A Tale of Two Web Design Courses
By Dale Blasingame
Assistant Professor of Practice
June 11, 2020
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One of the most interesting things about teaching happens in just about every class, every semester. Somewhere along the way – usually toward the beginning – the class develops its own unique personality. This phenomenon was never more evident during the final five weeks of the Spring 2020 semester.
The move to remote learning affected all of our classes, of course. In my experience, remote learning intensified the unique personalities of my classes – two of them, in particular.
This spring, I taught two sections of our Web Design and Publishing course. Students coming into the class should have a bit of coding experience from taking our Fundamentals of Digital and Online Media course, but this is the first deep dive into HTML, CSS and Bootstrap for the vast majority of them. Students are typically nervous and a bit apprehensive about what they’re getting into – but most of them usually seem eager for the challenge.
How they tackle that challenge is where the class personalities come into play.
The web design course typically works this way: The professor demos a new idea or topic – and then pauses so the students can catch up. This happens over and over and over during class time. Tutorial videos for every topic are then made available so students can go back and watch again on their own time.
Section Personalities Emerge
My Monday-Wednesday section, from the very start of the semester, made it clear they needed/wanted an abundance of hands-on guidance. That’s totally understandable, and I appreciated that the tone was set right away. It helped me know how to meet their needs and accomplish what we all wanted out the class.
My Tuesday-Thursday section could not have been more opposite. Despite 1-2 outliers in the class who came to just about every office hours availability, this group collectively set a vibe from the get-go that they were good with the material and wanted to, for the most part, figure things out with minimal 1-on-1 involvement.
Both models worked. I’m just always amazed when the class personality differences are so clearly defined.
When we switched to remote learning, it became clear the Tuesday-Thursday section was thriving in this scenario. Sure, I was still getting office hour visits from those who were already doing so while meeting in-person, but the visits from Tuesday-Thursday students were typically short and precise. My Monday-Wednesday class, on the other hand, began to struggle without the face-to-face demos. Even though I had videos for everything we would have covered in class, they really missed that experience of watching me do something in front of them and then standing over their shoulder as they did it themselves.
I tried a few adjustments to help remedy this situation, but I’m not sure if it was enough. For starters, I heavily increased office hours. I found my Monday-Wednesday students were coming in with more prolonged questions or issues to help troubleshoot, so I wanted to be there for them. (Their availability also scattered as they moved home or picked up extra shifts at work. I had an office hour appointment at 10 p.m. one day, because that was the only time the student was available.)
I increased the amount of tutorial videos. If a student had a question in office hours, especially one of the Monday-Wednesday students, I went ahead and recorded a video for everyone to see the answer. And, I extended deadlines as much as possible.
By the end of the semester, I was incredibly proud of both sections. The Monday-Wednesday students submitted some great final projects despite the circumstances. I don’t want to insinuate the work was inferior – but, as a professor, I still felt bad that the needs established as part of the class personality couldn’t be met because of a situation that was out of our hands. Here are a few examples of their multimedia reporting project using the Bootstrap front-end web development framework, making the best of their situations in isolation.
Student Reflections
I asked each section for honest feedback about the remote learning experience – and the distinct personalities were obvious. Here is a sample of some of the feedback (with some slight editing for clarity) from the Monday-Wednesday section:
"Finishing the last half of this class was honestly an experience I never want to do again. While Dale did everything he could as a professor to help us where he could, the inability to not be able to say exactly what your issues were became a challenge to express. We got so used to coding while being able to ask him questions and have him look at the code to only being able to when our times coordinated. We also lost the ability to use help from our classmates. I also found this very challenging after it became online because I was not retaining the information he wanted us to use as quickly (this goes for all my classes) because I am a hands-on, active learner."
"This class has definitely been a rollercoaster ride for me. There were multiple times I contemplated giving up, because I didn’t think I was going to last. I will say that I enjoyed the first half of this class more because it was easier for me to learn and retain the information. In a classroom setting, we were easily able to get hands-on help from the professor and other classmates, if we didn’t understand something. Having to complete the second half of this class online caused me so much stress. I honestly had no confidence in myself that I could continue on alone. I’m actually shocked, but also happy, that I made it through to the end."
"While the Zoom meetings and the tutorials were SUPER helpful, it was not the same as being face-to-face. Luckily, I didn't have any major issues that seemed impossible to fix, but I was really having to figure everything out on my own."
"Wrapping up this class was honestly one of the hardest things I've had to do. Doing the projects at home by myself was hard, and it was also very stressful. The videos did help, but I am more of an in-class learner. I have to be present or else my attention span is not very good."
Here’s a selection of feedback from the Tuesday-Thursday students. Pay attention to the difference in tone:
"The videos were everything I needed to complete the projects. I decided to start on each project considerably early. This made them enjoyable and not stressful. I was able to take my time to let my creativity show through. Without needing to go to campus or class, I was able to concentrate more efficiently (in all classes)."
"Having an extremely understanding professor, as well as helpful classmates, made the process easier. I also had to get myself on a strict schedule and ensure that I was allowing myself time to work overtime rather than waiting until the last minute. Overall, I can say that I have really enjoyed this class and plan to continue to expand my skills in web design."
"Although it was a little difficult doing the last two projects at home without someone there to help me troubleshoot, it was a nice challenge to try and figure it out on my own (or rely on YouTube, haha)."
"The two final projects were easier for me since I no longer had to commute to campus. It allowed me more time to focus on assignments and pay attention to detail."
"I have honestly really enjoyed this class. I feel like having to do the last two projects at home helped me learn about myself more and learn more about the way I learn and problem solve."
You’re always going to have students who want more hands-on guidance than others, but I’ve never been in a situation where the difference in style was so starkly obvious between entire sections. As professors, I think we all learned quite a bit – both good and bad – during the emergency period of remote learning this past semester, and I know this dichotomy was my biggest professional challenge during that time. Like many other teachers at all levels, I’ll be thinking about the things I could have done differently to reach every student if this ever happens again. I’ll let the class personalities guide me to the solution.