APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) – The first semester at Fox Valley Technical College was a bit different than usual this year, but the changes didn’t seem to have a drastic impact on students getting the experience they need to succeed.
FVTC offered nearly 3,000 classes this fall. Those came in variety of delivery methods, including online, hybrid and virtual classroom learning. But 58% of programs continued to offer on-campus, hands-on learning in their curriculums.
“Prioritization of safety and balancing that with the ability to do hands on technical education which is kind of our sweet spot,” said Chief Academic Officer Dr. Chris Matheny. “We’ve done a number of adjustments to make sure that we could maintain physical distancing in the classrooms, separating out the students so that they had their own spaces to work in…It allows for those people who just need to get their hands-on technical skills in our labs to come in and and be able to do that.”
By increasing the number of alternative delivery courses by 220%-1,900% depending on the method, FVTC says it has been able to keep students engaged and on track to hit their educational goals.
“Utilizing that technology to deliver distance and alternative education for those things that would have typically happened in the classroom. In essence, what we saw was our students ability to have the best of both worlds, which is a flexible online learning environment backed up with the hands-on technical education,” Matheny told WTAQ News. “The ability to utilize virtual classrooms, whether that’s in real time synchronous learning or offline asynchronous learning, has been really key for us. What it does is it keeps a number of those individuals distanced from our campus while still being able to learn.”
There were no significant COVID-19 outbreaks on campus, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a few cases here and there. When the school was notified of those cases, they were ready to make quick adjustments.
“We have had situations in which we have, like the rest of our community, had individuals who have told us that they’ve tested positive. And we were prepared for that…We had contingency plans in place for either those individuals, or in some cases, whole sections of classes because of potential exposure could be changed to an online format,” Matheny said. “It also gives us the opportunity, if there are individuals who test positive, for them to continue their learning and be flexible in the ways that they need to be flexible while they’re still being safe and quarantined and attending to their health…Our faculty had really built and the ability to be nimble in those cases. In nearly all cases, we’ve been able to make whatever adjustments we needed to make and then come back and do the rest of the learning and the hands-on activity when when it was safe to do so.”
For students, the semester went fairly well. But like most other schools, the shift to virtual wasn’t exactly the smoothly transition.
“Usually [in] my program, we can get out, we get to volunteer with community organizations and get actual, real life community experience which we weren’t able to have this semester,” said second-year Natural Resources student, Kimberly Martin. “The communication is a lot harder. Reaching out to teachers for online classes, getting help when you need it right away, was a little bit more difficult because you have to send the email and wait for the response from the email.”
Martin’s classes were broken up into groups for in-person attendance, to limit the number of people filling the classroom. A 20 person class would meet online, and then have two separate groups meet at different times the next day. As for hands-on activities, groups got even smaller.
“[For] equipment training, we split up into even smaller groups of 3-4 students. So we’re outside, we’re still wearing our masks – and giving presentations in class is definitely interesting,” Martin said. “It’s interesting to experience and figure out how to navigate that.”
She points out that giving a presentation in a mask is also an adjustment, as she had to talk louder and be a bit more articulate than usual.
The conversation and interaction aspect is also something that some students need in order to succeed. While it’s not quite as easy to interact with other students with limited in-person classes, Martin says it’s vital to have it around at all.
“Getting some of that interaction – so being able to talk to your peers at school, see your teachers in person, make those connections – it’s an important part of education, especially higher education, it’s where you’re starting to network and meet other people in your field,” Martin said. “The in-person has been a saving grace.”
Some students haven’t had as much of that in-person interaction as others, depending on what they’re studying. But the in-person classes have made the experience more manageable, as Martin says teachers have made things feel as normal as possible – even if it gets complicated at times.
“We would have an online class in the morning, then an in-person class right after that, and then another online class. So we still had to be on campus for even our online classes, because there wasn’t enough time to get home to go to the online [class]. So we’re still sitting in a hallway on campus to attend online classes, which was interesting,” Martin said.
So what can FVTC students expect for the future? School officials say to prepare for a lot of the same situations, at least going into the spring semester.
“I think we’ve had a pretty good success rate with the modality that we’re in,” Matheny said. “We’re really planning to move ahead with our spring semester through May the way that we’ve done with the fall. Then hopefully, looking ahead to the summer of ’21 and the fall of ’21, we’ll be able to welcome our students back in what’s going to be hopefully a more normal learning environment.”
The fall semester officially ends on December 19th. Students will then have a month off before the spring semester begins.
Comments