Story on How Pandemic Alters Teaching Features Three IU McKinney Faculty
02/04/2022
A story on what law professors are doing to engage students who are struggling with burn out and pandemic exhaustion features IU McKinney professors Carrie Hagan, Max Huffman, and Frank Sullivan. The story appears in Indiana Lawyer.
All three professors related how they have retuned their teaching to make connections with students. Professor Hagan discussed a survey she conducts at the beginning of each semester. “It’s helped me understand the makeup of my students’ challenges, and then I have been able to retune a few assignments, adjust some of the reading load and build in a few more reflective pieces,” she said in the story. “All of that has helped my students and myself engage on a human level, instead of just the professor-to-student level.”
Professor Huffman talked about finding connections with his students in online environments, relationships that happened automatically during in-person courses. “Instead, I’ve got to try to create an alternative channel,” he said in the piece. “The goal is to engage in a group setting, but we are sitting at home in our apartments talking to our computers. The simple answer is as a professor you are having to double down on outreach to individual students that in the classroom is organic.”
Professor Sullivan revealed the changes he’s had to make to his teaching style. “I’m constantly on the move, walking around the room and getting in students’ faces, and now I have to tether myself for the online camera,” he said in the article. “I’ve come away from these classes thinking maybe I’m more effective in one place than moving around.”
