This post is part of a series featuring faculty members’ reflections on how have their teaching and research methods have changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Below, we hear from Ann Mayo, Professor and Nursing Researcher:

 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has affected both my teaching and research. I started teaching remotely using Zoom 3 weeks ago. While I am grateful to be connected visually with my students, I have to admit I would rather be with them in person. It reminds me of stories I’ve heard about actors who love Broadway and the connection to live audiences versus acting in movies with really no audience. Overall, all students are making progress in the courses and are engaged and communicating well, so that’s good! The one issue I had with Zoom (this week) was the freezing of my screen and my laptop powering down. USD IT has been wonderful. In order to finally fix the issue, they replaced my OS operating system remotely and that did the trick.”

“My clinical research program will change in terms of our research assistant moving from face-to-face data collection to data collection using Zoom. We have not started with Zoom yet, but will shortly. We have created a new study variable and will code for the type of data collection process now in order to compare the data for any trends that might be attributable to either of the different data collection methods. Thankfully, the center is coordinating a new study that will concurrently be looking at the reliability of the instruments used commonly across our different ongoing studies and the validity of the data produced by those instruments when Zoom is used for the data collection.”