Brokk Toggerson – Page 8

The machinery of very large courses

Well, a new semester has begun. Once again, my Physics 132 course is remote. Due to the unique challenges of this pandemic and remote learning, I am also completely in charge of the lab portion of the course for the first time this semester. This added responsibility, 14 lab sections and 11 TAs, plus my efforts to make the course as flexible as possible in response to the pandemic really has me reflecting on the machinery of very large courses.

This first week-and-a-half has been all about getting things moving. There really are so many pieces: the zoom schedule, the forum, the recordings, the lab manual, the homework, the TA schedule, the TA help sessions, getting all the TAs knowing what they need to do, then helping the 600 students understand it all! It really is like running a small company.

Personnel management should be a required thing for all graduate students.

Fishbone Root Cause Analysis Protocol

This document from the Minnesota Department of Education describes this interesting protocol which describes a procedure for really determining the fundamental causes of a problem (such as student struggle) under the assumption that treating the cause (as best as possible) is more effective than treating just the symptoms. The basic idea is to work to you find a “significant cause that can, in fact, be changed.”

I find this to be an interesting perspective to share when we consider the myriad of unique challenges that our students are facing during this time of COVID-19.

Reflecting on Remote Physics 132

I know the blog has been quiet lately. Like so many others, I have been learning how to juggle everything in this new reality. What time I have found to share with others online has been spent on the page of remote teaching resources I have been curating.

Well, now the semester has finished and I am doing my usual reflecting on how it went and what I can do better for the next round of remote learning in the Spring 2021 semester. A lot happened, so the thoughts are long, but here they are.

My Zoom Settings

There are a lot of settings in Zoom! Last spring during the remote learning, I figured out quite a number of them. A screenshot of my settings can be seen below or at https://physedgroup.umasscreate.net/technical-notes-for-remote-learning/#brokk-zoom.

My letter to students regarding the change to UMass’s reopening plan

Last night, the University announced a change to their reopening plan. In short, the goal is to reduce the number of students on campus and in the surrounding area. While I applaud the efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus, and the science-based decision making, I felt it was important to reach out to my students to both acknowledge the stress they were undoubtedly feeling with such a change so close to the start of the semester. I also want to point out that there was still an option for those students who had nowhere else to go as I felt that this message was (understandably) minimized in the announcement.

My letter to my students is below. I post it in case anyone else wants to use it as a template.