COVID-19 brought a seismic shift to the way we teach at the School. Within days of Ontario’s lockdown, instructors began transitioning learning materials to a remote format, allowing our students to successfully complete their academic requirements online.
Now, in response to the pandemic, the University of Waterloo has announced that the majority of courses for Fall 2020 will take place online. Dr. Natalie Hutchings, Associate Director of Academics and Student Affairs explains how the School is recalibrating optometric teaching to meet students’ needs.
Challenge for clinical education
“We’re adapting both classroom and clinical training to ensure students continue to receive the high-quality optometric instruction WOVS is known for,” she says.
In line with the University’s directive, all lectures will be delivered online. All labs and clinic courses will occur in-person, following rigorous safety protocols. All participants will follow mandatory PPE and infection control measures.
“A major concern is how we can facilitate the clinical training that the fourth-year students need to complete their program and prepare for challenging licensing exams,” Hutchings says.
“In making our plans, we examined the Ontario Medical Schools’ plan to resume clinical training, the plans of several other US optometry schools, and College and Public Health guidance. We’ve implemented a compressed Spring 2020 term which will start on July 6th.”
“Clinical rotations will take place over a period of 13 weeks (rather than 15) with 9-day breaks included to give students time to travel between clerkship sites. We're grateful for our clerkship supervisors, who have been very responsive to the modified plans.”
A new approach to course design
When it comes to moving whole courses online for the Fall term, “we’re needing to adopt a different approach to course design,” Hutchings says.
“Our faculty have been fantastic,” Hutchings says of the effort. “There was a lot of teamwork to complete the Winter term teaching, with people sharing screens and making suggestions for each other’s courses. Although it was sometimes stressful, there was also the satisfaction of getting courses to work the way you’d hoped.”
For the Fall term offerings, instructors are reorganizing their course materials from a format designed for face-to-face teaching into online modules, complete with interactive features such as quizzes.
The University has hired online learning assistants to assist instructors in preparing course materials, she adds, “and we’re lucky at Waterloo to have a resource like the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL), which provide not only tools for online teaching but also training in how to use these tools effectively in a remote teaching environment.”
Nurturing connections with the School
Apart from academics, School faculty and staff are also considering the pandemic’s impact on the social aspects of School life that are so important to our students’ experience. They’re focusing particularly on incoming students who will need extra attention to ensure they feel a connection to the School, even though they are learning online.
At the moment, an in-person Orientation Week and other support programs may not be possible. In response, members of the Undergraduate Studies Committee, led by Dr. Shamrozé Khan, are collaborating with the student-led Orientation committee to consider virtual alternatives.
The Undergraduate Studies Committee has already launched a weekly news update for all students. Other activities could include online meet-and-greets with first-year instructors, and connecting first-year students with their Big Sibs (upper-year students who mentor incoming students) virtually.
“Fresh thinking”
Although COVID-19 has upended the way we teach, Hutchings notes some positive outcomes arising from this experience.
“The pandemic has forced us to look at new ways to do things and apply that fresh thinking to other ventures,” she says.
“For instance, most courses across the various Schools and Departments of the Faculty of Science are also being delivered in a remote teaching format in the Fall. This offers the possibility for prospective optometry students, who might otherwise find it hard to access courses that are required for admission, to complete the requirements to apply. This potentially will help us to diversify our applicant pool.”
In addition, Hutchings says that the expertise instructors are gaining in creating material for online learners dovetails with the School’s strategic plan to increase and enrich our CE offerings.
“As much as this situation isn’t what we anticipated for the Year of Optometry, some good things will come out of it,” she says.
