It has now been four weeks since the University of Michigan-Flint made the decision to transition all of our courses to remote coursework. While this sudden change proposed challenges and opportunities for faculty and students alike, we asked some of our Graduate Student Ambassadors how they are handling their newfound remote learning environment.
The change to online coursework has affected me by making me have to be much more focused on my DPT studies. Now that all the classes are online, I need to make sure that I keep up with the constant updates and new material that is uploaded daily. I am not typically a fan of online classes as it is easy for me to get distracted at home, but I have found ways to stay engaged in the classwork, and I make sure to take breaks from my computer to move around and get outside. Setting a list of goals for the day has helped me to stay organized. I have also been reaching out to some friends to make sure they are doing okay and to work through some of the more difficult material we have been covering.
The PT professors are doing their best to make sure that we are still receiving a quality education. They have uploaded their Powerpoints to Blackboard with voice-overs so we get the important details out of the slides. They have also been holding weekly Google meet/Bluejeans sessions for open Q&A about material and to take any suggestions about how they can better conduct the class. One of my classes is very dependent on the lab material we go over, and the professor has uploaded some great demonstration videos so we may still practice at home. All of my professors also have an open discussion board where we can ask questions and make suggestions, so if we are unable to attend the video conference, or if something comes up between meetings, we can still get our questions answered. For exams, we downloaded the software Repondus, so that we may take the exams on Blackboard while being monitored from our houses.
I am a first year DPT student and will not be graduating until 2022. I am planning on taking summer classes since the DPT program is year round, so we have scheduled classes we are required to take in sequence. I am unsure at this time if they will be rearranging the classes so that those we take over the summer will be more conducive to an online format or if they will try to continue with the predetermined schedule. We also need to complete a clinical experience we started this semester. This completion may be at the end of our summer semester. We are still waiting to hear the final decisions from our clinical and departmental teams. This pandemic has created quite a challenge for academia, but I feel the PT department has been very transparent about everything that is happening and they have diligently been updating us everyday.
