Written by: Cassandra McGrath '21
As students transitioned to remote learning, journalism classes had to change and adjust to meet their needs. A few students were asked what this spring's virtual classrooms looked like.
Rebecca Duffy, a junior Journalism and Communication double major, was enrolled in Journalism 495BP: Broadcast Performance, Journalism 460: Journalism Ethics and Journalism 225: Readings in Journalism.
With the transition to remote learning, her experience in Broadcast Performance changed. “Normally in that class, we produced weekly newscasts, therefore, we would be in the broadcast studio located in the Integrative Learning Center. Each of us would have had a different role in news production, so we would have equal time operating cameras and things like that,” said Duffy.
After spring break, classes were held via Zoom. Students were asked to work with one other person to produce short broadcasts using Zoom. Duffy said her workload was adjusted because some classes had cut down on assignments while others had added assignments.
Noah Bortle, a junior Journalism major in the Sports Concentration, who was enrolled in Journalism 445: Journalism and Law and Journalism 392T: Issues in Sports said his classes had adapted to remote learning as well.
“For Journalism and Law, we no longer had class and just turned in assignments instead, and for Issues in Sports, we still had a guest speaker via Zoom and had slightly changed our final project,” said Bortle. “We wrote about a senior athlete who had their season cut short due to coronavirus and how that impacted them.”
Since professional sports had been canceled, sports journalism students had to change their approach. “With no sports to cover, sports writing had become more about writing columns and response pieces to the coronavirus pandemic. I felt like I was still learning, but it was harder and took more initiative on my part to stay on top of things.
Alana Zeilander, a first-year Journalism major, was enrolled in Journalism 235: Introduction of Public Relations and Journalism 250: News Literacy.
“My public relations professor had adjusted well to online learning. Although it was hard without the face to face communication in-person, my professor posted weekly videos of what each week's agenda would look like, and what we needed to complete. She also posted pre-recorded lectures on our Moodle site, which she would normally do before the shift to online learning. Since we had always learned through an upside-down classroom model, it was a similar experience to what I was already used to. She also scheduled calls with our class teams to check-in with students and would always offer to talk during her virtual office hours,” said Zeilander.
Zeilander said although she would have much rather been at school learning in a classroom setting, she still felt she could learn virtually with the techniques her professor used. “The challenges I found most difficult was finding a space in my home to concentrate since I usually preferred to do work at a library or coffee shop, as well as dealing with everything that was going on in the world,” said Zeilander.