I was very interested in trying some STEM courses online pre-pandemic and so I had done a lot of research on how to put physics labs and lectures online and was supporting the work of some other faculty in my department developing courses. Naturally this all got accelerated sometime in March of 2020. At this point I pivoted my classes and the courses in my department (Physics, Engineering, and Earth Science) into an online format, and we had regular community of practice meetings within our department (but open to all) to troubleshoot new ideas and discuss how things were going. I started relying heavily on feedback from peers and students to build solid online courses and from that started using Flip, Padlet, Canvas Studio, and YouTube pretty heavily in my courses. I learned to make instructions clear and short, cut videos into shorter topics, and respond early and often to students in canvas and via google voice.
This class was so valuable in validating what I have been doing, polishing up my courses by showing me new cool ideas, and demonstrating all the cool things an online class can be. It was instrumental in creating a motivation to take all the things I have learned both from students and this course and really making my canvas containers/courses super polished.
I have already implemented some of the projects from this course into the courses I am teaching (both in person and online) and have some big changes I would like to make for my courses in the following semester. My big goal is to take some of the lessons from this course and propagate them to the rest of STEM and the college. We have many faculty participating in this program that really love it and I think it will help us with our ongoing campus cultural shift to stop fighting online education and lean into creating high-quality, intentional courses for students in STEM and beyond.