Teaching & Learning Champions 25: Maintaining student engagement in online courses
May 26, 2021
Today on Teaching & Learning Champions, we’re joined by two of the 2021 e-Faculty of the Year nominees Lisa Moore, Associate Professor, Professional Nursing, and Eddie Garcia, Professor, General Studies and Student Development as we talk about maintaining student engagement in online courses.
Thanks for listening to TLC @ ACC!
Episode Transcript:
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[Matthew Evins:] Welcome to another episode of Teaching and Learning Champions. I’m Matt Evins, Director Of Academic Technology And The Teaching And Learning Excellence Division At ACC. Before I introduce our special guests, we want to know how do you embody ACC’s faculty values? Send us an email at T-L-E-D-C-O-M-M-S, that’s TLEDcomms@austincc.edu, with a selfie of you holding up your favorite value and let us know. You can also learn more about the history of ACC faculty values and how we’re embedding them into t-led programming at austincc.edu/facultyvalues. Today I’m joined by Lisa Moore, associate professor in the Professional Nursing Department and Eddie Garcia, professor of general studies and student development, as we talk about maintaining student engagement in online courses. It’s also worth noting that both Lisa and Eddie are nominees for this year’s e-Learning faculty of the year through Austin Community College. So Lisa and Eddie, thank you very much for both joining me today.
[Lisa Moore:] You’re welcome.
[Eddie Garcia:] Thank you for having me, Matt.
[Matthew Evins:] Absolutely. Let’s jump right into it, because I’m very interested to hear about how you both, being from very different departments at ACC, how you’re both maintaining student engagement through these tough times. So, let’s talk a little bit about before COVID, before the pandemic, before the push to fully online courses, what types of activities and techniques have you used to foster student engagement in your courses? Again, before COVID. So, Lisa why don’t you go ahead and start.
[Lisa Moore:] Wow, B.C, that feels really long ago. I kind of see that there’s three types of student engagement; there’s student-to-student, student-to-instructor, and student-to-the content, at least sort of in nursing. And that you have to foster all three of those. And I’ve always tried to have a pretty collaborative classroom. I go in with the attitude that we’re all there to get to know each other and learn from each other, I’m not just there to teach them. I’ve always come away learning something. And I teach entry-level nursing students, so this is their first real nursing experience, they can be pretty nervous. And one of my, I guess icons, Florence Nightingale said how very little can be done under the spirit of fear. So I kind of take that to heart, and don’t want my students to be afraid of me, or the path in front of them. I try to promote a fun sort of environment. I guess before COVID, things that I do to make it collaborative is a little bit easier because we would all wear the same colored teal scrub. So, that kind of puts us all on the same team, too. I would try to make a point of learning about them during orientation, just something, their hobbies, or their pets or where they’ve lived or something so that I can have some personal aspect of them that I can remember and ask them about. And they seem to like that. And with nursing, I know, I mean every educational journey is a big one, but nursing it can be pretty tough. And I encourage, would encourage them to get to know each other and have a study group and just really focus on that student-to-student engagement. Because you know they’re going to need to count on each other through that walk in front of them. So, I guess those things.
[Matthew Evins:] Can you talk a little bit more about the student to content engagement? That’s one that I know instructors from lots of different disciplines sometimes have a hard time getting students to engage with the content. What are some strategies or activities that you do to help foster that?
[Lisa Moore:] Gosh, before COVID, I almost want to want to say it wasn’t as easy, I think. I do little games. I think when I use things called Kahoots, Jeopardy, things like that they can actually have sort of a sense of competition and enthusiasm for, and that kind of helps to I guess have the content come alive a little bit more. It’s less drier. Again with nursing, I can present the information but they also have the text, they also have, I try to find YouTube videos, and I guess injecting a lot of humor into the content makes it a little bit more attainable.
[Matthew Evins:] Great. That’s excellent. Eddie, how about you, from the student development and general studies side?
[Eddie Garcia:] Hi Matt, thank you. I want to echo a lot of what Lisa had mentioned about feeling a part of the team. One thing I’ll say on before COVID, there was a lot of class discussion and group presentations in the courses that I teach. One aspect that I’ve always enjoyed about being in the classroom is that I’m there, and I can see students reactions in live time. Like if I’m attempting to explain a concept or go over something, and a student maybe looks a little confused, I can always try to ask or you know seek, see if I can help out or clarify. A lot of our work with students is about building relationships and connections, and letting them know that we care. If students know that we care, it can help us build rapport and it can also allow for a safe space for students to feel comfortable to ask questions and therefore this can help on facilitate learning. So, before COVID, it was pretty, I’ll say it was pretty straightforward to walk into a classroom and the students can essentially feel your presence when you walk in because we were there. It was visible. You know throughout the class when we’re giving our presentations and asking them to work in groups and pairs, we can you know circulate throughout the class and we can walk up to the students and pairs and to their groups, and you know have a seat and sit down and ask them questions. And you know, again that was before COVID. In the online environment, sometimes that can be a little more difficult to replicate. But one thing that I’ve always found that’s helpful is when students know that you care, when you work to build a rapport as Lisa mentioned getting to know everyone’s name, you know making students feel comfortable. And when you communicate that you have high expectations of the students, and when you really work to help them learn instead of you as someone who’s just up there telling them what they have to as students, you know, what they have to do, that they need to do this. But when you step back as a facilitator, and just help them understand how this can tie into what they want to do in their career, in their academic life, and even in their personal everyday life and situations, it really helps students get on board with things. And again before COVID, that was a little more straightforward because we can walk into a classroom and our students are there, they can see me, and I can see them. But once, you know, once COVID, you know, came in, set in, it became a little bit more of a challenge to replicate that online. But those are some of the things that I think about when I’m fostering student engagement before COVID.
[Matthew Evins:] Yeah, one of the things that I’m taking away from this already is that there’s really three core things that you both have mentioned. One is building that rapport between you and the students, and between the students. Second being a level of trust. You know, if students don’t trust their instructor and vice versa, and if students don’t trust each other, it’s going to be very easy for students to shut down in the classroom setting. Whether it’s in person or online. And then Lisa, what you mentioned about humor is something that as a, you know, as a student is something that I always found to sort of lessen the tension in the room and to build more engagement. So, those are three things that I’m already taking away from this. Those are great characteristics. Let’s move, start transitioning to today’s current climate. How did you have to adapt your teaching techniques for online teaching while still trying to maintain that high level of student engagement? Eddie, do you want to go ahead and start with this one?
[Eddie Garcia:] Yeah, I can definitely I’m trying to take, I can definitely go on this one. Lisa had mentioned earlier about the three types of interactions, learning-to-learner, learner-to-content, and learner-to-instructor. So one thing that I’m thinking about to maintain high levels of student engagement, and it’s especially challenging in the distance learning setting, but I like to keep in mind three different, three components that are similar to what Lisa had mentioned. The three components that I keep in mind are what we call the components of the community of inquiry model. And it has to do with number one, social presence; number two, cognitive presence; and number three is teaching presence. I mentioned previously before COVID I can walk into a classroom and students can see me, I can see them and, you know, that was pretty straightforward. But in regards to on social presence, for me this is making sure that students know that I’m available and they know that I’m a real person as well, as other students in the classroom. When I think of social presence in a distance learning class, I’m always conscious about how I engage with students.
I work to create social presence by doing things such as posting weekly video check-ins, making sure I respond to students in a timely manner, and also create opportunities for them to interact with their classmates through discussion board and also opportunities for them to create online presentations that they can post to Blackboard. Now, when I think of the concept of cognitive presence, this is more from a very psychological standpoint of how students come together to learn and construct knowledge in the classroom setting. And I keep this in mind with how my course is laid out and how the material is presented. I also want to make sure and encourage all faculty to consider the different formats that they make information available in. Just one, you know, one quick example is I have PowerPoints that students can read if they want to, but I also do video lectures and of course the textbook. And for cognitive presence is also helping students understand the expectations. So having clear rubrics for all assignments really helps students understand how they’re going to be graded and what it is that you’re looking for. And it’s also important for students to have clear expectations. And this allows for, you know, students and after, you know, after they have the clear expectations, they can reflect upon those expectations so it can help guide their work and their assignments. And lastly for teacher presence, to me this one’s huge. Teacher presence is how we interact with our students, and how we guide them through the learning experience. For me this can be something as straightforward as including a biography in your course. It can be also as straightforward as responding to emails. I highly recommend for teacher presence having something in your syllabus in which students know the time frame that you will respond to emails. And probably equally important or maybe more importantly, when we respond to emails it’s not just like a one or two sentence response. You know, we address the student by name, and then we really look to address their questions. And also for teacher presence I think about developing a weekly pattern. It’s pretty, what I’ve always joked with colleagues is that in the distance learning classroom students like predictable, and they like boring. And, you know, boring okay here’s what I mean by predictable and boring. Students in my course understand that every Monday and Wednesday before 12 o’clock, they get a video message from me on Monday that gives a breakdown of everything that’s due for that week, and I show them how to do it. And then on Wednesday they get another check in. And I remember one semester, Wednesday at two o’clock had come around and the student reached out to emailed me and they’re like hey Dr. G, are you okay? We didn’t get your message ,so I’m hoping everything’s okay. And I just completely forgot to go in and release the message. But the students get used, you know, part of your teacher presence is they know when you can expect new things, when you will answer emails, when you’ll respond, when you’ll post these messages for them. So, to me that was I’m pretty nice to see that students do respond to that and they are like wondering hey, is something okay with my professor? Because they didn’t do something that they’ve always done. And, you know, the last thing I’ll leave is for teacher presence is definitely make sure you’re addressing students by name, especially in the emails. And then when we go to grade, when we go to grade in Blackboard most of my grade, actually all of my grading is done in Blackboard, I always make sure, I just don’t jump right away to my comments about what I liked about the paper, how I thought it could have maybe been a little stronger, in what areas. Always take the time to include the student’s name. But those are the three big things when I think about presence. Because presence, when we were in person, that’s something that you can feel. In a distance learning environment, it definitely is a little more of a challenge to work to develop that social presence, that cognitive presence, and that teacher presence.
[Matthew Evins:] One of the things I want to follow up with you on is you had mentioned that students in a distance learning course like boring and predictable. Do you find that to be opposite of what students like and expect in a face-to-face class?
[Eddie Garcia:] You know, in my limited experience Matt that’s just based off of my own personal experience and observation, speaking for no one else, what Lisa had mentioned before about jokes, I’m probably one of the worst joke tellers that has ever lived. And when I tell my really dry, boring sense of humor jokes in the distance learning classroom students would mostly just laugh because they were so boring. Or if I could relate something. I’ve noticed that in a distance learning environment, for me personally, the jokes don’t always come off as intended. So, for me personally I have refrained from that. And I probably shouldn’t have said I’m boring, I should have just said something more like students like predictable, and they like, you know, predictable and routine. I just chose the word boring because I don’t think of myself as much fun. I don’t think of myself as much fun. Although, you know, again in a face-to-face classroom, when the joke comes off and it’s bad and students can see you laugh at yourself, in live time, it makes for a different environment. So, in distance learning, for me personally, only for me personally, I have a hard time replicating that. So, distance learning, I do try to keep it as unpredictable and routine as far as how everything is out there for the students. And of course, having some humor is always a good thing. I can when I try, but I have stayed away from my bad jokes in the distance learning environment.
[Matthew Evins:] Good to know, I appreciate the advice. Lisa how about you? How did you adapt your teaching techniques for online course delivery?
[Lisa Moore:] I’ll admit this is a continuing challenge, I think. Like Eddie, said I really miss the face-to-face interaction, and being able to like clearly see a student’s expression when they’re getting a concept and a light bulb goes on over their head. And so what I have done is I guess most of the time, I’m kind of thinking as I go here, but I do keep my camera on when we have lectures, like synchronous lecture time or class time, I guess, not necessarily lecture. But I keep my camera on as long as, you know, bandwidth permits. And I do encourage the same for my students, but I don’t mandate it. I respect that, you know, we all come from different walks of life, and they may not feel comfortable about where, you know, where they have to have to Zoom in from at that particular point. So I never mandate it, but I like them to see that, you know, I’m like them, my house isn’t always clean, I have a crazy puppy. You know, I can kind of convey some of that humanity in an online environment that I miss from a person-to-person. Another thing I do, I use the whiteboard in Blackboard collaborate. And I’ll throw that up there, especially if I am running a couple minutes late. But what I do like to use it for, as people are jumping onto the call, or to the session, is I’ll put a prompt up there. Like how are we feeling? Or share some news. Or, so they can type or write on the whiteboard, and it’s anonymous, so they can type to each other. And it kind of gives me a pulse check of the class. Whereas, you know, sometimes when you were face-to-face you could you could look around the room and go okay this bunch just bombed that test or whatever. And now, I don’t really have that. So, I think that that anonymous whiteboard is a good tip that I like to use it. And I get pretty good participation using it, because probably it’s anonymous and they’re all curious too to see how each other are doing, and what’s new or whatever the prompt is. And then when I’m in class, as far as promoting that high level of student engagement, even if they don’t have their camera on, I don’t like to lose them, I don’t like them to fade into the woodwork. And they know I’ll call on them if they’ve been quiet too long, I’ll say okay guys, I’m okay alphabetical, you know, from z to a this time and I’ll start calling on somebody to pitch in if they haven’t already. And like I said, that like things like Kahoots, they seem to really like that. It reinforces the content and then the student-to-student engagement because they’re both, you know, they’re kind of competing with each other. So, that’s just a couple techniques I use.
[Matthew Evins:] Great, let’s switch over. While we’re talking about these techniques that you’ve adapted for online delivery. I know for both of you’ve indicated that there is been some level of difficulty in implementing them, but let’s talk about what feedback you’re getting as a result of this additional effort if you will to incorporate those techniques. What has been some of the feedback from students or overall results in student success and retention in your courses after your attempts at adapting these techniques for online student engagement? Lisa, do you want to talk a little bit about the feedback and results first?
[Lisa Moore:] Yeah, I guess mainly, you know, subjective but students have told me that they really appreciate my supportive and positive demeanor. But, you know, it was scary for all of us early in the pandemic. And I don’t, I shouldn’t say more so in nursing, but these were level one students that still weren’t very experienced with nursing in general, or how to protect themselves with hand washing and all that stuff.
So, just to be supportive, positive. And to be honest I probably could use better work-life balance. I think I was, and I still am, but very reachable. You know, if they if they text me or if they emailed me, I would respond. So, they liked knowing that I could be counted on to get back to them. And that was some of the feedback. So, it makes it hard to draw a line in the sand, like don’t text me after nine or something because I know it does mean a lot to them. But I think that is kind of an ongoing challenge for faculty in general to kind of keep a balance during this time.
[Matthew Evins:] Sure. Eddie what’s the feedback and results been from these activities on your side?
[Eddie Garcia:] Well, I want to first say, I want to touch base regarding what Lisa had mentioned. How they’ve been, students I have found are very honest, brutally honest, and they’re pretty good at seeing through when people are fake. So, when Lisa mentioned that her students really appreciated how she was available, helpful, genuine towards them, I 100 percent, you know, that’s to me, that is just such an awesome thing. Because I have noticed that students can tell when as faculty if they’re not being sincere. So, you know, Lisa if the student puts that, if the students [inaudible], although like you said it’s subjective, if that’s what the student is saying to you in the written comments, that to me is just like one of the biggest compliments that a student can give you. Because students.
>> Thank you.
>> Yeah, students can easily tell when, from my perspective, what I’ve seen, students can easily see through someone who’s not sincere or pretending to be. So I, you know, I want to just acknowledge that. You know, those type of, even though, I will say being in my position I have, you know, we all read our faculty evaluations but then I’m also on the on the side where I also review other faculty evaluations when we’re going through our faculty evaluation process. And to me when students mention something about a faculty member that is so positive it’s, you know, you cannot fake things like that, because students will definitely see through you. For me personally, what I’ve noticed, and the attempts at, you know, maintaining student engagement as I found that in the distance learning classroom, to me one of the I guess the better compliments that I can receive, or that I like to see and other faculty’s evaluations is when students mention to me or about another faculty member, that they say hey, I actually felt like I was in a real classroom. They’re like hey, I felt like I was in a real classroom. And I have often mentioned to my colleagues that distance learning courses for me, they require more time and preparation, since I have to carefully craft and consider how I’m going to reach all students. And Lisa had mentioned, too, the time on, you know, usually that, I’m thinking of the word, we have set prescribed times in which we would meet during the classroom. In the distance learning environment especially depending on, you know, like Lisa had mentioned work-life balance, a lot of times those lines blur and we’re working, you know, at all hours. And, you know, and answering emails at crazy hours, you know, at night, too. But I will say that for me, my distance learning courses, I have found that, you know, students tend to ask me for letter recommendations at a higher rate than my in-person classes. And I attribute that to the effort that I put into getting to know students in the distance learning setting. And again, you know, one of those things is, for me one of the compliments, or one of the aspects of the student evaluation that I like when I see it is when a student is like hey it felt like I was in a real classroom, and this was a real class. And I’m like, well, we’re not in a classroom but this is a real class, so I’m glad that you took that away. So, you know, again I think it can be easy to underestimate the amount of work that actually goes in. You know, the amount of time, energy, effort, and attention that goes into working to create those experiences that where Lisa mentioned where students are like hey, you know, thank you for being there, you were very positive. And, you know, also when students are like hey, it felt like I was in a real classroom. So, the feedback has been pretty positive on my end from what I’ve noticed. And then of course there’s always that like one comment where you’re like oh I should have done something, you know? There could be ten positive things, but there’s one that was like hey, professor, you were not good, you could do this better. Like okay, what can I do better? How can I get better? And you kind of just, at least for me, I tend to get fixated on, you know, one comment or one word when, you know, there’s more positive things. So, I’m learning too on my end that always work diligently towards helping students in creating an environment where they feel like it’s a class. And also learn, as Lisa mentioned earlier, it’s always, everything’s a learning process. Always learning, always trying to figure out how we can get a little bit better somehow.
[Matthew Evins:] So, it sounds like you both have gotten some great feedback from your students as a result of these adaptations that you’re making in your courses. Eddie there are two things that you mentioned that are a great segue into the last question for today’s episode, which you had mentioned the fact that, you know, it does take more time to plan and consider the approach and delivery for online courses than it does for face-to-face courses. As well as what you both have mentioned navigating that fine line of the work-life balance. For those faculty members who are having a difficult time maintaining student engagement, what suggestions might you give them as to how to approach it, or maybe where to get started, or where to go for some guidance or inspiration? Let’s see, Eddie do you want to start with that one?
[Eddie Garcia:] Yeah sure, okay, I’ll give this one a go. Faculty having a difficult time maintaining student engagement. So, I would mention that for faculty that are having a tough time that, it can be a matter of going back to the basics, and here’s what I mean. There are times in which I want to use the most fancy technology that I could use and get my hands on, and then I get caught up in the technology part and the information that I wanted to convey gets lost in the technology and overpowered by it. I would say for me, there are times when less is more, the more simple the better, and I would recommend that faculty learn to master a few technologies and go with those. I will say that Blackboard is a technology, and a lot of times I feel that I’m using Blackboard at a very high level. But then I talk to some of our instructional designers, and then I learn another new trick that can actually make my work a little bit more efficient and actually better for the students. So, you know, learn to master a few technologies, and go with those. And, you know, again I would recommend learn to use those at a very high proficient level. And I would also mention that faculty should understand that, you know, student engagement from my perspective, it has to be intentional, it has to be well-timed, and placed appropriately. You have to also have a desire to want to build student engagement. You also have to have, from my perspective again, my perspective and opinion, you also have to have a lot of consistency and routine for how you use and deploy technology. And it’s going to take effort, it’s lots of effort. And sometimes you don’t know if it is working until the end of class when you get student feedback and you’re like oh, this student feedback was, you know, generally positive. You may not realize the results of it until after, because throughout the class maybe you’re getting a couple emails from students, and you’re trying to check in on everyone. But then at the end, it’s like hey well it seems like I was doing was working, even though at the time you were like I wonder if this is reaching the students. So, you know, again pick a couple technologies that you can get very comfortable with, learn to use them at a very high proficient level, don’t let the technology overpower your message and what you’re trying to accomplish. And also remember that, you know, communication, communication. Whether it’s in the written email format or if it’s something in the verbal format as when you set up a Google meet or a Zoom meeting with the student. Pick a couple technologies, learn how to use them, and use them at a high level, and that will help develop your confidence to eventually try other things. So, that’s the perspective that I have.
[Matthew Evins:] I love the idea of less is more. I think that’s definitely a piece of advice worth applying for all faculty, and not just those who are new at adopting technologies. But oftentimes we do get lost in technology, just like you said, and it tends to overpower the message as opposed to the other way around. So, great advice Eddie, thank you very much. Lisa, how about you?
[Lisa Moore:] Yeah, I concur with Eddie as far as, you know, don’t try to be all things to all people overnight. As far as technology. And I guess that was, while you were talking, that was the biggest thing I thought of. If you’re having a hard time maybe maintaining student engagement, what works for me anyway is to just be authentic. When we rapidly went from a mainly all-in-person format to an all online format overnight, it helped me to just be authentic with them.
I think it created an environment which then allowed them to kind of give me some grace when I needed it, you know, I never hid the fact that I had to transition to online just as quick as you did, and it wasn’t easy for me either, and we’re all in this together. And that sort of fostered a real sense of engagement, I think. And by being I guess authentic like that, then they would give me some grace. When I did try a new technology or a PowerPoint didn’t load like I wanted it to, or you know, somebody knocks at the door in the middle of a lecture, and the dog’s barking, you know? We could just kind of laugh about it or roll with it and work our way through it. You know, just roll with the punches. And, now don’t laugh at me, but another thing I’m thinking of doing is kind of like a crazy sock day in elementary school but for Zoom classes. To have crazy hat day, or pirate day, or something. One of my students suggested it, and I kind of I kind of laughed about it, but then I floated the idea late in the term and they thought that was really a fun idea. Even if it was just, yeah, crazy hat day. And just that would encourage people to put their cameras on, encourage students to show up and see what everybody else came up with. And just add a little bit, another layer of engagement. You know, it doesn’t have to be, like Eddie was saying, you don’t have to know all the latest and greatest technology. Just kind of think back to what worked before and how can we spin it a little different to still maintain some of that enthusiasm and engagement. And so I’ll let you know, I’ll let you know, how that works in August. [Laughs].
[Matthew Evins:] That’s great thank you very much for sharing that, Lisa. That’ll be a fun little activity for you and the students.
[Lisa Moore:] Thank you.
[Matthew Evins:] Well, Lisa and Eddie, I want to thank you both very much for your time today. Before I let you go, I do have one question that I do ask all of the guests on this podcast. And that is there anything giving you Riverbat pride this week? Now, today is Monday, so there’s probably not much to mention yet. But, you know, feel free to think back to last week at least. Is there anything giving you Riverbat pride? Lisa, why don’t we go ahead and start with you.
[Lisa Moore:] Oh, gosh yeah. This was actually, if I reflect back on last week, this is a perfect time for this question. First and foremost, this was my first group of students, nursing students, that graduated. And my group is the ADN so RN students that actually survived their entire program during this COVID pandemic. So, I was so incredibly proud of that bunch. And the other thing, again it’s more of a nursing health science focus, but if anybody gets an opportunity to go toward the new simulation facility at Highland, it is unbelievable, state of the art. I’m just so proud of ACC for investing in that and for supporting all of the health science career fields at ACC, with the investments that they made in that facility. It’s just incredible.
[Matthew Evins:] There’s a lot a lot of great stuff going on in the in the new buildings that we’re opening up, so it’s definitely worth looking at. And congratulations on your first cohort graduating.
[Lisa Moore:] Thank you.
[Matthew Evins:] Eddie, how about you? What’s giving you Riverbat pride today?
[Eddie Garcia:] Riverbat pride? So, I was thinking of this and there is a lot. For one the students who graduated on Saturday. And also, ACC as a whole, the faculty and all of our employees I should say. Now, I’m biased since I’m a product of the community college system, but I’m going to say that community college students are some of the most hardworking, resilient, and resourceful students out there. And I’m always going to bet on ACC students any day of the week, especially after what a lot of our students have been through throughout the pandemic, and even this semester with, you know, the winter storm that came by. [Inaudible]. Yeah. And about our faculty, and our faculty throughout this pandemic, our fellow colleagues have shown, from my perspective, a remarkable ability to adapt their teaching. I do think that once upon a time teaching online might have been something that was, that I used to kind of hear it was dismissed as easy. But I will say that a lot of our colleagues I feel have learned the true amount of work that goes into a distance learning class. And our faculty colleagues have, you know, have risen to the challenge and they’ve kept grinding. And also, all of our employees, I mean everyone, I would say our student services personnel. There’s times where I have questions and I reach out to some of our completion counselors in student affairs, I reach out to some of our advising on supervisors, and they’ve always been very helpful. And also in the same respects, I’m also thankful that the administration has seemed to take in a pretty thoughtful approach in their COVID-19 response, and their willingness to focus on the health and wellness of our students and employees. And I’m hopeful that the thoughtful approach will remain in place as, you know, we continue to navigate this pandemic. But I am really proud of everyone associated with ACC at all different levels. There’s so many people. You know, Matt, you know, you’re working behind the scenes. I happen to be on one of those, you know, same committees that you lead. And there’s always a lot of work that’s going on, but there’s not a lot of times in which people are aware of a lot of the good work that’s going on behind the scenes.
[Matthew Evins:] Certainly a lot to be prideful for today and every day here at ACC. So, thank you very much for sharing. Well that’s a wrap for today’s episode. Lisa and Eddie, thank you very much for joining me today and talking about your successes and challenges, and some of the feedback you receive from students on the adaptation of activities for distance education. So, thank you very much for joining me today.
[Lisa Moore:] Thank you, Matt.
[Eddie Garcia:] Thank you for having me, Matt. It was nice also speaking to you, Lisa.
[Lisa Moore:] You too, Eddie. I hope we get to meet in person one day.
[Eddie Garcia:] Yeah, yes, one day we’ll have to plan on that, thank you.
[Matthew Evins:] well that wraps up another episode of Teaching and Learning Champions. Don’t forget that you can read episode transcripts on the TLED blog, and find links to any resources we referenced during the show. I also encourage you to subscribe to the ACC district podcasts on any of your preferred podcast apps, or listen to individual episodes on the TLED website. You can learn more about the teaching and learning excellence division and keep up with everything relevant to the faculty experience at ACC by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. Simply text ACC TLED in all caps to 22828 to subscribe. And of course, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, @accTLED. Thank you for tuning in and we’ll chat next time on TLC at ACC.
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