Like all aspects of life, education has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike other areas of life, this may impact future educators as well.
“Many of my classes are offered via distance in the evenings for early childhood educators that are working in the field, so I have been teaching on Zoom for about 5 years,” Professor Nikki Baldwin said.
Baldwin is an instructor for early childhood education and special education courses at UW. Baldwin, who has been instructing for 12 years, was already personally familiar with the concept of online teaching when the change was made.
This has been the only similarity to other years for Baldwin, however, as this year’s challenges are unique.
“The biggest challenge for our early childhood program has been losing practicum placements for our students. Each course we teach has a practicum component because it is essential for our students to work directly with young children and families. Our assignments are usually connected to the practicum as well, so we have had to redesign our syllabi quite a bit,” Baldwin said.
The lack of hands-on experience for aspiring educators is concerning, but Baldwin and the College of Education have made improvements to try and counter this problem.
“In a course I shifted assignments so that my students were preparing materials and supports for families who were guiding children’s learning at home while schools and childcare were closed,” Baldwin said.
According to Baldwin, some of these strategies are based in other online course material and refitted for the current state of the classroom.
“In my course last spring I connected students with parents via Zoom to work with parents and help parents complete some of the assessment tasks they would normally be doing with the children during their in-person practicum. It was actually a big success and I plan to do more to involve families once COVID restrictions are lifted,” Baldwin said.
While the fate of education during COVID remains up for debate, educators are doing their best to rework programs to meet the education goals of their departments from before the pandemic.
“Our goals have remained the same, but we have had to get creative about how we achieve them. Next semester we will likely have to rethink our practicum experiences again. I am still working on how to best make that happen in specific courses. My colleague, Dr. Tricia Johnson is exploring using robots with cameras in classrooms as an innovative tool,” Baldwin said.
