APSU geography professor uses Zoom, special visitor to rekindle classroom touch
(Posted April 28, 2020)
The students and professors in Austin Peay State University鈥檚 Department of Geosciences miss being together.
鈥淲e鈥檙e a pretty tight-knit department,鈥 said Dr. Chris Gentry, a geography professor in the department. 鈥淲e have a lot of students who are in clubs together, hang out together in lab spaces in our building.鈥
After APSU moved its spring and summer classes online in response to the coronavirus pandemic, those geosciences students had to adapt to a virtual environment.
鈥淭hey miss out on the collegiality, the friendship of having students around them,鈥 he continued. 鈥淭hey also miss out on shared learning. That鈥檚 a little bit more difficult in the online environment.鈥
During a class on April 16, Gentry helped bring a bit of that shared learning experience to the virtual setting. And the students reacted with appreciation.
鈥楴ice to experience being in a 鈥榗lassroom鈥 once again鈥
Gentry invited Wylie Paxton 鈥 the lead fire effects monitor for the National Parks Service 鈥 to speak via Zoom to a team-taught natural hazards class. Paxton spoke not only about fire ecology in the Appalachian region of Tennessee, he also shared the insights he learned from the 2016 fire near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, that killed 14 people.
鈥淭he class had a great conversation with Wylie about fire ecology in East Tennessee,鈥 Gentry said. 鈥淭he things (Paxton and his team) learned from a management perspective, what their role was in helping to fight the fire and do post-fire monitoring.
鈥淚 had two students email me afterwards and say that was a big help because it gave them an additional individual to talk to and ask questions about fire ecology outside of just reading a chapter in the book,鈥 Gentry added.
Rachael Perkins, a junior geosciences major, was one of the students who joined the Zoom chat.
鈥淚t was a real treat to have interaction with classmates and a lecturer,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t was the most I鈥檝e felt prepared to test or apply knowledge since the change-over, and I was thrilled for it.鈥
Melia Hema, a junior agriculture major, added: 鈥淢y classmates and I were able to interact with each other and even had the ability to ask the professor questions. It was nice to experience being in a 鈥榗lassroom鈥 once again.鈥
鈥楽omething more near and dear to their lives here in Tennessee鈥
Gentry said he saw an opportunity to connect with the students, primarily by bringing a real-world example 鈥 especially something real to them 鈥 into the lesson.
He鈥檚 a dendrochronologist and biogeographer who studies environmental history (including wildfire) by studying tree rings, and he could have taught the lesson himself. But his research focuses on an area near Yellowstone National Park.
鈥淢ost of the students haven鈥檛 been to Yellowstone,鈥 Gentry said. 鈥淢y thought was to try to get someone to come and talk to the students about something that may be more near and dear to their lives here in Tennessee.鈥
He reached out to the supervisory forester at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to ask for help, and she put Gentry in contact with Paxton.
Finding balance after a sudden change
The students also need something near and dear to help them through the current crisis, one that鈥檚 directly disrupting their lives.
鈥淢y husband, a full-time student as well, and I were both laid off because of the pandemic,鈥 Skylar Clemons, a junior geosciences major, said. 鈥淚t has been very stressful trying to balance school and home life. At times it has been overwhelming adjusting to the sudden change.鈥
Perkins and Clemons said they appreciate the effort of their geosciences professors to help ease the burden.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 say enough about how wonderful the community of students in my department has been and how hard our instructors are working to help us succeed,鈥 Perkins said.
Clemons agreed: 鈥淚鈥檓 very grateful that I鈥檝e gotten to see how strong our community is during these trying times.鈥
A look at the future
Last December Gentry earned approval to work on converting the department鈥檚 GIS and remote-sensing courses to an online format.
鈥淚鈥檝e been looking at online-based software, looking at ways for students to be able to access the resources they need to try to limit barriers that would impact them from being able to learn.鈥
Gentry will work on the project through next spring.
To learn more
- For more about the Department of Geosciences at APSU, go to /geosciences/.
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