Lessons Learned: Teaching In-Person During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

For the Fall 2020 semester, the University of New Haven (UNewHaven) joined over a third of colleges and universities across the country in offering in-person courses and reopening its campus. Allowing the campus community to safely return was a challenging endeavor, particularly for those at the University’s School of Health Sciences, which offers both non-clinical and clinical courses. In order to create learning environments that adhered to continuously-changing guidelines, our team at the School of Health Sciences was forced to develop and implement innovative strategies. In this article, we share our experiences in fulfilling our roles as faculty, staff, and students at a School of Health Sciences offering in-person, non-clinical and clinical courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. We reflect upon our challenges and share the lessons learned, which we hope will serve as guidance for our collective community in higher education, including those working within schools of public health and health sciences. Our lessons learned are presented in following three themes: 1) preparation for in-person classes; 2) the emotional state of faculty, staff, and students; and 3) innovative practices. Should colleges and universities ever find themselves in similar, yet unprecedented times, our lessons and recommendations may serve as a starting point to assist them in navigating through such tumultuous moments.

Basic needs support and achievement emotions in daily research of life scientists considering academic positions

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, precarious circumstances for teaching and researching in academia made the relevance of emotional states and mental health of academic staff more obvious (Tran et al, 2021). The study of Tran et al (2021) focused the emotional state of the academic staff on a broader level without concrete emotion theories as basis.…”

“…Previous research argues that scientific discoveries are impossible without emotions (Fischer et al, 2014). Tran et al (2021) showed in their study that academic staff often reached their workload limits due to continuously changing requirements for academic work including research and teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Resulting from the circumstances during the pandemic, faculty begun to increasingly evaluate the emotional state of their academic staff (Tran et al, 2021).…”

“…Tran et al (2021) showed in their study that academic staff often reached their workload limits due to continuously changing requirements for academic work including research and teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Resulting from the circumstances during the pandemic, faculty begun to increasingly evaluate the emotional state of their academic staff (Tran et al, 2021). Evaluating the emotional state of academic staff showed that, e.g., anxiety is common.…”

“…Evaluating the emotional state of academic staff showed that, e.g., anxiety is common. The emotional state is closely linked to emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion indicating burnout (Tran et al, 2021). Tran et al (2021) concluded that evaluating the emotional state is relevant for estimating general well-being of academic staff and for preventing burnout (Tran et al, 2021).…”

“…The emotional state is closely linked to emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion indicating burnout (Tran et al, 2021). Tran et al (2021) concluded that evaluating the emotional state is relevant for estimating general well-being of academic staff and for preventing burnout (Tran et al, 2021). Furthermore, there is empirical evidence that emotions are important drivers for many psychological aspects related to scientific success, such as motivation (e.g., Løvoll et al, 2017), well-being (e.g., Pekrun, 2006), and academic achievement (e.g., Pekrun et al, 2017;Forsblom et al, 2021).…”