Musical chairs, pandemic style

The problem with planning classes for a pandemic is that every time I think I’ve figured out how to run my classes like a well-oiled machine, someone tosses a monkey-wrench in the works. Yesterday, for instance, I was walking to my office when I noticed new signs outside all the classrooms listing occupancy limits—to allow for social distancing, a classroom that could comfortably seat two dozen students is now limited to 10.

I got a sinking feeling and immediately checked the enrollments for my fall classes, and sure enough, half of my classes are too big to allow social distancing in their assigned classrooms. To complicate matters further, we have a very limited number of large teaching spaces on campus and competition for those spaces will be stiff, especially at the more popular teaching times.

At 8 a.m., my building is like a mausoleum so I could probably move my 8 a.m. class to a bigger room—but I see that only 8 students have enrolled in that class, so unless we experience a sudden rush of students desperate to take first-year composition at 8 a.m., that class can stay where it is. Similarly, my upper-level film class is unlikely to grow large enough to cause problems. (I realize that I'm fortunate to teach at a college where small class sizes are the norm and an 8-person class isn't in danger of being cancelled. I don't know what people who teach really big classes are going to do.)

A problem arises, though, with my two bigger classes, which are taught at some of our most popular teaching times—9 and 11 a.m.  How do I teach 18 students in a room that’s now limited to 10, at a time when every classroom on campus is already in use?

I spent some time brainstorming with valued colleagues and found a solution that’s complicated and inelegant but just might work: Split the class into two groups; each day, half of the class will meet in the classroom while the other half joins via Zoom. I’ve been told that all of our classrooms will be equipped with cameras before the semester begins, so we have the technology to make this happen—but of course the solution raises a whole host of other questions:

How do I divide the class--randomly or based on some specific criteria related to pedagogy or student demographics or arbitrary preferences for Wednesdays?

How do I communicate the plan so that students won’t be confused about when they’re supposed to be in class?

How do I divide my attention between the students in the room and those on the screen?

How do I engage the Zoomy students in class discussion and other activities?

How do I give exams? Final exams are not the problem—there’s enough time available to allow students to take the exam in shifts if need be—but how do I give a 50-minute midterm when only half of my students can be in the classroom? Maybe it’s time to shift to online exams—but then why not move the entire class online?

In fact I’d already been planning to hold one class session per week online for all my classes, doing things like presentations, group projects, and writing and research workshops during our online time. If I break the class in two groups and have only half of my students in the room for each class session, that means each student will be in the classroom only one day each week (for a three-days-per-week class). Under these circumstances it seems a bit disingenuous to call this a return to face-to-face teaching, but this is what I have to work with and so somehow I’ll make it work.

Like a well-oiled machine? Maybe—until  someone throws another monkey wrench into the works.