Stray Off-topic to Stay On-topic: Preserving Interaction and Team Morale in a Highly Collaborative Course while at a Distance

The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted schools and universities to shift their teaching to virtual classrooms from one day to the other. As a unique example, we had to virtualize the second half of a two-semester course on humancentered innovation, which heavily relies on direct interaction of students in small groups. In going virtual, we havefound that adapting assignments is only the tip of the iceberg. Despite being familiar with the students, the real challenges were preserving high levels of creative interaction as well as surveying team morale and status. Reflecting on our experiences, we detail solutions related to the lack of creative interaction by fostering off-topic chit-chat and surveying team morale by introducing more explicit communication and seeking team consent. To help teachers adapt to virtual teaching, we discuss how our mitigation approaches, which we developed in an extreme setting requiring close, creative collaboration, may apply to virtual teaching in general.     «

The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted schools and universities to shift their teaching to virtual classrooms from one day to the other. As a unique example, we had to virtualize the second half of a two-semester course on humancentered innovation, which heavily relies on direct interaction of students in small groups. In going virtual, we havefound that adapting assignments is only the tip of the iceberg. Despite being familiar with the students, the real challenges were preserving high levels of c...     »