Montana State University-Northern uses innovation to reach students after classes go online

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Montana, Montana State University-Northern, like the other universities and colleges in the state, was faced with the task of teaching students safely through technological advances, including this fall semester adding additional time to classes and having finals remotely.

Along with all other campuses last March, Northern went to remote learning over spring break, then set a schedule with in-class learning the start of the fall semester, switching over to remote learning after Thanksgiving break.

Automotive, diesel and agricultural mechanics professor Wane Boysun, who has taught at Northern 24 years, said the hardest transition for him was last spring when COVID-19 hit the country. When the students and faculty left for spring break, he wasn't sure what it was going to be because the coronavirus was unpredictable.

"The transition went from status quo to, all of a sudden, shifting to online. That was where the learning curve was," Boysun said.

The plans were a little more specific with the start of this semester, he added.

"We knew way back in August what the academic calendar was going to look like. That had been planned out by the administration at Northern over the course of the summer so they had a plan in place."

COVID-19 closes classrooms

In March, Montana Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian - who was one of Montana's earliest in-state confirmed COVID-19 cases - issued a directive before his case was confirmed directing the public Montana University System campuses to transition as many classes as possible to online or other distanced-learning techniques to reduce exposure to the novel coronavirus.

Northern set up a team to determine the best way to continue classes in the fall semester, and the university decided to go back to in-class learning for the start of the semester, then transition back to online learning after Thanksgiving.

The university plans to continue with in-class learning next semester as well.

The university has had confirmed cases through the semester, but has not had to shut down the campus.

Director of University Relations Jim Potter had not responded by printing deadline this morning to recent requests for information about numbers of confirmed cases and quarantines at the university.

Data from the Montana Department of Health and Human Services, updated for Dec. 9, listed 64 cases of COVID-19 associated with Northern, up 6 cases from the Dec. 2 report.

Transitioning to new models of teaching

Northern Director of Teaching and Learning Excellence Lindsey Brandt-Bennett said the university helped its faculty prepare for the new realities of teaching during a pandemic.

Instructors who were faced with the challenge of providing a safe space for themselves and students by going through workshops to adapt their teaching during the pandemic. Professors learned different strategies to enable the best possible classroom experience throughout the summer and additional training in the fall, Brandt-Bennett said.

Some of the primary programs offered at Northern are hands-on, thus creating new challenges for faculty and students.

Hands-on learning environments, like lab courses in nursing and automotive and diesel technology, have continued in a face-to-face format at Northern. However, the instructors of those courses have had to be creative in situations where students needed to be remote due to quarantine, isolation, or other if students had to be temporarily remote, many classes included alternative ways to learn and demonstrate hands-on skills, such as simulation software or interactive video assignments.

"Many instructors scheduled make-up lab sessions to allow students to complete important skills tests and other hands-on work once they were able to return to campus," Brandt-Bennett said.

Face-to-face labs were treated with care for the safety of students by practicing social distancing, wearing masks and using sanitizer.

Northern also added technologies to help faculty present their classes and help them create content and activities and deal with issues that arose.

"We invested significantly in technological upgrades across campus to allow our instructors to provide students with access to class content and class activities if situations came up where they had to be remote due to COVID-19," Bryant-Bennett said. "Likewise, instructors were able to teach remotely if a COVID-related situation came up on their end."

Back to remote learning

Boysun said he transitioned his classes into finals after the Thanksgiving break.

"We were basically doing this all fall semester. We did hands-on courses in our labs, so we followed the social distancing requirements," he said. "Students and faculty all wore masks, and that's just another layer of personal protective equipment on top of what we normally do."

Northern extended its class periods by five minutes every day in the fall to make up for time lost going remote after the break. By doing this over the semester, the classes made up some time so students could get the same amount of learning before the break, Boysun said.

"The traditional fall semester, depending on how Thanksgiving falls on the calendar, we might go up to Thanksgiving and have the break, then traditionally there is one week of lectures and one week of finals," Boysun said. "We also did a few recorded lectures to still make it the same content time. So basically, when we got to Thanksgiving we dismissed the students and all of the finals were given online, so that was a pretty easy transition."

Boysun said, in his opinion, how it was handled was a good thing.

"The clear message is that we didn't shorten the semester, we still have the same content time. They were creative in extending the lecture periods." Boysun said. "So, normally it's a 16 week semester, 15 weeks of learning, the 16th week is finals. By extending those class periods by five minutes a day over the course of 15 weeks, that made up the difference."

Boysun said students had a "mixed bag of reactions" to continue with their courses in the face of the pandemic.

"I truly believe the students were very happy to get back to hands-on learning." Boysun said. "I think the students were happy to be back on campus. I think that would be the big thing, as the semester went on you could see trepidation with the students, its like everyone else in society, a certain segment that know what COVID is, and why we are doing the protections that we do."

"The fall semester, from my point of view went a lot smoother than I expected it to back in August," Boysun added.

Reimagining teaching

Agricultural Operations Technology Assistant Professor Brianna Bernhardt described the hands-off experience after Thanksgiving as "reimagining teaching."

"Northern students are not online students, they didn't come here because they excel at online." Berhardt said. "We had to rethink how to teach. It's been really exciting. I know the Office of Teaching and Excellence has been unbelievable in teaching us how to use the technology, so, that way, it's not hands-off."

Bernhardt has been teaching at Northern for two years, but said, to her, its reimagining her job, and despite distance she is still able to teach and engage with students.

Students have access to videos, they get a lot of the credit for completing assignments online and there are components they can do at home. Bernhardt said, she also had to adapt to this new system of technological learning.

"I'm a new teacher, so still I am kind of figuring out my teaching style, and that's been helpful because I'm not super rigid yet," Berhardt said. "I'm very flexible. It's been very challenging. I don't want to underestimate how challenging it is, but it has been very challenging."

For Bernhardt, she said, switching over to technology has meant learning how to use the cameras, use online to make things more interactive and engaging, so instead of a PowerPoint it's a PowerPoint that includes a video that has quizzes in it. Bernhardt has had to implement Zoom and Webex to accommodate her teaching style.

"I use Zoom with the students just because it's a little more user-friendly, they can get it on their phone. It's hard to get them all in the same place at the same time." Bernhardt said. "Agriculture students are all over the place, I give a lot of the credit to their parents who let them do new things or try new things on the farm that usually isn't their responsibility."

Bernhardt said she is optimistic about next spring, and believes that classes will only get better from where they are at now. She said that online is tough, but the students and faculty have learned so much from dealing with COVID-19.