Recommendations for emergency remote teaching based on the student experience

Abstract

Special relativity algebra The Physics Teacher 58, 373 (2020); https://doi. Methods We designed the survey to elicit insight into students' experience with ERT. The survey included open-response prompts as well as Likert-style questions on the effectiveness of approaches to ERT that students had experienced. Other questions targeted interactivity, motivation, workload, demo-graphics, and new challenges in ERT courses. The survey was distributed to students enrolled in at least one physics course at the University of Colorado Boulder, and we received 112 partial or complete responses. For the results discussed in this letter, we only look at data obtained from students enrolled in first-or second-year courses (N=75), 72% of whom were not astronomy, physics, or engineering physics majors. In our population, 77% of students identified as White, while 43% and 53% identified as women and men, respectively. More information on the survey and methods can be found in Ref. 5. Here, we report on four themes from the survey data that we believe are particularly crucial for instructors of introductory courses to understand regarding ERT. Results ERT lecture structure ERT lectures can be delivered synchronously, asynchro-nously, or via a combination of both. Among the students in our survey who had experienced both synchronous and asyn-chronous lectures (N=46), there was no significant difference in their rating of the effectiveness of these approaches, with 70% of the students rating them as 'very effective' or 'some-what effective' in both cases. However, students' responses to open-ended prompts suggest that students saw advantages and disadvantages to both synchronous and asynchronous instruction. Synchronous lectures better facilitated asking questions and staying active in the learning process, while also providing less flexibility and a high demand for internet connection. On the other hand, asynchronous lectures provide more flexibility for those with extra demands associated with being home, while providing less interaction and motivation. This suggests the most effective strategy would likely be to provide both. Regardless, students' responses make clear that opportunities for students to interactively engage with the material, their peers, and the instructor need to be built in to both synchronous or asynchronous instruction. Additionally, across both synchronous and asynchronous lectures, students had complaints that many lectures "ended up moving way too fast since the instructor was not slowed down by needing to write, and there were a lot of things on the page that we weren't actively talking about. " This suggests