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Sarah Balcom, DVM, MS
Principal lecturer and Director of the Undergraduate Program
Department of Animal and Avian Sciences
University of Maryland
The shift to online administration and teaching led to many challenges and opportunities during the COVID19 pandemic. Here I outline how I led our department's response and how I adapted my own teaching and mentoring to the demands of this time.
Undergraduate Office
1. Created interactive online recruitment resources and experiences:
a. Virtual tour of the department for prospective students
b. Pre-transfer advising video – for prospective external transfer students
c. Virtual 360 tour of the UMD Campus Farm
d. Hosted several online recruitment events
2. Revised and new online student resources with the undergraduate program coordinator:
a. Moved all undergraduate advising online to an expanded and revised advising space in ELMS-Canvas,
our learning management system.
b. Hosted two virtual career nights (fall 2020) for students interested in further education and students who wish to find employment directly after graduation.
c. Revised, reorganized, and reformatted the ANSC Undergraduate website to be more user-friendly.
d. Greatly increased our social media presence on Facebook and Instagram with regular postings and events.
e. Worked with our web developer to create a new ANSC logo and created online shop for ANSC community to purchase gear.
f. Created video resources for student advising needs
3. Addressed student-faculty community building through the Undergraduate office to foster a sense of belonging for new and returning ANSC students through
a. Writing weekly check-in letters to the ANSC students with the inclusion of occasional guest writers from our faculty and staff.
Spring 2020 Letters
June 2020- Special Letter on the racism pandemic
Fall 2020 Letters
Spring 2021 Letters
b. Creating a departmental virtual scavenger hunt on the GooseChase app
c. Hosting a virtual bake-off on Instagram
d. Creating Instagram features of faculty and TAs
e. Hosting a student art competition to feature on our outstanding senior awards
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Teaching
1. ANSC 101- Principles of Animal Science
a. Spring 2020 - Over our two week spring hiatus, I migrated all content onto ELMS to be delivered as an asynchronous course with videos and interactive content replacing our class time. Held regular office hours and course discussion boards to remain in contact with students. Restructured the group final project to have more individual components to give students increased flexibility for completing it.
b. Fall 2020 - Taught this course as a 70/30 blend of synchronous class sessions and asynchronous video and interactive content. Capitalized on the opportunity to engage students in a global classroom with students and colleagues at the University of Perugia on a project focused on agricultural extension and sustainable food animal production.
c. Spring 2021- Taught this course as a 70/30 blend of synchronous class sessions and asynchronous video and interactive content. Restructured the traditional group project in this course for online participation.
2. ANSC 245- Sheep Management
a. Spring 2020 - Over our two week spring hiatus, I migrated all content onto ELMS to be delivered as an asynchronous course with videos and interactive content replacing our class time. Held regular office hours and course discussion boards to remain in contact with students. Created video based lab experiences to replace on-farm lab sessions.
b. Spring 2021 - Taught this course as a 80/20 blend of synchronous class sessions and asynchronous video and interactive content. Offered three sections of the course to increase seat availability to our students since our department did not have sufficient animal management course seats available to meet student needs.
* Two sections of 10 students each took a hybrid online (class time) and on-farm (sheep care and labs) version of the course.
* One section of 16 students took a fully online version of the course for which I designed a series of online labs to replace the on-farm component of the course.
3. ANSC 379- Undergraduate Teaching Seminar
Since the start of the pandemic, I have been teaching this course as a synchronous course over zoom. I expanded our discussions of teaching online and providing support to students who were struggling.
Mentoring & Faculty Support
1. Provided teaching support to colleagues in the department through hosting a bi-weekly faculty teaching support group.
2. Conducted individual consultations with new instructors and those who did not have a lot of online teaching experience.
3. Shared resources and tips for teaching online, addressing student issues, in person teaching in compliance with COVID safety guidelines, and other topics with the faculty and graduate students.
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