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MCC Daily Tribune

TCC: Tip of the Day - Students have a hard time asking for help.

For the next few weeks, we are inviting our faculty to share stories and images from their virtual classes. What is working well? What are you learning about teaching, teaching online and your students?

Our first highlight comes from Amanda Colosimo from CHE/GEO:

In my experience, students can sometimes have a hard time asking for help, and even though we have a tremendous number of supports at MCC, it is important to get students what they need when they need it. I decided to address this by using the Survey option in Blackboard last week. This allowed students to answer my questions anonymously, so I could see if they were struggling with technology, mental health, and/or their course work, and I could follow up to the specific class with the specific resource(s) in demand. For example, one student asked for information regarding counseling. Even though I shared that info previously, I was able to re-send that information to the appropriate course.

This is my favorite part of this story: For the past two weeks, I have been doing Zoom meetings for all of my lectures and labs in the same time frame and for the same number of meetings as during the semester. I always post Zoom meetings to Blackboard after the class so, in the event a student misses one, they can access the material at a later time. I thought, given the complexities of life at this time, maybe they would have wanted to only Zoom half of the time... or maybe none of the time! So I asked! In all of my classes, 100% of my students want to continue to Zoom as often as we met during the face-to-face semester. In the comments, I learned why. My students want normalcy. They want the familiarity of their classroom dynamic and they want to have a schedule. In the end, technology has been able to salvage a sense of community and continuity for my students, and I'm so grateful!

Your students may or may not feel the same. Why not find out from them?

If you would like to talk about what's happening in your classes join the daily non-judgmental conversations about teaching during COVID-19. These happen daily from 9 - 10 am and 3 - 4 pm.

https://monroecommunity.zoom. us/j/672991431

Meeting ID: 672-991-431

1-929-205-6099

If you have a story to share, email Gena Merliss: emerliss@monroecc.edu.

Eugenia Merliss
Teaching & Creativity Center
04/13/2020