As 5,200 courses moved online across GMU, Composition administration have been working hard to ease that transition for the approximately 100 faculty who are teaching over 300 sections of ENGH 100, 121, 122, 101, and 302 on multiple campuses.
Director Courtney Adams Wooten has guided the program’s move online, facilitating communication between other administrators and faculty in the program. She organized the program “buddy” system and sends weekly info and encouragement emails.
All program administrators have fielded faculty emails, met individually with faculty, and helped facilitate the “buddy” system. The “buddy” system ensures that every Composition faculty member has another member to contact in case they fall ill (or if their family members fall ill) with COVID-19. It ensures that another faculty member is embedded in their Blackboard course so that program administrators can help run their course while the faculty member is unavailable.
As Stearns faculty fellow and previous instructor for TOPS training, Associate Director Jessica Matthews fielded many faculty questions during the transition. Matthews also participated in the March 17th CHSS webinar with Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Strategic Initiatives Jamie Lester. On the Mason Korea campus, Hyunyoung Cho has coordinated efforts with the English team to teach online, as their campus has been online for the entire spring semester.
Jessica Matthews and Assistant Director Lourdes Fernandez designed a new set of resource webpages for faculty as they consider how to move their courses online. It includes a step-by-step guide of how, using the rhetorical situation as a guide, faculty might craft their courses online. Curated resources specific to GMU and additional resources are also included on the WordPress pages.
Ben Orlando and Liz Paul are facilitating Teachers Need Teachers’s meeting relocation to Zoom, after requests for opportunities to connect and discuss the new online teaching situation.
With GMU’s recent decision to move all summer classes online, Composition administrators have accelerated their efforts to help faculty teach their courses online, especially because many instructors will be teaching these courses online for the first time. At the Fairfax campus, Associate Director Lisa Lister and Assistant Director Jennifer Messier, along with Jessica Matthews and Lourdes Fernandez, continue to create additional resources that help faculty navigate both online teaching and online course preparation. Associate Director Anna Habib is working with INTO Mason faculty to build online ENGH 121 and 122 courses this summer in addition to her own ENGH 100 course development.
All the resources listed here are available on the Composition WordPress site, with more to be added. Stay tuned for more details on additional training to teach courses online.