As the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education proceeds with a safe, gradual return to campus this fall, members of the community are already looking forward to the winter term when the Faculty plans to fully resume in-person activity on campus.
But with the excitement of a long-awaited return to campus, should students expect to see in-person courses delivered in the exact same way as pre-COVID-19?
“Absolutely not,” says Ashley Stirling, associate professor and vice dean of academics at KPE. “We’ve learned a lot, invested tremendous effort and made great strides in advancing educational quality over the last 18 months. As we move forward, our students can expect to see even more variety in course activities and assessments, catering to their diverse learning needs.”
Some of those advancements include the use of new, interactive tools that save time, improve access and facilitate creative new ways of delivering course content and assessing knowledge.
“Tools such as Padlet and Mentimeter, for example, let faculty and students share digital notice boards and take part in live polls, quizzes and Q & As for real-time input,” says Stirling. “Even activities typically associated with face-to-face environments such as labs have benefitted from the addition of tools like the online simulation software custom designed for KPE, which allows students to access the simulations any time and explore scenarios that would be impossible to replicate in traditional lab environments.”
Tim Taha, an associate professor at KPE, is teaching two courses online and one course in person this term. While he’s looking forward to fully resume teaching in person this winter, he’s also planning on retaining some of the teaching strategies and tools he used for his online courses.
Taha has been breaking up his online lectures with “mini-lecturettes” to ensure his students stay focused and participate actively in their learning. In his sport analytics class, for example, he might ask students to watch video clips of a basketball game, count the number of passes between two players, observe where they are located on the court when they take a shot and look for patterns that emerge.
“I could just show them a video of Pascal Siakam and say ‘here’s what he looks like on court,’ but to understand the business of sport analytics, you have to go through each of the steps yourself,” he says. “Having students do more of these types of activities gets them to engage with the material more.”
When classes resume in person, Taha will keep the short video activities online and move discussions back into the classroom.
Assistant Professor Tracia Finlay-Watson is teaching two hybrid courses this term, combining asynchronous online modules that she created last year with in-person tutorials.
“I’ve found the online modules make the lecture content more accessible because students can engage with them at their own pace, revisiting the content and activities whenever and as often as they like,” she says. “When students have time to digest information, there is also the opportunity for a richer understanding of the material.”
The result, she says, has been more students engaging more thoroughly in course discussions and activities, online and in-person. Having the in-person weekly sessions lets her meaningfully re-introduce the practical aspects of her courses.
Both Finlay-Watson and Taha say they have been overwhelmed by how happy the students in their courses have been to have the opportunity to meet again in-person.
“They are so excited to be there,” says Finlay-Watson. “Many students have told me that coming to class on-campus is the highlight of their week.”
Stirling is not surprised.
“It’s widely recognized that we all miss seeing one another, the social connections, the experience of taking in a large lecture in Convocation Hall or having small classroom debates and, of course, what we are known for in KPE - our experiential education, including practical hands-on learning and in-field placements and research.
“With an increased focus on intentionality, accessibility and flexibility in course design over the last 18 months, those experiences promise to be even more rewarding,” she says, pointing out the recent increases in overall course grade averages and feedback from course instructors suggest that, collectively, these measures have already resulted in improved student success.
Stirling is keen to acknowledge the hard work of both faculty and the information technology (IT) and instructional design (ID) teams, who made these advancements possible.
“They truly stepped up to support the Faculty and kept educational quality as the priority, helping our academic programs thrive, not just survive amid COVID-19.”
She also gives high praise to students for their resilience in adapting to new learning approaches and embracing new opportunities to interact.
“Web-conferencing tools have reduced the traditional barriers of time and locations, and many courses are making use of them now to bring in guest speakers from around the world.” says Stirling.
“As we return to campus, we are excited to fully embrace the future of higher education and deliberately integrate the best of what we learned from online education with in-person instruction and experiences beyond the classroom.”