Turning to Each Other: Reflections on Teaching and Collaborating during the Pandemic of 2020

“Love the Student You Have ” with Russel Lowery-Hart

By Dr. Elizabeth Benton, Professor of English, Montgomery College

Continued and disruptive turbulence[1] in COVID-19’s path demands educational change in higher education.  This commentary reflects my vantage point experiencing educational change in three teaching situations: full-time teaching and faculty leadership at a community college; teaching one evening a week at the university level; and teaching two monthly doctoral cohorts at yet another institution. At each institution, I have experienced rapid, responsive, and caring educational change.  Despite disruptions that threaten students’ future and educators’ commitment, I bear witness to continuity of learning practice grounded in theory and compassion that confronts and wrestles down defeat.

For the past several weeks, I have struggled to capture the essence of teaching in higher education during the COVID-19 crisis. Thoughts pour into my mind, all jumbled with words like instructional design, coping, mental health, student well-being, trauma, remote instruction, synchronous vs. asynchronous, learning management systems, Zoom, Canvas, and Blackboard. Despite a workplace t

hat continues to be defined by “severe turbulence” or even “extreme turbulence”[2] caused by “unpredictable environmental changes”[3] I find myself in awe of faculty, institutional leaders, and students who have faced COVID-19 with unwavering resilience and commitment to the accessibility and integrity of post-secondary education.

For the past thirteen years, I have served as a faculty member here at Montgomery College.  Most of my work at Montgomery College involves teaching and leadership: implementing reform initiatives, collaborating with academic support areas such as writing and STEM centers, and directing an internship program. One Friday afternoon, when we realized remote instruction would continue indefinitely, I was asked to form an ad hoc committee that would revamp our English composition placement procedures during emergency remote teaching. We needed this instrument ready for summer one registration, so we had about two weeks to design and implement.  Although the task was daunting and the time frame unfathomable, students needed a path forward. Math and chemistry departments already had a workable remote placement process. English as a Second Language had until June to get their process ready, but English and Reading, the largest department at the College, had not a second to waste.  The English Composition Remote Placement Committee came together in warp speed and included eight faculty members, department chairs, deans, administrative aides, academic advisors, and an assessment center director. Adhering to educational change best practices, we “engaged in a social process” focusing on “resolution of disruptions rather than on the disruptions themselves.”[4] We reached out to a neighboring institution Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) that had piloted a similar design of directed self-placement,[5] and the director of their program shared materials within days. Enacting change by “including multiple

perspectives,”[6] our remote placement instrument developed swiftly and methodically. Although it is still being tweaked and modified as needed, it is working for newly enrolling summer and fall students.  My colleagues’ collaborative spirit—both at MC and CCBC– and depth of caring mitigated at least some of the disruption of COVID-19 for newly enrolling students.   As a committed group of peers, we studied the literature, designed and edited the placement instrument, and continue to seek feedback for improvement.  We leaned into change, and we are better for it.

In a different way, I have experienced educational change as an English composition instructor at a local university, where I teach one evening course and am far outside the decision-making epicenter. I stumbled into this course, receiving a call to teach an upper level composition course, about two weeks before the spring semester began.  I had never taught the course and I knew not one faculty member in the department.  Shortly into the COVID-19 transition to remote teaching and learning, a mentor who had been assigned to me, began reaching out regularly. The mentor, a full-time faculty member, sent weekly check-in emails that simply read, “How are you this week?” The one week I did not respond, she reached out again. I could describe the myriad supports the university provided—wellness sessions, instructional design and delivery support, library and writing center tutorials– but the weekly email from a peer mentor buoyed me through the challenges of teaching as an adjunct faculty member. Without a doubt, the university effectively “minimiz(ed) the effects of excessive turbulence”[7] on my teaching situation and my students and created a “community of shared practice.”[8] The mentoring I received, in turn, provided support to my students and me: I could settle in, teach my classes, and extend the same generosity to my students, many of whom were lonely and discouraged.  Just recently, a graduating senior who successfully completed the course, wrote to me to express her gratitude. She was appreciative of the small group check-ins rather than whole-class synchronous sessions and assignment extensions when she encountered several weeks of dizzying migraines. Feeling supported by a mentor gave me a gentle reminder of the place of grace in teaching.

At another university, I experienced teaching through COVID-19, but in this space, with two cohorts of doctoral students that included educators and industry leaders.  One educator fought back against the crisis by going to her middle school parking lot to connect to campus Wi-Fi so she could send lessons to her students. She explained that she was not alone: other teachers, who also had limited Wi-Fi connections at their homes, were already in the parking lot when she arrived upwards of three times a week.  Another student described having about twenty-four hours to copy thousands of curricular guides for pick-up by parents and/or drop-off in rural neighborhoods where Wi-Fi was limited or nonexistent.  Through my work with these K-12 educators, I witnessed the pandemic’s exposure of educational inequities that many of us have turned away from or have never bothered to see.  My other cohort of doctoral students included heath care leaders, law enforcement professionals, and county leaders. One of my students emailed something like this: “I may miss our synchronous class tonight because we are converting the hospital garage into patient beds.” Another student emailed something along these lines: “I’m on our COVID response taskforce, and I will be calling in from the station.” Another student described a separate, personal issue, unrelated to COVID-19, that had struck her family. Yet, despite these students’ personal and professional mountains to climb, they showed up for each other in group discussions, monthly synchronous class sessions, and interviews they had lined up for final projects. And, the irony still stuns me: I was trying to teach them qualitative methods that focus on human experience[9]  and researcher reflexivity.[10] No theoretical or empirical text could teach these doctoral students—leaders in their hard-hit communities–what they were experiencing in real time: the phenomenon of the human spirit in the midst of a pandemic. It was global and intensely personal. And yet, they persisted.

We already know that the COVID-19 crisis is going to continue to be a turbulent, disruptive experience in small and large ways. As I process the changing nature of higher education, I will continue to reflect on the experiences that I have witnessed in order to build on them.  At Montgomery College, I will continue to work arm in arm with faculty, staff and administrative peers to adapt programs rapidly so student needs can be met.  I did not think that we could solve problems quickly, but we can.  I think this semester has also reinforced the important notion of mentor programs, especially for part-time and new faculty.  Had the full-time faculty member at UMD not reached out to me, I probably would have gone about my business just fine, but detached, nonetheless.  And, finally, when I think of my interactions with students, I just have to be more responsive.  In the hustle and bustle of the semester, I don’t really listen enough.  In these past weeks, I’ve learned that one-on-one and small group sessions, “breakout rooms,” are invaluable.  I look forward to continuing the increased frequency with which I meet with small groups of students, employing a responsive pedagogy centered on understanding student need by listening before guiding.

Fortunately, as educators, we do not journey alone: “When we do not know what is coming next, we look at each other and ask, ‘What’s next?’  This turning to each other without certainty is perhaps the pregnant seed of all social change.  When current structures are in doubt, people engage with one another and make decision together about what to do”[11] As a teacher at this time, I can say that my work is undergirded by the strength and resilience I have witnessed in the past two months. The awe-inspiring teachers, educational leaders, and students assure me that we will get through this time together and, not surprisingly, stronger.

[1] Brian R. Beabout, “Turbulence, Perturbance, and Educational Change,” Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education 9, no. 2 (2012): 15-29.

[2] Steven J. Gross, Promises Kept: Sustaining School and District Leadership in a Turbulent Era (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2004).

[3] Beabout, Ibid., 22.

[4] Ibid., 15.

[5] Gross, Ibid.; Kylie Kenner, “Student Rationale for Self-Placement into First-year Composition: Decision Making and Directed Self-Placement,” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 43, no. 3 (2016): 274-289; Christie Toth and Laura Aull, “Directed Self-Placement Questionnaire Design: Practices, Problems, Possibilities,” Assessing Writing 20 (2014): 1-18; TYCA white paper on placement reform, Teaching English in the Two-Year College 44, no. 2 (2016): 135-157.

[6] Beabout, Ibid., 26.

[7] Ibid., 17.

[8] Ibid.

[9] H. Russell Bernard, Amber Y. Wutich, and Gery W. Ryan, Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2017); John W. Creswell and Cheryl N. Poth, Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2018).

[10] Karin Dahlberg, Helena Dahlberg, and Maria Nyström, Reflective Lifeworld Research (Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur AB, 2007); Mark D. Vagle, Crafting Phenomenological Research, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2018).

[11] Beabout, Ibid., 17.

Works Cited

Beabout, Brian R. “Turbulence, Perturbance, and Educational Change.” Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education 9, no. 2 (2012): 15-29.  https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/complicity/index.php/complicity/article/view/17984.

Bernard, H. Russell, Amber Y. Wutich, and Gery W. Ryan. Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2017.Creswell, John W., and Cheryl N. Poth. Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2018.

Creswell, John W., and Cheryl N. Poth. Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2018.

Dahlberg, Karin, Helena Dahlberg, and Maria Nyström. Reflective Lifeworld Research. Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur AB, 2007.

Gross, Steven J. Promises Kept: Sustaining School and District Leadership in a Turbulent Era. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2004.

Kenner, Kylie. “Student Rationale for Self-Placement into First-year Composition: Decision Making and Directed Self-Placement.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 43, no. 3 (2016): 274-289.

Toth, Christie, and Laura Aull. “Directed Self-Placement Questionnaire Design: Practices, Problems, Possibilities.” Assessing Writing 20 (2014): 1-18.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2013.11.006

TYCA white paper on placement reform. Teaching English in the Two-Year College 44, no. 2 (2016): 135-157.

Vagle, Mark D. Crafting Phenomenological Research. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Dr. Elizabeth Benton teaches full-time at Montgomery College for the Department of English and Reading.  Elizabeth enjoys teaching English composition and grammar as well as supervising student interns through the education department’s field experience program.  Elizabeth is the Program Director of the Montgomery College Minority Faculty Internship (McMFI) and Academic Support Innovation.