SHA-Cordecho-Winter-21-22

S P I R I T . M I N D . B O D Y . C O R D E C H O 1 1 S U P P O R T I N G C O M M U N I T Y A N D L E A R N I N G during a pandemic, Nadine is focused on how to keep her students engaged in the coursework while promoting their wellness and mental health. She is the first to say that teaching a class like statistics over Zoom is not ideal. Still, she has done what she could to meet her students’ academic needs while taking a holistic approach to their learning and well-being. She reflected that while at SHA her teachers and coaches always respected who she was as a person. The personal relationships she developed with her teachers and coaches made her want to do well in the classroom and on the court. She was inspired to always do her best. While there are certainly challenges to creating personal relationships with the hundreds of students enrolled in lecture classes, Nadine makes the effort so students know she cares. Last year she created a fun playlist that would welcome students to class as she admitted her remote students electronically. She was quick with a joke and a levity of spirit. Her classes were all recorded in case a student could not make a lecture, and she increased her virtual office hours. She admits she missed the instant feedback that was available to her in a lecture hall, where she could read the room and see if students were following or needed further clarification. Online, Nadine needed to be more explicit in her request for feedback and to prepare for her class differently. She assessed differently as well, allowing students to use their textbooks and notes freely during tests. In short, Nadine made every effort to extend grace to her students. Located just a few hours outside of New York City, Binghamton has many students from the greater New York City area. Many of her students were frightened and had been personally touched by COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic when NYC was the epicenter of the outbreak. She vividly recalls a student visiting during virtual office hours concerned about an upcoming test in statistics. As the conversation continued, the student shared she had recently lost a close relative to COVID, that both her parents were currently fighting the virus, that she couldn’t safely go home, and that she was living with relatives out on Long Island where virus numbers were beginning to climb. Nadine took the time to conduct a mental health check-in with the student and focused on her primary needs of self-care, health and safety above her performance on a statistics exam. Nadine took the time to be present and be a positive, supportive person in this young woman’s life at this critical point. Nadine herself was initially overwhelmed by all the changes that came with the pandemic. From re-working her coursework to trying to invent ways for her research to continue, work/life balance was elusive for her in the early days of the pandemic. However, over time, Nadine found a rhythm to her day that worked. Eventually, she learned some meetings could be replaced with an email exchange and gradually found that she could carve out some additional personal time since her daily 60-minute commute was eliminated. She set mental deadlines for herself as to when she would switch off her computer for the night in favor of talking to family, baking or working out. She even found time to introduce a puppy to her routine which did wonders to elevate her spirit. This prevention scientist shares that balance is the key to many mental and behavioral health challenges. That balance will look different for everyone, but one lesson learned during this pandemic is that health is holistic and requires us to give ourselves and others a little more grace. Amy Csizmar Dalal PhD ‘90, Director of STEM Board and Professor of Computer Science at Carleton College and encourage discussion in this very unique new landscape. She put everything on the table and was more thoughtful about structure, what she was doing in the classroom, and the course arc. Having in- person and remote students posed challenges to keeping them engaged and to continue inquiry-based learning. Amy’s and her colleagues’ solution was to build on the sense of community among learners at Carleton, many of whomwere drawn to the college for its well-known excellence in classroom teaching. She created teams of students (with both remote and in-person students) who worked together throughout the trimester-long course. The thought was that in this tight-knit community, students would not want to disappoint fellow classmates and would stay engaged in the learning process, even if they could not be together in a classroom. When considering the opportunities that COVID presented in an academic setting, Amy remarked that she was utterly impressed by the dedication and ingenuity of her senior capstone students in computer science. This team of students partnered with local government and schools to create a white paper on the state of internet connectivity in Northfield, Minnesota and ways to support its expansion. Having the real-world problem of students needing to learn from home without the necessary resources vividly demonstrated the inequities in the current model and spurred creativity in proposing solutions. This community support and fresh thinking happened despite the inability to meet with stakeholders in person and was made possible through the use of online meeting platforms, online surveys and other tools. Looking forward, Amy is most excited about her first- year seminar course entitled Ethics and Technology. She anticipates that students will come with many real- world examples including questions regarding equity in availability to internet connectivity, access to COVID-19 vaccines, and technology-driven decisions on lockdowns and economics. She is confident that the lessons learned at Carleton over the past 18 months will enable better exploration of this and all content.