Collaborative learning increases student achievement of learning outcomes in a wide range of disciplines, including the natural sciences, and is a hallmark of authentic assessment. To help students collaborate more effectively, I have used Google Docs, a free, online word-processing program accessible using almost any internet-connected device.…

The 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic forced faculty members at institutions of higher learning across the world into teaching online in about 2 weeks. This reflective essay describes steps taken by business school faculty in a U.S. Midwestern midsized regional university to assist other faculty in the school in making this rapid transition to…

Before handing out my midterm exam the Thursday before spring break, the unease in the classroom was palpable. I questioned, is it the right thing to do to give a midterm exam now? Two days prior we had learned that online instruction would begin the week after spring break and would continue for a week and possibly longer. This was an…

In times when the humanities at large have suffered reductions in enrollments, the ability to build student communities has been seminal to the survival of many departments. Building student communities for language departments in particular includes planning conversation hours, movie nights, and cultural events aimed at attracting students and…

he author, an assistant professor in an aviation maintenance technology (AMT) program, teaches future aviation maintenance technicians at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). Certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the AMT program is a pathway to becoming a licensed aviation maintenance technician and offers an AMT Associate…

The need to quickly transition from face-to-face teaching using engaging, content-based activities to a new, online platform in just two weeks during the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID19) pandemic, made it necessary to try to migrate familiar activities that the students enjoyed into a virtual classroom. The activity that proved to be the most…

The sudden shift to online learning because of the 2019 coronavirus disease created a series of challenges for educators. Faculty took a "triage" approach to reformatting their courses quickly. And while this was a necessary approach for many reasons, it was hard not to wonder what students would be missing. As a communication studies…

This reflection article explores how a library on a regional university campus adapted its services in response to the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. It delves into some of the novel conclusions drawn by its librarians about how the library has and will continue to contribute to the teaching and learning efforts of the campus…

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic created countless challenges in higher education at every level. At the faculty level, one such challenge was how to convert applied internships into online academic capstone courses in the middle of the semester. For programs that require their majors to complete internships as part of a graduation…

As a nursing professor at Goshen College, a small liberal arts college in the Midwest, and a nurse practitioner working at an urgent care clinic, I have realized that there are lessons from the clinic's transformation into a novel 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing center that can be applied to educating future nurses. As nurses, we must…

This essay details the process of transitioning an in-person, undergraduate honors seminar on the global coffee trade to an online course as a result of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Due to the course's demand for physical proximity, specific challenges emerged involving course design and active learning. This essay considers…

"This is very scary. Everybody be safe, social distance, and wash hands please." "This has definitely been an odd semester. I'm very nervous for how the rest of the semester is going to go!" "I am trying to not to be too afraid. I work in the medical field. It can be so scary." These are statements taken directly from…

The creative arts use primarily visual, kinesthetic, and somatic modes of teaching that depend on face-to-face communication in contrast to many other university subjects that rely more heavily on the written word. The hands-on, practice-based nature of art education makes it perhaps one of the least transferrable subjects to a fully online model.…

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is tragic, yet we can still learn a great deal about the virus and its effects. The biochemistry of the virus is rather interesting despite its ill effects, and it is important to know how it works to understand how to defeat…

We investigated practices and emerging themes in a Finnish-as-a-foreign-language course virtual chat that took place between two Finnish language classes in two North American universities. Because of the unforeseen 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in spring 2020, both universities were suddenly required to move all instruction online…