{"id":88919,"date":"2020-04-29T01:59:30","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T07:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/at-fort-lewis-college-mock-trials-and-studies-of-sedimentary-rock-seem-to-translate-online\/"},"modified":"2020-04-29T01:59:30","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T07:59:30","slug":"at-fort-lewis-college-mock-trials-and-studies-of-sedimentary-rock-seem-to-translate-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/at-fort-lewis-college-mock-trials-and-studies-of-sedimentary-rock-seem-to-translate-online\/","title":{"rendered":"At Fort Lewis College, mock trials and studies of sedimentary rock seem to translate online"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College geology professor Kim Hannula says geoscience professors across the country are working to turn summer field studies into a format that will work through online videos.<\/span>Courtesy of Kim Hannula<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Kim Hannula is among 300 geoscience professors scrambling to convert field classes in which students scurry up and down rock formations to something that works online.<\/p>\n

Brian Burke had a week to figure out how to move a mock trial that forms the centerpiece of one of his counseling classes from face-to-face interaction to a video format.<\/p>\n

Despite the short time frame imposed on Hannula, a professor of geosciences at Fort Lewis College, and Burke, an FLC psychology professor, they seem to have manged in the space of a little more than a week to move their well-planned classroom encounters to digital exchanges on Zoom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s gone very well, considering the circumstances, and the circumstances are obviously crazy,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n

Normally, when a professor teaches an online class, Burke said it\u2019s a summer class and the professor and students have months to prepare. Students ensure they have proper internet access. Professors begin lesson planning firm in the knowledge the class will be delivered digitally.<\/p>\n

None of that was in place in the COVID-19 semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was obviously ad hoc; it was just flying by the seat of our pants, and one day it happened, and we had a week to prepare for it,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College geology professor Kim Hannula says her cat Vi often makes appearances in her online lectures to students.<\/span>Courtesy of Kim Hannula<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Hannula said she\u2019s taken lectures and divided them up into 10-minute digestible segments with simple PowerPoints so even students living in remote areas like the north Animas Valley or the Navajo Nation can find a place with good internet access and view them without issues.<\/p>\n

The videos sometimes include her cats, Vi and Hobbes, which she occasionally uses in place of rocks, with their stripes serving to denote the different sedimentary layers. And they are always good for morale, as students try to guess if the cats will make a lecture appearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the students may feel the impact of moving online more than faculty,\u201d Hannula said.<\/p>\n

The classroom provides structure, it gives them deadlines and helps them stay motivated, and that may be the biggest thing to make up for when classes move online.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then many students are dealing with all sorts of other stresses in their lives. Some have lost jobs. Lives have been disrupted, and some of them are struggling, I wouldn\u2019t say with motivation, I wouldn\u2019t even call it motivation. I would just call it life is crazy right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In some ways, Hannula said she has an even better sense of what\u2019s going on in her students\u2019 lives than she would in a normal semester because students are doing more individual work, tailored to where they are living.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re doing a lot of individual stuff and turning it in rather than doing group work in a class where I might not be checking in with every individual student out of 38 students. Students are sending me emails telling me I am not going to turn this in by this deadline. And this is what\u2019s going on in my life and that might not happen face-to-face,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One thing Durango is almost certain to miss, Hannula said, is summer field classes when students from across the country descend on FLC to take advantage of the region\u2019s geologic wonders.<\/p>\n

Classes often use FLC dormitories as home base then take camping expeditions for field studies.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of geosciences teachers are working on ways to turn summer field classes into something that translates through online videos, Hannula said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe National Association of Geoscience Teachers has been running workshops and planning groups to think about how to deal with especially the field work, taking students outside. One thing that you won\u2019t see in Durango in June is the vans driving around that are full of geology students from other parts of the country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College psychology professor Brian Burke says he managed to bring in noted trial consultant Tara Trask, an FLC alumna, to help out his forensic psychology class with an online mock trial that has moved from face-to-face interaction in the classroom to online encounters.<\/span>Courtesy of Brian Burke<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Burke said it helps that classes this semester had nine weeks to build a community before they were forced to move proceedings online.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to set up a strong face-to-face relationship. And that relationship is helping us for these next few weeks because we know each other, we know each other really well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Burke said his forensic psychology class has continued on with its mock trial.<\/p>\n

Jurors can break off into their own Zoom meeting for deliberations.<\/p>\n

He was even able to bring in Tara Trask, a renowned trial consultant and an FLC psychology major, to work with the class.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnline class turned out to be a win,\u201d he said. \u201cShe wouldn\u2019t have been able to come out and be in our class. But she was able \u2013 especially since now a lot of her trials are postponed and she has some extra time on her hands \u2013 to dedicate some of her time to help the class.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwest Colorado, a haven for nation\u2019s geology students, unlikely to see summer field trips<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,132,28,275,4202],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-88919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-headlines","tag-internet","tag-online"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88919"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=88919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}