BEAM faculty members are one of the keys to the success of BEAM summer programs and, quite simply, they are our heroes. This summer we asked even more than usual from our faculty―and that's saying a lot. In less than ideal circumstances, they shone.
It wasn't easy. Faculty dedicated untold hours not only to redesigning their own classes, but also to helping us create an online summer program from scratch. We're still thinking a lot about what we learned in our first summer online. Here's what three of our faculty members told us about their experiences.
Susan Donovan, a faculty member at BEAM Discovery New York City, taught Circuits and Programming and reflected on how teaching online compared to teaching in person.
Students learned the definition of a circuit and the basics of reading schematics, polar vs. non-polar components and how to use a breadboard in Susan’s class. They all shared photos of their first working circuit.
I've taught circuits and programming with BEAM students in person twice so I know how exciting and rewarding the course can be, but I was very nervous about moving it online. But we mailed out kits to all of the students, and I frantically created webpages to help them document their projects and somehow it worked out!
The greatest challenge was not being able to really see what students were doing. Normally, I'd walk around the room and give hints and corrections as students interpreted circuit diagrams or edited code. It's possible to do something similar to this with screen sharing and video, but it's just not as easy.
One upside though, I think this limitation helped some students to become more independent. One of the nice things about teaching electronics is it's clear to a student when their work is wrong. The light simply won't turn on. It's a process that teaches patience and persistence. I had one student who wired a project five times before all of the errors were removed, and the whole class celebrated her victory!
Taylor Corcoran taught Games and Strategies at BEAM Discovery Los Angeles. In this class, students learn how to analyze games to find "winning strategies," that is, strategies that allow them to win the game no matter what the other players do.
My main goal for this class was to get students excited about learning math, and to show them that math plays a role in so many different parts of our lives. Another goal I had was to strengthen students' logical reasoning skills and to push them towards rigorous mathematical thinking and proofs.
Teaching online was definitely a challenge! My main concern about teaching a games class online was how to have students play games with each other virtually. In person, many of the games we played relied on manipulatives such as bingo chips and notecards, and I wasn't sure how to transfer this online. Luckily several other staff members had experience teaching games online and had great recommendations, including using Google Slides and Classkick. I ultimately decided to use Classkick, which allowed students to move manipulatives around the screen, to draw freely, and to type up their answers to questions.
Brian, Jasmin, Camila, Cristina, and Arely play Dots and Boxes with their TA, Cyril.
For me, a huge challenge was getting used to all the different moving parts of online instruction. Not only do you have to deliver content, but you have to check students' facial expressions to see if they are confused, read the chat, listen to students as they turn on their mics (as well as mute people with noisy backgrounds!), and place students into breakout groups! I'm also not the most tech-savvy person, so it was challenging to master all the new technology.
As for the advantages, I did really enjoy getting to teach in my pajamas, and the commute was unbeatable. But besides that, yes, there were several aspects of teaching online that I really grew to appreciate. I think the chat feature of online learning was a game changer for quieter students who, even in person, may not have been willing to raise their hand and share their thoughts. Having the chat lowered students' inhibitions around participating in class and allowed them to formalize their ideas.
There were also activities that ended up working much better online than they had last year when I taught the class in person. For example, on the last day of class, we explored a website that teaches students about the Prisoner's Dilemma, a famous game in game theory. In person, we did the activity as a class, and I projected the website on the board. This year, though, I turned the activity into a competition between breakout groups, and students got really into it and were determined to beat the other teams.
During the five weeks of the program, students found winning strategies (and articulated why they were winning strategies) for several games, including Nim and Chomp. They also learned about the difference between being fair (splitting items equally between people) and being rational (making decisions that are in your best interest). We wrapped up the class with learning about strategies in the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Taylor’s class posed for a photo on their last day.
Cory Colbert taught Irrational Numbers & An Introduction to Proof (Irrational Numbers) in the first two weeks and Analytic Number Theory (ANT) in the last two weeks at BEAM Summer Away Los Angeles.
For Irrational Numbers, my goal was to have students prove that the square root of two is not rational. For ANT, my original goal was to talk about Dirichlet's Theorem on Arithmetic Progressions. I did that during Summer Away in 2019, but this summer, we instead proved that there are infinitely many prime numbers.
One of the major challenges of teaching online is not being there in person and not being able to scan the class as a whole and see who is following and who needs more attention. The dynamic is just different online because it’s more distant.
Daisy used ideas from Cory’s Irrational Numbers class to prove that the square root of 5 is irrational.
I was mostly looking for a way to have them work in groups, and Zoom breakout rooms made that happen. Breakout rooms cut out all distractions, which is great. I didn't have to worry about one group being distracted by another group, and it was a lot easier to focus any particular group on a strategy. Also, it's easy to record classes if that's your thing.
From my point of view, the students developed a higher appreciation for rigorous proof and reasoning, which is what I go for. One student wrote, “We got to learn how to prove and we learned the Euler of a number and how to find it. We also learned the definition of many symbols and variables, how to use them and how to apply them in the real world or when proving something.”