As a global pandemic loomed, the Online Instruction Department at GWC worked quickly to make the transition to online learning as seamless as possible for faculty and students
When COVID-19 hit, Juli Van Dorn and her two colleagues in the Online Instruction Department, David Vasquez and Julie Nguyen, along with their leader, Jorge Ascencio, were put to the ultimate test.
The small team of four had already been supporting some 150 online courses using Canvas — GWC’s learning management system — but had to quickly pivot to provide accelerated training and support as instructors rushed to convert hundreds more courses to online and virtual delivery. Twelve-hour days and working weekends became routine as staffers fought to stay on top of the monumental task.
“It was quite a logistical challenge to provide training and assistance to such a huge influx of instructors — all at once — with such a short amount of time and so few staff members,” Van Dorn says. “Our faculty really only had a couple weeks to adjust to new teaching modalities and convert their course materials before resuming interactions with students. And we were doing our best to support them.”
Fortunately, the Online Instruction team had performed a good deal of technological groundwork before the novel coronavirus surfaced. Two levels of Canvas training courses for faculty were already up and running, and numerous self-paced videos of the most common Canvas tools had been created by Van Dorn. Such work made it easier for the team to skillfully manage the tricky and stressful transition.
They were ahead of the curve as the nation and world frantically took steps to “flatten the curve.”
Says Ascencio: “It was truly an outstanding feat worthy of praise and admiration.”
Van Dorn, Nguyen and Vasquez worked to make sure the transition would be as seamless as possible for many new-to-Canvas faculty and students.
In record time, they created a modified Canvas template for all GWC instructors to use, an Urgent Response website for technical support, daily webinars — sometimes totaling four per day — open Q&A sessions, and even more “how to” videos.
After the team handled the first major influx, members added private virtual office hours for detailed one-on-one questions and additional sessions of Van Dorn’s Level 1 training in Canvas. She also had to remake some of her videos when Canvas’ Rich Content Editor got a facelift and upgrade.
“The Online Instruction team did, and continues to do, a tremendous job in helping the college transition to online delivery of classes during this COVID-19 crisis,” Ascencio says. “It’s an honor to work with such a great team that has an excellent work ethic and is completely dedicated to the college and the success of its students.”
Deep Roots at GWC
Back when Van Dorn started her nearly 20-year career at Golden West College as a work-study student, the dawn of online instruction at GWC had just begun.
GWC offered its first online class, in psychology, in 1999. Van Dorn started a year later, in Fall 2000, working part-time as a specialist who helped faculty, staff and students use the college’s learning management system.
She’s been at the job full-time since 2006.
WORK COMPANION
A week before the GWC campus was closed, Van Dorn found an abandoned and crying kitten in a bush on campus. For some time, she had been planning to adopt one from a shelter.
So, she plucked up the kitten and took him home.
Ravi, a silver Tabby, has been Van Dorn’s quarantine co-worker ever since, hopping on her lap often as she works from her home office.
In the spring, after the campus was closed and most departments were ordered to stay home, Van Dorn and her colleagues began providing support via webinar training and Virtual Open Lab hours to help the faculty acclimate and solve any issues that came up as they finished out the spring semester and prepared for summer.
Beginning with summer instruction and, now, stretching into the fall, all teachers will use Canvas in some form or another.
Because Van Dorn’s team knew that all courses would continue to use Canvas, they added more sessions of both Level 1 training — Introduction to Canvas, and the Level 2 training — Online Teaching Certification. The Level 2 course is taught by Marisa Whitney, GWC’s Distance Education Faculty Training Coordinator. Both classes are delivered online, providing teachers the chance to experience Canvas as their students do.
Van Dorn taught five of these Level 1 courses in the first six months of the year, with 147 faculty earning completion certificates.
Also offered is a self-paced “mini” version of the course for faculty who had already completed a Canvas training course from Van Dorn before 2019. The mini course helped another 57 faculty members achieve Level 1 certification in the first three months of quarantine.
TIGHT-KNIT GROUP
When Van Dorn began holding live Canvas training webinars, Nguyen and Vasquez were critical to pulling it off.
Using Zoom teleconferencing, Van Dorn’s hour-long webinars demonstrate how to use the various features of Canvas, with Nguyen and Vasquez answering questions in the chat. These webinars supplement the series of video tutorials Van Dorn had made before the pandemic, helping GWC stay ahead of the curve in the transition to online instruction.
The team did an average of about 13 webinars per week during the first month of the lockdown.
“It was insanity,” Van Dorn recalls.
From March 18 to mid-April, the Online Instruction team hosted nearly 400 participants in their webinars, with teachers and others pitching in to help.
Michelle Palma, a professor in the Geography Department, organized a COVID-19 Faculty Peer Support forum, in which teachers hosted discussions where they answered peers’ questions. They served as an extra support team.
Van Dorn says she’s immensely grateful for how faculty, staff and others stepped up during the transition.
“What the faculty members have done during this transition has been absolutely heroic,” she says.
And her already-close colleagues in Online Instruction are even closer now.
“We’re a really tight-knit group,” Van Dorn says. “We’ve been together for a long time. I’m so lucky that I get to work with these people. They’re family and they’re wonderful, and I’m so grateful for them.”
