TIFTON — Susan Roe is listening to one of her voice students perform.

Joseph Falcone is readying an experiment.

Jeff Newberry looks over his literature lecture notes and starts to speak.

All of their students are miles away.

The three Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College professors have had to pivot from in person teaching to online teaching as colleges across the state have stopped holding on campus classes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s a difficult process that’s turned teachers into students and has taught them a few new things.

The Voice in the Machine

Like many ABAC faculty, Dr. Susan Roe had to go through a crash course in online teaching. She had taught one-on-one voice lessons through Skype before, so she knew it was possible, but it would need to be scaled up.

Even if in person classes are over, she still needs to guide her student through the rest of the semester and make sure they’re meeting their goals and learning objectives.

“We had to prepare in two weeks what most people have 12-24 months to prepare for,” Roe said. “I have never, since college, stayed up this late. I’m an old dog and I had to learn new tricks.”

Roe is the head of the ABAC Department of Fine Arts. She also leads the music program and directs the ABAC Concert Choir and Jazz Choir.

In the first week, Roe’s students were overwhelmed, but they’ve quickly caught on. There were adjustment along the way, like when Roe realized she needed to adjust her tempo playing live piano to account for the delay in the students hearing it.

Roe praises the college’s IT staff for teaching the faculty how to make it all work.

ABAC’s music teachers are adjusting. Teachers assign choirs and musicians for their students to listen to, analyze and write about.

“I’m really impressed with my faculty,” said Roe. “There’s so many things you can use to enhance your teaching and having to teach online has taught me a few things.”

Roe and other music teachers have had their students record themselves singing or playing their instruments and then send the recording to the teacher. It’s yielded unexpected benefits for Roe.

“I would have never thought it, but this is letting me see what they’re doing wrong and how they’re practicing wrong, instead of what they do when they’re with me,” said Roe.

Experimenting with Experiments

“Twenty-five years of teaching and I’ve done it almost all at the chalkboard or the whiteboard,” said Dr. Joseph Falcone.

Falcone, who is teaching organic chemistry and senior seminar classes this semester, has found himself being a student again this semester, going through the same online teaching crash course as Roe.

“It’s kind of a steep leaving curve,” said Falcone. “For the first time I feel like I’m back at university, learning. It takes a lot of adjustment. It’s not optimal, but you do what you have to do.”

Falcone had already been using Georgia View, an online class manager to upload course materials online: class syllabus, lecture notes, presentations.

In addition to that, he’s now adapting entire class lectures, turning them into video discussions and lectures, and doing voiceover on PowerPoint slide.

“The hard part is you lose the face to face time with the students, all the little visual cues that they’re getting it or not getting it,” said Falcone.

Falcone can record lectures and upload notes, but labs are part of his organic chemistry class, the crucial hands-on part where students apply the science they’ve learned to do experiments.

“They’re a challenge to do in an online format,” said Falcone.

Falcone videotapes himself doing experiments alone in the lab at ABAC. He takes detailed photographs along the way, assembling it all into a video.

It turns the teacher into an avatar for the students who can’t be in the lab themselves. They follow along with the video and can comment along the way.

“The downside is they don’t get to get their hands dirty,” said Falcone.

“It is sad to sacrifice the personal interactions with our students,” Falcone added in an email. “It is especially hard at a school this size where we pride ourselves on knowing our students by their names and their aspirations.

For his students working on their senior projects, Joe is planning a virtual symposium, where they can present what  they’ve learned throughout their research projects.

Instead of an in person senior poster symposium, the students are presenting their research in an online format, recording voiceovers with a PowerPoint presentation and walking Joe through their work.

He acknowledges that for some students, having the technology and internet access to do this can be difficult. He’s looked at the possibility of students mailing their final projects if need be.

“Worst case, if they can’t get it all done with technology being an obstacle, we can work with them,” said Falcone. “There’s always a way to work around, you just have to adapt.”

Literature Online

“Fortunately for me, I had experience,” said Dr. Jeff Newberry. “I’ve taught online several times, though it’s been a few years.”

Newberry’s teaching four classes this semester, two composition classes and two British literature classes.

He’s opted against doing live video classes, citing the unreliability of rural internet.

“We’re in this unprecedented crisis right now,” Newberry said. “I know our students are under stress and I didn’t want to put more on them.”

Newberry records lectures, talking over PowerPoint slides and laying out week by week assignments.

Then he uploads it to Youtube and Kaltura for students to watch on their on time.

“I try to maintain some rigor and make sure they’re reading,” Newberry said. “And I try to have some humanity and empathy. They’re going through a tough time.

“They’re nervous. they’re worried about getting the work done, worried about the technology. And rightly so — they took face to face courses for a reason. For them, this is new territory.”

And while he’s taught online before, it’s new territory for Newberry too, transforming classes that are halfway through the semester into online versions.

“It’s strange,” said Newberry. “I really like the classroom, like being in the classroom. I enjoy the give and take with students, the kind of alchemy that can happen in a lecture when you see the light turn on in their eyes…An online discussion board can only do so much.”

Newberry tells his students  “If you trust me, I’ll get you there.”

“A friend of mine calls it ‘educational triage,’” Newberry said. “We’re just trying to get through it. If I can get them through the next five weeks, I’ll be happy.”