Pivoting During a Pandemic: Creating Presence for All Students

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted faculty across the country to pivot their in-person courses to ones that could be offered virtually. Some faculty learned quickly that our economically-challenged students had difficulty trying to access resources that suddenly became remote. In this reflective article, we will highlight the experiences of five social scientists’ efforts to transform courses from in-person to remote delivery, attending to each of the “presences” in the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001), while also addressing the economic challenges of students on a regional mid-western campus. We end with several “lessons learned” and suggestions for remote delivery as we move forward.