In mid-March of 2020, colleges and universities across the United States made the difficult but arguably necessary decision to close campuses due to COVID-19 health risks. The Montana University System made this choice, asking over 40,000 students and faculty to relocate off campus and pivot to remote learning in less than two weeks. This change impacted my home institution of The University of Montana Western, and the block-scheduled “Montana Wildlife and Habitats” general education course I was about to teach for approximately 20 students. This course, traditionally an 18 day experiential learning environment focused on lab and field activities in southwestern Montana, was changed suddenly and drastically to a 15 day blended synchronous-asynchronous delivery heavily dependent on both existing and new learning management technologies. At the same time, students were thrust into radically different and at times overwhelming personal living, working, and learning environments. Course artifacts were reviewed to consider themes of adaptive teaching and student learning in a highly context-dependent and uniquely embodied environment. Several new challenges and surprising rewards to teaching natural history in this singular environment became clear.
Results/Conclusions
This block was the most intense of my teaching career. Unstable internet connectivity, rapid student exposure to new technologies, and creating new online content daily created a large technical workload. An additional challenge came in shipping specimens to students, but students were remarkably engaged by access to real skeletons. While a typical face-to-face block schedule is demanding, the students and I experienced higher than normal rates of fatigue the final week. By the end of the course all students were subject to shelter-in-place state orders. Thankfully these edicts permitted outdoor recreation as “essential” activity. This allowed students to safely plan and execute independent natural history field observations – a major learning objective in the traditional class. In most cases students utilized immediate outdoor surroundings, while observing live remote camera feeds was also a viable option to address students’ physical and emotional safety needs. A majority of students contributed an observation to citizen science platforms such as eBird, iNaturalist, and state web-based animal observation forms. Feedback from students indicated the opportunity to focus externally on the natural world at a slower and richer pace and sharing observations was rewarding both in the class and at this particular, pandemic-influenced moment in their lives.