The news came yesterday in the late afternoon: CUNY is moving its classes online for the remainder of the semester. While this decision probably didn't come as a shock to faculty, staff, and students who were opening doors with paper towels and coughing into their elbows, the abrupt change is certainly a disruption. Some students may feel they are losing the essential support system of the campus community. Many of their professors probably feel the same way. For the next few days, from March 12-18, QCC administration and staff is in the process of getting as many courses online as possible. This means everything from training professors who don't use Blackboard, to introducing new elearning technologies. The semester will resume on March 19, 2020. For me, I will spend the time reorganizing my courses so that they are more accessible in an online environment. This means revising some assignments, deleting others, and adding some new, shorter ones. My personal goal is to ensure that my students finish the semester with a body of work they can be proud of. Yesterday, I anticipated that closure was imminent, so I took my English Composition students for a walk at a nearby green space. The air was chilly, but the sun was out. We gathered around a swan who seemed to be posing for the camera and took pictures of plant life with the Seek app. One student got so close to the edge of the pond that I was afraid she'd fall in, but she was smiling more than I've seen her smile all semester. "Can't we have all our classes outside?" asked another. I wish we could. We spent about an hour at Oakland Lake and during that time, news about the coronavirus seemed further away. We weren't washing our hands and wiping down our phones. We weren't sharing the latest news and asking ourselves what will happen next. For a brief time, we watched Canadian geese peck at the ground and swans glide across the lake as if pulled by an invisible string. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, whose Walden I am reading with one of my classes, "Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? (52). All week, I had been doing just that, hurrying from class to class, and then meeting to meeting. What a pleasure to stop and watch a little stream do its own rushing over roots and rocks. In the coming days as COVID-19 continues to make itself known, please spend some time in a natural green space. If you'd like to share your pictures, or thoughts about the CUNY closure, or how this situation has impacted your life, feel free to share them here by clicking COMMENTS below.
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March is such an in between month, somewhere between winter and spring. It's hard to take an March cold snap seriously, not when you know that Spring Break is just around the corner (okay...maybe I'm getting ahead of myself)! The point is is that in between times are the perfect times for checking in with oneself.
As we head into the seventh week of the semester, now is a good time to ask: What goals have I set myself for the semester? What is something new that I've learned? What do I still have questions about? Where do I need to improve? In other words, what do I need to do to accomplish my goals in the time I have left this semester? Share your thoughts in the comments section below! |
About this blogA blog is an online conversation. This one is for students of writing and is an extension of our face-to-face classroom. Here is where we can continue a discussion started in class, ask questions, and test new ideas. Archives
March 2020
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