勛圖厙s planned Fall 2020 return to campus.