Class Schedule Takes on Various Meanings
Student-athletes, SASS adjust to remote learning
Mike Brohard
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As one of 16 people in her graduation class, there was no place for Caroline Lucas to hide, especially not academically.
She also knew the adjustment from The Westwood School in Lewisville, Texas to Colorado State was going to be a leap. Add to it her life as a freshman soccer player, with both factors coming at her full speed from her first day.
It takes time, but she picked up a flow. Her roommate, fellow soccer freshman Kendra Gipson, took some of the same classes, so they leaned on each other. They relied on the Anderson Academic Center when the Thursday-Monday night road swings added to the workload.
And just as she felt she had her rhythm, the coronavirus pandemic hit. Go home and we’ll see. No, just stay home, we’ll do classes online for a bit. No, make that the rest of your freshman year. It played out like a cruel trick.
“Exactly. It’s an interesting thing. I’m an only child, so it’s just me, my mom and dad, and they’re working from home, and it was tricky, because we all had to find our own spaces,” Lucas said. “Making a schedule for myself really helped. Wake up in the morning and go work out. None of my classes are on Zoom, so they just post the content for the day, so you can do it whenever.
“That can be scary, because you don’t actually have to show up for anything, but making myself sit down for a few hours a day to do my classwork has helped, then I do my homework at night. I do other stuff during the afternoon, like learning to cook, just to keep myself entertained. That has helped a lot.”
Student-athletes are finding out just how much they really relied on their structured lifestyle. Go to class, go to conditioning, go to practice, go to where ever it is you study. Then do it the next day. And the next.
The discipline they lean on as athletes is starting to pay major dividends when there is no one there in person to keep checking on them. The Student-Athlete Support Staff (SASS) is still checking grades on a weekly basis; for some, more frequently. But the in-person contact is out the window, so both sides sought solutions to the current world problem.
Rebecca Orr, who is the director of SASS, had her department move all tutoring and mentoring services to Microsoft Teams to benefit the athletes. The goal was to keep the schedules and structure they were so used to in place as a way to support progress. They text and FaceTime, whatever is needed, considering those they serve are spread across the globe.
But there are other individual challenges they are striving to meet.
“I think some of the challenges we’ve seen with students are with professors who hold lectures at the same time, but they’re in different time zones,” Orr said. “For some students, it’s become really clear what the expectations of the classes have been, so some students have actually been more successful, because they can understand where to go to get the assignment expectations, and deadlines are posted online, so it makes it easier to follow for some.”
Most of my classes I have are talking through situations and going through what’s going on in the world today. It’s kind of crazy not to have that communication right now. That’s what I miss the most. It’s really just read this, keep on reading the text book and we’ll have a test after that.Scott Brooks, CSU Football Player
Football player Scott Brooks had previously taken a few online classes while at Colorado State, so remote learning wasn’t a complete shock to him. He understood to keep ahead, so as not to have assignments from multiple classes hit all at once.
He likes the format, depending on the class. But overall, he doesn’t see it as the wave of the future. For the most part, he misses the in-class setting. He also noted it’s clear some professors have had to make adjustments to something unfamiliar, too.
“I had a couple of online classes before this, so I do like them. I think there are just some classes where you have to be in person, and you have communication with the teacher,” Brooks said. “A lot of the professors are not that great with technology, honestly.
“Most of my classes I have are talking through situations and going through what’s going on in the world today. It’s kind of crazy not to have that communication right now. That’s what I miss the most. It’s really just read this, keep on reading the text book and we’ll have a test after that.”
Some aspects of the teaching just can’t be duplicated online, specifically classes which came with labs required.
Madison Gordley, a swimmer, was excited about her anatomy class and lab. She had heard it was a hard class, but was also told it was a favorite among students who took the course, mainly because of the university’s advanced cadaver lab.
You can’t cut into a human body through a computer, so Gordley was crushed to lose the opportunity.
“It’s sad, because it’s a really cool class,” she said. “Some people told me it was their favorite class at CSU, and it’s a bummer we didn’t get to experience the whole thing. Under the circumstances, it was the only thing they could do.”
Like with every other aspect of her life, Gordley has sought out the silver linings in remote learning. She is in the same camp as Brooks, even Lucas, when she says class discussion is the most enlightening part of some courses, almost a requirement to advance one’s ability to see different perspectives.
That may be gone, but having a lecture online does have its perks.
“I do like that I can pause it. Sometimes a professor doesn’t write everything on a board he says,” Gordley said. “In one of my classes, they always posted them online. If I did miss something in class, I could go back and watch it. I like that I can pause it and write down what he’s saying, or go back if I don’t understand something he’s saying. I find myself, even last semester for physiology, they’d post them and I’d go back. I’d find myself in class wanting to just pause it, which sounds silly.”
As Orr would point out, nothing at this point really is off the table. Whatever a student-athlete can find that works for them, they should do. A normal schedule is out the window, so creating one to fit the personal model is encouraged.
They’ve done so in continuing to help student-athletes who seek out additional support. What helps on her end is student with a set agenda in mind for whatever the subject requires.
“I think it requires a set plan, because you’re used to sitting in a room where you can get up easily and use a white board. Students have to be really intentional with what questions they have, what material they want covered,” she said. “There are features in Microsoft Teams where you can share a white board and see problems written out, so we’re trying to normalize that in a sense. There are some glitches with it, but we schedule the appointments, and they click on the link to the group or one-on-one sessions. The challenges at this point, there are places in the country which are experiencing bad weather, so trying to be flexible with students as they are going in and out of service, that kind of stuff.”
Orr misses the casual conversations that open up windows and answer questions unintentionally. Students miss asking the quick question of a professor after class, having the immediate answer to put their minds at ease. Now, it’s send a text or an email and wait for the response.
Brooks felt lucky his internship with Michael Tarantino with Tarantino Wealth Management was not scrapped. More than half of what Brooks is doing for him is done from home, but he still does have some office hours, with the two practicing distancing in those moments. Grateful, because Brooks said the real-world instruction he’s getting there is incredibly valuable.
For now, Lucas camps out in the kitchen when it’s time for school work. Her mom and dad are elsewhere, and the perk is she’s close to snacks. However, the educational perks of being on campus and in a classroom can’t be beat.
She’s tried both ways. She knows what she prefers.
“I’m so excited to go back. I miss walking to class, and I miss sitting in class, actually seeing people. I really can’t wait. It’s going to be good,” she said. “When you’re at home, it’s so easy to just want to veg out or nap or sit outside. I feel like going to class was such a good accountability thing.
“For me, I’m trying to get into business school for the fall, and one of my classes is a pre-rec for it, so keeping my good grades up is really important to me. It always has been, and I don’t want this to be an exception for them to slip. I want to go to law school after, so I know it’s really important.”
They’ve found the same mental method of trying to find a way or a time to work out and advance as an athlete, the student in each of them had to formulate a blueprint to avoid distractions, the feelings of procrastination and get to work in a necessitated learning environment none of them expected.