Auburn professor reflects on remote teaching experience with international students during pandemic

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L. Octavia Tripp, an associate professor in the College of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Teaching, recently completed a unique, two-week remote STEM teaching assignment with students in Shenzhen, China, in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Tripp has led multiple overseas study trips with her Auburn University students and is well-known for inculcating a belief in her pre-service teachers that they must understand their students’ “lived experiences” to be able to truly connect with them. As an expert in remote teaching, or distance education, Tripp now emphasizes that her students must develop their own expertise in remote teaching, as it may very well become the way of teaching in the future.

“In the summer of 2019, I traveled to Shanghai and Shenzhen, China, to teach science to K-5 students,” said Tripp, who spent 20 years as a multi-grade science teacher and aerospace education specialist. “I worked with the Master Science and Teaching STEM Academy based out of New York, along with Dr. Zheng Ma and Dr. Xia Wang, of Shenzhen. This adventure led to my assignment this spring to work with about a dozen Chinese first graders who were also English language learners.

“As the COVID-19 crisis had largely passed where they lived, they were able to be in their regular classroom with three in-person assistants. I taught them remotely using a variety of technological aids, including Zoom, a webcam, a document camera and my laptop. I felt this equipment was necessary, because as a science teacher, I must engage students, explore, explain and elaborate with them. Above all, I must develop their inquiry skills, and now I must do so from a distance.”

Because of COVID-19, most professors, teachers and students suddenly found themselves forced to use technology as they taught and learned. For the program with which Tripp worked, students were in a classroom setting, and the only thing they did not have is their lead face-to-face instructor.

In this program, the students’ instructors were from various states in the U.S., and all were considered experts in their field. Several of the STEM subjects taught in the program were Harry Potter Chemistry, Minecraft, Biomimicry (the practice that learns or mimics the strategies found in nature to solve human design challenges), Space Exploration and CSI (Crime Scene Investigations).

“My particular task was to teach Bernoulli’s Principles to first graders with a focus on things that fly,” Tripp said. “In remote teaching in the past, I have used videos on flight, demonstrations of flying airplanes, hands-on activities and lesson discussion. My students have been engaged in creating model hot air balloons, paper airplanes, wind socks and rotors.

“It has been an amazing experience, and with a little practice, trust and patience, remote teaching can be very successful. From the students’ faces and their interactions in my recent China experience, I can see that it has been fun and exciting for them, and that they mastered the subject matter. For me, it was equally thrilling. It’s hard to explain how much I enjoyed it.”

From this pilot program, Tripp is even more certain that her Auburn students must master the art, science and skills of remote teaching excellence.

“I want to continue to do this,” she said. “There is now no question that we must prepare our teacher candidates to do this. Teaching elementary-aged children is exciting, but you must keep them engaged at all times with hands-on, minds-on activities. And this can definitely be done with today’s available technology.

“One thing I learned from my China program is that it is difficult, but with practice you can get the actual lessons across, almost to the point of it being like you are in a face-to-face classroom.”

Tripp had the services of teacher assistants on her team, and they were able to overcome the time difference between the two countries.

“Along with my three teacher assistants, we ensured that the young scholars were excited and worked hard,” Tripp said. “Every night—and it was night because the time difference caused me to teach from 8 to 11 p.m. in our time zone—they saw me on the screen. Any awkwardness quickly went away, and we became a team.

“You can see from the photos that I am right there on the screen, and very much with the students. In the end, it just became fun for all of us, and very much a similar feel to being in the regular classroom we are all so used to.”

With advances in technology and its widespread use during the pandemic, Tripp can see online instruction expanding in years to come.

“I truly believe that remote teaching is going to be the wave of the future,” she said. “Our future teachers must become comfortable with this technology and new way of teaching. It starts for us at Auburn with our pre-service teachers.

“Science and STEM classes are increasingly important in today’s fast-moving world. Great teaching must continue, and we must make STEM teaching—whether remote or face-to-face— fun and exciting. I have committed myself to really learning how to do this, because we are in a challenging time and great teaching cannot stop.”

Tripp said her experiences last summer in China showed her that we are all more alike than we are different, even if we live on opposite sides of the globe.

“In China, I had a chance to really understand that learning English as a second language is the same here as it is there,” she said. “And no matter where we are, it is important that we understand how students learn and how they get excited to see real life applications in science. It is my hope that this experience helps my future teachers learn to be caring, understanding and patient.

“They must relate to their students online much in the same way as they do in traditional classrooms. They can learn to build bonds and develop relationships with their students no matter where they are. Keeping students excited about learning and engaged in the lesson is paramount to great teaching, no matter the time or the place.”

Tripp relished the chance to reconnect with the students she met in person last summer.

“I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience life with my Chinese students and then to come back a year later and visit them without ever leaving home,” she said. “It’s a brave new world, and I want our Auburn students to embrace this opportunity.”

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Founded in 1915, the Auburn University College of Education enrolls 2,800 undergraduate and graduate students. Four academic units offer 60 degree options in teaching, special education, educational leadership, kinesiology, counseling, adult education, educational technology and educational psychology. The College is committed to diversity and inclusion and maintains a focus on outstanding teaching, consequential research and solution-oriented outreach in order to fulfill its mission of making a better world for all, including those most in need.