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Check out the Fall 2021 Convocation Session Breakout Session Playlists Here! Sessions include:
-Hō’oia ʻĀina: Leeward’s Land Acknowledgment Statement

-What has Covid-19 Taught Us? How Can We Do Our Part? (Student Presentation)

-Faculty Senate Talk Story Session

-How to Spot Fake, Biased, and Misleading News and Misinformation

-A Brief Introduction to Tableau and Data Visualization

-Creating Accessible Documents

-What's Going On? (Talking Story with Leeward's Social Justice League)

-Anthology: A Path to Meaningful Assessments

-Introducing the Leeward CC Behavioral Intervention Team

-Student Showcase: Leeward Students' Oceanography and Kilo ʻĀina Research

-Got Funding?

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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"The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa TRHT Campus Center envisions a Hawai‘i in which each individual, family, and community can recognize their collective and interdependent kuleana – irrespective of race – to aloha one another and the ‘āina throughout Hawai‘i."

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TRHT: Truth, Racial Healing, Transformation - Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office

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"The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is partnering with higher education institutions to develop Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers to "prepare the next generation of strategic leaders and thinkers to break down racial hierarchies and dismantle the belief in the hierarchy of human value."

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Student Engagement Teaching Ideas and Resources 

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Student Engagement Teaching Ideas and Resources 

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In Fall 2020, the Innovation Center sent Betty Ickes, Marie McKenzie, Anuschka Faucci, Blanca Polo, and Erin Thompson to a 5-week NIST Scientific Principles in Teaching short course to gain ideas on student engagement strategies. This resource document is a sharing of those ideas and others gained from the Spring 2021 Convocation Breakout session. View session video here: https://youtu.be/JUEOXX6Mgzw

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RESOURCE DOCUMENT - Student Engagement Tools

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RESOURCE DOCUMENT Small Changes...Big Impacts: Student Engagement Tools You Can Implement Now Spring 2021 Convocation - Breakout Session January 6, 2021 10:45am - 11:30am Presented by Anuschka Faucci, Faʻamaile Ickes, Marie McKenzie, Blanca Polo, and Erin Thompson PRESENTATION LINKS Erin's Pre...

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Leeward has conducted over 50 prof dev sessions during the pandemic. Click on the image below to see playlists of topics!

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Playlists of Professional Development Hot Topics

Select a Topic ~ View the Playlist ~ Watch Your Video

Help our Resources Grow

If you have conducted a professional development session and would like to include it in our playlists or would like ICTL to start a new playlist topic, email Erin at enkt@hawaii.edu.

Have an idea...let's talk!

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Playlists of Professional Development Hot Topics Select a Topic ~ View the Playlist ~ Watch Your Video If you have conducted a professional development session and would like to include it in our playlists or would like ICTL to start a new playlist topic, email Erin at enkt@hawaii.edu.

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The Journalism in Action website allows students to investigate the role journalism has played in U.S. history and what it means to have a free press.

Using the Library of Congress' databases, students analyze primary sources ranging from Civil War photographs to broadcasts of the Watergate hearings.

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Super Civics Archives - PBS NewsHour Classroom

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The Journalism in Action website allows students to investigate the role journalism has played in U.S. history and what it means to have a free press. Using the Library of Congress' databases, students analyze primary sources ranging from Civil War photographs to broadcasts of the Watergate hearings.

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Teaching the 2020 Election: What Will You Do on Wednesday?

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As Election Day approaches, educators should prepare to support students no matter the result.

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Post-election conversation resources for your classes

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Post-election conversation resources for your classes

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Opinion

A post-election lesson plan for 2020
Editor's Note: Before the election, Louisiana state Teacher of the Year Chris Dier was already planning what he would say to his class if uncertainty prevailed on election night. Here's how he will be approaching his high school U.S. history class today:
Waking up to teach the day after the presidential election of 2016 was one of the most surreal moments of my more than decade-long teaching career. The demographics of the high school where I was teaching four years ago were roughly 50 percent white and 50 percent Black, Indigenous, and students of color. That morning, some of the students were excited; others were visibly upset. And as they walked into class, I handed them a sheet of loose-leaf and asked them to jot down whatever thoughts they had about the election. There was no rubric.

Students eagerly took pen to paper. I noticed one student write something brief and put her pencil down as other students continued to write. Her paper read, "I want to be in this country because I love it. I don't know if this country wants me back now though." I'll never forget those words or the emotions on her face. I still have all of their writings from that day.

What followed was an interesting conversation. By that point in the year, I had taught my students for almost four months, and we'd had meaningful discourse about a variety of topics. Fortunately, despite the range of political opinions and emotions, the class was a safe space for dialogue. We felt comfortable with each other, and we trusted each other.

Regardless of the outcome, we educators must show up for our students, especially as history tells us that contested elections have lasting consequences.

This time around, I still plan to let my students process their emotions; addressing their social-emotional needs takes precedence over finding teachable moments. Regardless of our political leanings, events of this magnitude take a toll on these young people. My students are already feeling the pressures of high school while navigating a pandemic, attending virtual or hybrid classes, and witnessing protests addressing racial inequities and police brutality. Many are in families bearing the economic burdens brought on by COVID-19. They are listening to the adults in their lives and on screens pull them in different directions. It's all-encompassing and trauma-inducing.

After providing them with an outlet to release their thoughts, I will discuss the election head on.

Educators should not ignore controversy solely because it's challenging. Generation Z already understands how politics can meaningfully shape their lives. Students feel the weight of hot-button issues. They comprehend the climate is changing to an extent that will damage their futures if we do not act now. They feel the impact of systemic racism, homophobia, and transphobia. Many who want to attend college are aware that they will accumulate significant debt to achieve that dream.

Apolitical classrooms are not a viable option. As long as we prioritize the emotional well-being of the students, the possibilities for teaching this election are endless.

So, on Wednesday I plan to allow my students to drive the conversation with their own questions, concerns, and thoughts. We already have established discussion norms centered on tolerance, understanding, and empathy. Although I've never met many of them in person, I have developed a relationship of trust with my students. I begin every virtual class with an opportunity for them to share news about their personal lives. I start it off by opening up about mine.

They know that my dog pesters me while I'm trying to teach them. I know the sports they play, the music they listen to, the books they read, the Netflix shows they enjoy, the video games they play, and other tidbits about them. These human connections make the difficult conversations easier.

As a high school U.S. history teacher, I want to use this election as a way to educate them about previous presidential elections when the results were not immediately known. We might explore the origins of the Electoral College and debate its relevance today. If we have no clear winner by Wednesday morning, I plan to push the conversation toward an exploration of the contested presidential election of 1876.

My students have taken a particular interest in Reconstruction--the era after the Civil War which was marked by large-scale efforts to address the social, political, and economic inequities of African Americans following the abolition of de jure slavery. During Reconstruction, the federal government occupied the South and offered protection to freedpeople. Black men were granted suffrage and hundreds of Black Americans filled political positions across the nation.

Although there were advancements to improve racial equality, Reconstruction efforts were ultimately defeated by racist restrictions on freedpeople, violent and widespread backlash from white supremacists, and the North's increasing apathy toward the South. Reconstruction ended with the heavily contested election between Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, a Republican, and Gov. Samuel J. Tilden of New York, a Democrat. (The ideological alignments of the two parties was significantly different in the 19th century compared with today.)

The outcome of the race depended on the disputed returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina--the last remaining states where Reconstruction-era Republicans maintained power. Tilden won the popular vote, but was short on the Electoral College votes needed to win. A secret committee negotiated a shadowy, backroom compromise in which Democrats conceded to a Hayes victory on the condition that Republicans withdraw all federal troops from the South.

The Compromise of 1877 marked the end of Reconstruction and left African Americans across the South unprotected. And it allowed southern states to solidify Jim Crow segregation, leading to a dramatic increase in lynchings. It ushered in a new wave of voter suppression policies through the levying of poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests. The results of this contested election uplifted white supremacy, reversed Reconstruction gains, and set the template for race relations until Civil Rights movement-almost a century later.

Contested elections have dire consequences, especially on already marginalized populations, and that is worthy of exploration--then and now.

There is enormous hype surrounding our national elections, especially one as controversial as this year's. As educators, we have an opportunity to harness that energy, to make it productive for students and their growing understanding of our history, particularly as it pertains to their young lives. There is no question that teaching this election will be a challenge, but we will only do our students justice by addressing their legitimate concerns and engaging them in unbiased ways that support their emotional well-being, intellectual growth, and human dignity.

Our students are already empowered. This November, I intend to use the space we've cultivated in our virtual classroom to allow them to best assert their power for the change they wish to see. The future of our democracy depends on it.

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We Don't Know Who Won the Election, But I Know What I'll Say to My Class Today

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Opinion Editor's Note: Before the election, Louisiana state Teacher of the Year Chris Dier was already planning what he would say to his class if uncertainty prevailed on election night. Here's how he will be approaching his high school U.S.

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Global Studies Professor Hoffenberg talk. Antisemitism resources 

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Global Studies Professor Hoffenberg talk. Antisemitism resources 

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Article: 63% of young people know little about the Holocaust

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/survey-finds-shocking-lack-holocaust-knowledge-among-millennials-gen-z-n1240031

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Resources and information that can help your students and your families. Click here for video link on managing stress in stressful times.

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to your students, colleagues, family, and friends. Fill someone up and your life will be full! Take care of each other! Special thanks to Amy Shiroma, Kap CC faculty for creating and sharing this with our Leeward `ohana!

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Click on the image below to view recordings of Leeward CC's Summer 2020 professional development webinars!

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What did I miss? - Video Recordings of Summer Workshops by Erin Thompson | This newsletter was created with Smore, an online tool for creating beautiful newsletters for individual educators, schools and districts

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The "Equity" Picture ~ article submitted by Chai Blair-Stahn

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The "Equity" Picture ~ article submitted by Chai Blair-Stahn

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Mahalo Chai! So...what do you all think? How about we tear down the fence!

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We've all seen this picture, right?

In a picture-is-worth-1,000-words kind of way, this image simplifies the profound difference between equality and equity. From this picture people have actually begun to understand that treating everyone equally doesn't lead to equity, and in fact, equal treatment often perpetuates and justifies racial hierarchies. Yes, this picture has taught us a lot.

But, it's time to move on.
This picture -the noble imagery of the equity movement - is white supremacy at work.
Sorry folks. But it's true.

First and foremost, the shortest boy is positioned as the problem. He needs multiple boxes to see over the fence. He's the one who is the pathology: he's literally less than the others. The shortest boy is - by sheer presentation alone - not whole, not normal, especially compared to the tallest boy. And because he is shorter he is seen as the problem, he needs more help. He is by fact, needy.
Dominant and oppressive narratives about people of color bleed into this picture: people of color are less than and thus, need more.
This is white supremacy. This feeds into the oh-so-familiar racist politic - people of color have little to offer, and yet take so many public resources. Heard that before haven't you?

Even those who "center equity" feed into this framework - people of color need our resources because they're too broken to have their own. Volunteered with that organization maybe?

It is high time to rid ourselves of these white supremacy-laden "equity" ideas, and actually recognize the full humanity and capabilities of people of color.

Imagine if you will, 3 people -all the same goddamn size. The ground beneath them slopes, buckling beneath one person so significantly that person cannot see over the fence at all. The foundation on which these people stand is unequal, and that foundation, might we even say systemic, difference leads to some being able to watch the baseball game, while others cannot.

Yes, the person who is on the slope requires a box or two to stand on, but it is only because they are on lower ground to start - not because they are shorter to begin with.

As useful as the picture was in starting conversations around "Equality vs. Equity," we are basically blaming the person for being short, when in reality, we aren't standing on a level playing field to start. We aren't *allowed* to stand on a level playing field.
In fact, we are - by reason of policy, practice, prejudice, and bias - forced to stand on a lower level ... AND then told we should be happy to be near the game at all. All while not given enough boxes to see over the fence.
The unequal ground we are forced to stand on is the aspect of the picture we need to change. Understanding that those boxes are necessary because of the sloping ground is key to undoing white supremacy. With this new picture, let us decolonize the rules of where we stand and why.

That is equity.

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This 'Equity' picture is actually White Supremacy at work

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In a picture-is-worth-1,000-words kind of way, this image simplifies the profound difference between equality and equity. From this picture people have actually begun to understand that treating...

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References and Resources compiled by Syreeta Washington

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References and Resources compiled by Syreeta Washington

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Emergency Remote Teaching vs. Online Learning

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Emergency Remote Teaching vs. Online Learning

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Well-planned online learning experiences are meaningfully different from courses offered online in response to a crisis or disaster. Colleges and universities working to maintain instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic should understand those differences when evaluating this emergency remote teaching.

Credit: frankie's / Shutterstock.com © 2020

Due to the threat of COVID-19, colleges and universities are facing decisions about how to continue teaching and learning while keeping their faculty, staff, and students safe from a public health emergency that is moving fast and not well understood. Many institutions have opted to cancel all face-to-face classes, including labs and other learning experiences, and have mandated that faculty move their courses online to help prevent the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. The list of institutions of higher education making this decision has been growing each day. Institutions of all sizes and types-state colleges and universities, Ivy League institutions, community colleges, and others-are moving their classes online. Bryan Alexander has curated the status of hundreds of institutions.

Moving instruction online can enable the flexibility of teaching and learning anywhere, anytime, but the speed with which this move to online instruction is expected to happen is unprecedented and staggering. Although campus support personnel and teams are usually available to help faculty members learn about and implement online learning, these teams typically support a small pool of faculty interested in teaching online. In the present situation, these individuals and teams will not be able to offer the same level of support to all faculty in such a narrow preparation window. Faculty might feel like instructional MacGyvers, having to improvise quick solutions in less-than-ideal circumstances. No matter how clever a solution might be-and some very clever solutions are emerging-many instructors will understandably find this process stressful.

The temptation to compare online learning to face-to-face instruction in these circumstances will be great. In fact, an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education has already called for a "grand experiment" doing exactly that. This is a highly problematic suggestion, however. First and foremost, the politics of any such debate must be acknowledged. "Online learning" will become a politicized term that can take on any number of meanings depending on the argument someone wants to advance. In talking about lessons learned when institutions moved classes online during a shutdown in South Africa, Laura Czerniewicz starts with this very lesson and what happened around the construct of "blended learning" at the time. The idea of blended learning was drawn into political agendas without paying sufficient attention to the fact that institutions would make different decisions and invest differently, resulting in widely varying solutions and results from one institution to another. With some of that hindsight as wisdom, we seek to advance some careful distinctions that we hope can inform the evaluations and reflections that will surely result from this mass move by colleges and universities.

Online learning carries a stigma of being lower quality than face-to-face learning, despite research showing otherwise. These hurried moves online by so many institutions at once could seal the perception of online learning as a weak option, when in truth nobody making the transition to online teaching under these circumstances will truly be designing to take full advantage of the affordances and possibilities of the online format.

Researchers in educational technology, specifically in the subdiscipline of online and distance learning, have carefully defined terms over the years to distinguish between the highly variable design solutions that have been developed and implemented: distance learning, distributed learning, blended learning, online learning, mobile learning, and others. Yet an understanding of the important differences has mostly not diffused beyond the insular world of educational technology and instructional design researchers and professionals. Here, we want to offer an important discussion around the terminology and formally propose a specific term for the type of instruction being delivered in these pressing circumstances: emergency remote teaching.

Many active members of the academic community, including some of us, have been hotly debating the terminology in social media, and "emergency remote teaching" has emerged as a common alternative term used by online education researchers and professional practitioners to draw a clear contrast with what many of us know as high-quality online education. Some readers may take issue with the use of the term "teaching" over choices such as "learning" or "instruction." Rather than debating all of the details of those concepts, we selected "teaching" because of its simple definitions-"the act, practice, or profession of a teacher" and "the concerted sharing of knowledge and experience,"-along with the fact that the first tasks undertaken during emergency changes in delivery mode are those of a teacher/instructor/professor.

Effective Online Education

Online education, including online teaching and learning, has been studied for decades. Numerous research studies, theories, models, standards, and evaluation criteria focus on quality online learning, online teaching, and online course design. What we know from research is that effective online learning results from careful instructional design and planning, using a systematic model for design and development. The design process and the careful consideration of different design decisions have an impact on the quality of the instruction. And it is this careful design process that will be absent in most cases in these emergency shifts.

One of the most comprehensive summaries of research on online learning comes from the book Learning Online: What Research Tells Us about Whether, When and How. The authors identify nine dimensions, each of which has numerous options, highlighting the complexity of the design and decision-making process. The nine dimensions are modality, pacing, student-instructor ratio, pedagogy, instructor role online, student role online, online communication synchrony, role of online assessments, and source of feedback (see "Online learning design options").

Online learning design options (moderating variables)

Within each of these dimensions, there are options. Complicating matters, not all of the options are equally effective. For example, decisions around class size will greatly constrain what strategies you can use. Practice and feedback, for example, are well established in the literature, but it's harder to implement this as class size grows, eventually reaching a point where it's just not possible for an instructor to provide quality feedback. In the case of synchrony, what you choose will really depend on your learners' characteristics and what best meets their needs (adult learners require more flexibility, so asynchronous is usually best, perhaps with optional synchronous sessions, whereas younger learners benefit from the structure of required synchronous sessions).

Research on types of interaction-which includes student-content, student-student, and student-instructor-is one of the more robust bodies of research in online learning. In short, it shows that the presence of each of these types of interaction, when meaningfully integrated, increases the learning outcomes. Thus, careful planning for online learning includes not just identifying the content to cover but also carefully tending to how you're going to support different types of interactions that are important to the learning process. This approach recognizes learning as both a social and a cognitive process, not merely a matter of information transmission.

Those who have built online programs over the years will attest that effective online learning aims to be a learning community and supports learners not just instructionally but with co-curricular engagement and other social supports. Consider how much infrastructure exists around face-to-face education that supports student success: library resources, housing, career services, health services, and so on. Face-to-face education isn't successful because lecturing is good. Lectures are one instructional aspect of an overall ecosystem specifically designed to support learners with formal, informal, and social resources. Ultimately, effective online education requires an investment in an ecosystem of learner supports, which take time to identify and build. Relative to other options, simple online content delivery can be quick and inexpensive, but confusing that with robust online education is akin to confusing lectures with the totality of residential education.

Typical planning, preparation, and development time for a fully online university course is six to nine months before the course is delivered. Faculty are usually more comfortable teaching online by the second or third iteration of their online courses. It will be impossible for every faculty member to suddenly become an expert in online teaching and learning in this current situation, in which lead times range from a single day to a few weeks. While there are resources to which faculty can turn for assistance, the scale of change currently being required on many campuses will stress the systems that provide those resources and most likely will surpass their capacities. Let's face it: many of the online learning experiences that instructors will be able to offer their students will not be fully featured or necessarily well planned, and there's a high probability for suboptimal implementation. We need to recognize that everyone will be doing the best they can, trying to take just the essentials with them as they make a mad dash during the emergency. Thus, the distinction is important between the normal, everyday type of effective online instruction and that which we are doing in a hurry with bare minimum resources and scant time: emergency remote teaching.

Emergency Remote Teaching

In contrast to experiences that are planned from the beginning and designed to be online, emergency remote teaching (ERT) is a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances. It involves the use of fully remote teaching solutions for instruction or education that would otherwise be delivered face-to-face or as blended or hybrid courses and that will return to that format once the crisis or emergency has abated. The primary objective in these circumstances is not to re-create a robust educational ecosystem but rather to provide temporary access to instruction and instructional supports in a manner that is quick to set up and is reliably available during an emergency or crisis. When we understand ERT in this manner, we can start to divorce it from "online learning." There are many examples of other countries responding to school and university closures in a time of crisis by implementing models such as mobile learning, radio, blended learning, or other solutions that are contextually more feasible. For example, in a study on education's role in fragility and emergency situations, the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies examined four case studies. One of those cases was Afghanistan, where education was disrupted by conflict and violence and schools themselves were targets, sometimes because girls were trying to access education. In order to take children off the streets and keep them safe, radio education and DVDs were used to maintain and expand educational access and also were aimed at promoting education for girls.

What becomes apparent as we examine examples of educational planning in crises is that these situations require creative problem solving. We have to be able to think outside standard boxes to generate various possible solutions that help meet the new needs for our learners and communities. In some cases, it might even help us generate some new solutions to intractable problems, such as the dangers girls faced trying to access education in Afghanistan. Thus, it may be tempting to think about ERT as a bare-bones approach to standard instruction. In reality, it is a way of thinking about delivery modes, methods, and media, specifically as they map to rapidly changing needs and limitations in resources, such as faculty support and training.

In the present situation, the campus support teams that are usually available to help faculty members learn about and implement online learning will not be able to offer the same level of support to all faculty who need it. Faculty support teams play a critical role in the learning experiences of students by helping faculty members develop face-to-face or online learning experiences. Current support models might include full-course design support, professional development opportunities, content development, learning management system training and support, and multimedia creation in partnership with faculty experts. Faculty who seek support typically have varying levels of digital fluency and are often accustomed to one-on-one support when experimenting with online tools. The shift to ERT requires that faculty take more control of the course design, development, and implementation process. With the expectation of rapid development of online teaching and learning events and the large number of faculty in need of support, faculty development and support teams must find ways to meet the institutional need to provide instructional continuity while helping faculty develop skills to work and teach in an online environment. As such, institutions must rethink the way instructional support units do their work, at least during a crisis.

The rapid approach necessary for ERT may diminish the quality of the courses delivered. A full-course development project can take months when done properly. The need to "just get it online" is in direct contradiction to the time and effort normally dedicated to developing a quality course. Online courses created in this way should not be mistaken for long-term solutions but accepted as a temporary solution to an immediate problem. Especially concerning is the degree to which the accessibility of learning materials might not be addressed during ERT. This is but one reason that universal design for learning (UDL) should be part of all discussions around teaching and learning. UDL principles focus on the design of learning environments that are flexible, inclusive, and student-centered to ensure that all students can access and learn from the course materials, activities, and assignments.

Evaluating Emergency Remote Teaching

Institutions will certainly want to conduct evaluations of their ERT efforts, but what should they evaluate? First, let's consider what not to evaluate. A common misconception is that comparing a face-to-face course with an online version of the course constitutes a useful evaluation. This type of assessment, known as a media comparison study, provides no real value, for at least three reasons:

First, any medium is simply a way to deliver information, and one medium is not inherently better or worse than any other medium. Second, we need to better understand different media and the way people learn with different media to design effective studies. And, third, there are too many confounding variables in even the best media comparison study for the results to be valid and meaningful.

Researchers who conduct media comparison studies are looking at "the whole unique medium and [giving] little thought to each one's attributes and characteristics, to learner needs, or to psychological learning theories."

Other approaches to evaluation can be useful in this move to ERT. The success of distance and online learning experiences can be measured in a variety of ways, depending on how "success" is defined from a given stakeholder's perspective. From the faculty point of view, student learning outcomes would be of primary interest. Did learners achieve the intended knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes that were the focus of the instructional experience? Attitudinal outcomes are also possibly of interest, for students and for faculty. For students, issues such as interest, motivation, and engagement are directly connected to learner success and so would be possible evaluation foci. For faculty, attitudes toward online instruction and all that it entails can affect the perception of success.

Programmatic outcomes such as course and program completion rates, market reach, faculty time investments, impacts on promotion and tenure processes-all of these are relevant issues related to the offering of distance courses and programs. Finally, implementation resources and strategies are possible areas of evaluation inquiry, such as the reliability of selected technological delivery systems, the provision of and access to learner support systems, support for faculty professional development for online teaching pedagogies and tools, policy and governance issues related to distance program development, and quality assurance. All of these factors can influence the effectiveness of distance and online learning experiences and can serve to inform learning experience design and program development and implementation. These recommended areas of evaluation are for well-planned distance or online learning efforts and may not be appropriate in the case of ERT. Evaluating ERT will require broader questions, especially during initial implementations.

Next, let us recommend where you should focus your evaluation related to ERT efforts. The language of the CIPP model will be used for structure. CIPP is an acronym representing context, inputs, process, and products (see table 1).

Table 1. CIPP evaluation terms

"Assess needs, problems, assets, and opportunities, as well as relevant contextual conditions and dynamics"

"Assess a program's strategy, action plan, staffing arrangements, and budget for feasibility and potential cost-effectiveness to meet targeted needs and achieve goals."

"Monitor, document, assess, and report on the implementation of plans."

"Identify and assess costs and outcomes-intended and unintended, short term and long term."

In the case of ERT, institutions might want to consider evaluation questions such as the following:

Given the need to shift to remote instruction, what internal and external resources were necessary in supporting this transition? What aspects of the context (institutional, social, governmental) affected the feasibility and effectiveness of the transition? (context)

How did the university interactions with students, families, personnel, and local and government stakeholders impact perceived responsiveness to the shift to ERT? (context)

Was the technology infrastructure sufficient to handle the needs of ERT? (input)

Did the campus support staff have sufficient capacity to handle the needs of ERT? (input)

Was our ongoing faculty professional development sufficient to enable ERT? How can we enhance opportunities for immediate and flexible learning demands related to alternative approaches to instruction and learning? (input)

Where did faculty, students, support personnel, and administrators struggle the most with ERT? How can we adapt our processes to respond to such operational challenges in the future? (process)

What were the programmatic outcomes of the ERT initiative (i.e., course completion rates, aggregated grade analyses, etc.)? How can challenges related to these outcomes be addressed in support of the students and faculty impacted by these issues? (product)

How can feedback from learners, faculty, and campus support teams inform ERT needs in the future? (product)

Evaluation of ERT should be more focused on the context, input, and process elements than product (learning). Note that we are not advocating for no evaluation of whether or not learning occurred, or to what extent it occurred, but simply stressing that the urgency of ERT and all that will take to make it happen in a short time frame will be the most critical elements to evaluate during this crisis. This is being recognized by some as a few institutions are beginning to announce changing to pass/fail options rather letter grades during ERT.

Also, given the continued evidence of problems surrounding student evaluations of instruction under typical higher education experiences, we recommend that the standard, end-of-semester teaching evaluations definitely not be counted against faculty members engaged in ERT. If an institution's policy mandates that those evaluations be administered, consider amending the policy, or make sure that the results are clearly qualified with the circumstances of the term or semester.

Final Thoughts

Everyone involved in this abrupt migration to online learning must realize that these crises and disasters also create disruptions to student, staff, and faculty lives, outside their association with the university. So all of this work must be done with the understanding that the move to ERT will likely not be the priority of all those involved. Instructors and administrators are urged to consider that students might not be able to attend to courses immediately. As a result, asynchronous activities might be more reasonable than synchronous ones. Flexibility with deadlines for assignments within courses, course policies, and institutional policies should be considered. For a high-level example, the US Department of Education has relaxed some requirements and policies in the face of COVID-19.

Hopefully the COVID-19 threat will soon be a memory. When it is, we should not simply return to our teaching and learning practices prior to the virus, forgetting about ERT. There likely will be future public health and safety concerns, and in recent years, campuses have been closed due to natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, and the polar vortex. Thus, the possible need for ERT must become part of a faculty member's skill set, as well as professional development programming for any personnel involved in the instructional mission of colleges and universities.

The threat of COVID-19 has presented some unique challenges for institutions of higher education. All parties involved-students, faculty, and staff-are being asked to do extraordinary things regarding course delivery and learning that have not been seen on this scale in the lifetimes of anyone currently involved. Although this situation is stressful, when it is over, institutions will emerge with an opportunity to evaluate how well they were able to implement ERT to maintain continuity of instruction. It is important to avoid the temptation to equate ERT with online learning during those evaluations. With careful planning, officials at every campus can evaluate their efforts, allowing those involved to highlight strengths and identify weaknesses to be better prepared for future needs to implement ERT.

Notes

1. See, for example: "Information for Ohio State University Students, Faculty and Staff," The Ohio State University, Wexner Medical Center; "President Eisgruber Updates University on Next Steps Regarding COVID-19 to Ensure Health and Well-Being of the Entire Community," Princeton University; and Everett Community College. ↩

2. "Coronavirus and Higher Education Resources," Bryan Alexander blog, March 17, 2020. ↩

3. Laura Czerniewicz, "What We Learnt from 'Going Online' during University Shutdowns in South Africa," PhilOnEdTech, March 15, 2020. ↩

4. "Teaching," Merriam-Webster. ↩

5. Robert M. Branch and Tonia A. Dousay, "Survey of Instructional Design Models," Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 2015. ↩

6. Robert M. Bernard, Philip C. Abrami, Eugene Borokhovski, C. Anne Wade, Rana M. Tamim, Michael A. Surkes, and Edward Clement Bethel, "A Meta-Analysis of Three Types of Interaction Treatments in Distance Education," Review of Educational Research 79, no. 3 (2009): 1,243-89. ↩

7. Lynn Davies and Denise Bentrovato, International Institute for Educational Planning (2011). "Understanding Education's Role in Fragility; Synthesis of Four Situational Analyses of Education and Fragility: Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Liberia,"↩

8. See "UDL On Campus," ↩

9. "Guidance for Interruptions of Study Related to Coronavirus (COVID-19)," Federal Student Aid, Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP), March 20, 2020. ↩

10. Elin Johnson, "As Fires Rage, More Campuses Close," InsideHigherEd, October 29, 2019; Jenni Fink, "Florida Universities Cancelling Classes, Closing Campus Ahead of Potential Category 4 Hurricane Dorian," Newsweek, August 29, 2019; and Perry Samson, "The Coronavirus and Class Broadcasts," EDUCAUSE Review, March 3, 2020. ↩

Charles B. Hodges is a Professor of Instructional Technology at Georgia Southern University.

Stephanie Moore is an Assistant Professor of Instructional Design and Technology in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

Barbara B. Lockee is a Professor of Instructional Design and Technology, and Provost Faculty Fellow, at Virginia Tech.

Torrey Trust is an Associate Professor of Learning Technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

M. Aaron Bond is Senior Director, Professional Development Network and Faculty Digital Fluency at Virginia Tech.

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the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning

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The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning

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Well-planned online learning experiences are meaningfully different from courses offered online in response to a crisis or disaster. Colleges and univ

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Laulima (Accessibility): Open in New Window icon (easy)

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Laulima (Accessibility): Open in New Window icon (easy)

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Recommendation for accessible web links is to inform the reader when you are going to open a link in a new window. You can either say (New Window) all the time or your include an icon, here is how to insert the icon in Laulima in under a minute.

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Laulima Accessibility - Icon for Opens in a New Window (Easy)

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Click on the image below to view Netiquette guidelines that you can share with your students.

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"Huddle Up!" How to Support Struggling or Missing Students - 5/4/20

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"Huddle Up!" How to Support Struggling or Missing Students - 5/4/20

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by Student Services Faculty Lexer Chou, Joy Lane, and Heather Takamatsu (Due to sensitive nature of the session, it was not recorded but the presenters compiled a helpful resource list for faculty).

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by Dr. Loretta Chen (Tan)

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The Power of Perspective - Dr. Loretta Chen

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Following in Kapiʻolani’s Footsteps:  Colette Higgins interview in ʻIolani Palace

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Following in Kapiʻolani’s Footsteps:  Colette Higgins interview in ʻIolani Palace

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Following In Kapiolani's Footsteps | Na Moolelo Lecture Series | Collette Higgins

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Click on the image below to view Leeward's Netiquette Guidelines.

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A place to gather and share 'ike on staying healthy and well during these times

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Watch this short yet powerful video and be inspired to say thank you! (Post your gratitude to someone in the Virtual Hugs forum today!)

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An Experiment in Gratitude | The Science of Happiness

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Stay in shape while "staying in place" with BLANCA POLO, ICS professor. Email her at blanca@hawaii.edu for Zoom link and password. Classes are MWF 5:30pm-6:30pm. Mahalo Blanca!

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Building Bridges: Helping Students Transition to Online Learning - 4/23/2020

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Building Bridges: Helping Students Transition to Online Learning - 4/23/2020

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with Christina Keaulana, Suzette Scotti, Sharolyn Pastor, Jordan Lewton, and Frances Won.

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Building Bridges: Helping Students Transition to Online 042320

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Share a Virtual Hug with a Leeward Colleague

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Share a Virtual Hug with a Leeward Colleague

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CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW to post notes of encouragement, kudos, gratitude, etc. to your colleagues. Give them a virtual hug today...they deserve it! 😊

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Make a cup of tea and take a moment to join us in The Reading Room.  Series creator, Ann Inoshita, invites authors and poets from the community to share their work and writing process.

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Respecting Gender Identity During COVID-19

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Respecting Gender Identity During COVID-19

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Leeward's LGBTQ+ Commissioners, Lexer Chou and Michelle Igarashi, would like to share some best practices tips to help students
of all gender identities feel safe in our now fully online classes. Please visit COVID-19 Best Practices as well as our LGBTQ+ website.

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Take our Playful Pandemic Poll (go.hawaii.edu/Agz) to celebrate National Library Week, April 29-25.
We hope to share with you at a later date the collected poll answers depending on the success of responses. Aloha!

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This semester focusing on examples for Leeward CC Distance Education Guideline #5

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Spring 2020

In collaboration with the Distance Education (DE) Committee, the EMC is offering a new series of Tech Fun Fridays sessions to be offered completely online and synchronously (i.e. in live time) via Zoom. This semester, topics will be focused on Distance Education (DE) in support of the new DE Guidelines, in particular, DE Guideline 5 (Interaction). But you don't have to teach DE to participate and benefit from what you'll learn in these panel sessions and workshops. (Note: Sessions will be recorded and added to this page later.)

Please prepare a few days in advance to make sure you have everything you need and that your hardware will allow you to participate in a Zoom web conferencing session by following these instructions.

Please join us for Tech Fun Fridays - a fun way to learn and grow professionally. Unless otherwise noted, all sessions will be held in LC-108A. There is no sign-up required for any of the sessions. Please bring a laptop or Chromebook.

Aug 30

12 - 1

Course Mapping Session 1 (2 part series)

Are you interested in teaching online or hybrid? Would you like to streamline your course? Come to this two-part session on course mapping. Course maps are useful visual tools which will get you started on the road to aligning your learning outcomes with your course materials, activities and assessments. You will come away with a better-organized course and an overall visual of how your course fits together.

Sep 6

12 - 1

Course Mapping Session 2 (2 part series)

This session is a continuation of last week's Course Mapping session. In this session, you will continue working on your course map. You will then share it other participants and receive 1-1 help from your peers and workshop facilitators.

Sep 13

11:30 - 1:00

Google Docs Challenge

Experience the wonders of Google Documents, an online word processor that lets you create, edit, and collaborate with others. See how it can help you and your students or colleagues communicate and collaborate on shared Google Documents.

[ Workshop website]

Sep 20

12 - 1

Zoom

Zoom is a web conferencing platform capable of video chat, screen share, and more! Come check out what Zoom has to offer, get your own free account, and try it out for yourself.

Sep 27

Make Your Online Documents Accessible

In this session, you will learn to make your documents accessible by following easy tips and free software checkers. We will start with a simple practice document then you will move on to make your course syllabus accessible. There will be facilitators to provide you with 1-1 help. Bring an electronic copy of your syllabus. Upon successful completion of an accessible syllabus, you will earn a digital badge!

Oct 4
Make Your Online Documents Accessible {repeated session}

Oct 11

11:30-1:00

Gmail Challenge

Email can collect quickly and take up your time, but there are ways to be more efficient with email and utilize Gmail's features to take control of your inbox.

[ Workshop Website]

Oct 18

12 - 1

H5P

This session is geared toward online and hybrid instructors who are interested in adding quick check-for-understanding activities to your online content. In this session, you will create an interactive online learning activity using H5P. These non-graded activities may be embedded into your course content for your students to use as self-checks.

Oct 25

12 -1

Capturing Video Like a Pro
Through hands-on activities, learn basic tips, techniques and best practices for shooting video using consumer gear (camcorders, phones, tablets, laptops).

Nov 1

12 - 1

Flipgrid Flipgrid is a video discussion platform, post questions and spark thoughtful video responses. Increase student engagement while giving them a voice. Flipgrid works well as a formative assessment tool.

Nov 8

12 - 1

CES

Are your online course evaluations setup for this semester? CES provides valuable feedback to the instructor. If you are new to CES, come to this session. You will login to the CES site and add your own questions to create a course evaluation for each of your courses. Tips on how to get the best response rate will be shared.

[ Presentation]

Nov 15

12 - 1

Quizlet Live
Quizlet Live is an in-class, team-based learning game tool. In this session, learn how to use Quizlet Live to integrate technology into the classroom for small group learning activities. Go to Quizlet Live to participate in a Quizlet Live activity.

Nov 22

12 - 1

Use Your Voice to Type (Accessibility)

Are you a hunt-and-peck typist? Do you have a repetitive strain injury or another hand injury? Or do your thoughts come more easily by talking over typing? Come to this session where you will learn how easy it is to use your voice to type!

[ Presentation]

At the end of each session, please complete the workshop survey.

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In collaboration with the Distance Education (DE) Committee, the EMC is offering a new series of Tech Fun Fridays sessions to be offered completely online and synchronously (i.e. in live time) via Zoom. This semester, topics will be focused on Distance Education (DE) in support of the new DE Guidelines, in particular, DE Guideline 5 (Interaction).

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Introduction

In the event of a disruptive event that prompts the campus to move classes online, this guide will help you transition your face-to-face instruction to distance-delivered (or remote) instruction in the simplest way possible to ensure continuity of your face-to-face class. (Those already teaching DE courses should continue teaching as they normally do.) This guide is not intended to help you create or teach a distance education (DE) course, provide a definitive list of technology resources, nor reflect pedagogical best practices. Quality DE courses require intentional design and development.

Checklist

1. Check-in with your division for what the college's and your division's plans are for transitioning classes online during a disruptive event.

2. Prepare for remote access.

1. Do you have a computer or laptop and Internet access? (Check with your division if you need a laptop.)

2. Do you have earbuds, headphones, or a headset with a microphone or a built-in microphone on your computer/laptop for online lectures or recording videos?

3. (Optional) Do you have a webcam (on your computer/laptop) for online lectures or recording videos?

3. Update your syllabus and course schedule. Also, include a statement that your syllabus and course schedule may be modified and updated during the emergency. Upload your syllabus and course schedule file(s) to Laulima Resources. Create a folder called "Syllabus" [How-to] and upload your file(s) to the folder. [How-to]

4. Check your UH Gmail (@hawaii.edu) email account regularly (daily). Remind your students to check their @hawaii.edu email accounts daily, too.

5. Prepare for remote instruction by reviewing the instructions below.

Remote Instruction

Remember, this guide is to help quickly transition face-to-face instruction to distance-delivered (or remote) instruction usually for a temporary time due to a disruptive event. This is not intended to be used as a guide to transform your face-to-face class into a DE class. In this situation, you'll want to try to keep things to how you normally do in the classroom, but now accessed online. Also, we recommend using UH sponsored tools (i.e. Laulima, UH Google Apps) to get the support you and your students might need from UH ITS. [ Request Laulima help] [ Request UH Google help]

Communication

Communication will be extremely important when you are not able to see and talk with your students in-person. The following tools can help you to maintain regular dialogue and communication with your students. Click on the tool's name below to learn what it is and the "How-to" link for steps on how to use it.

Distributing and Delivering Course Content

Focus on your learning outcomes to prioritize what materials you will need to make electronic to distribute or deliver online. Paper-based course materials can be made electronic by scanning to PDF. Course content such as lectures and demos can be delivered synchronously (i.e. in-live-time) through web conferencing or asynchronously (i.e. not-in-live-time) through recorded videos. Click on the tool's name below to learn what it is and the "How-to" link for steps on how to use it.

Course materials

Scan paper-based materials to PDF

If your course materials are not in digital form, scan them to PDF at our Copy Center (bring a flash drive or one will be provided for you) or check with your division's office

As a last resort, use your mobile device to scan using the (free) Adobe Scan app [How-to]

Create folders in Laulima Resources to organize files [How-to] and upload your files [How-to]. Or, use UH Google Drive if you're familiar with using it for organizing and sharing folders and files.

Alternatively, email files as attachments to students using Laulima Announcements [How-to] or UH Gmail [How-to].

Lecture online

Lecture as you normally would "in-live-time," but synchronously (i.e. "in-live-time" online) using a web conferencing platform such as Google Hangouts Meet [How-to]. (Note: Meet is available as part of our UH Google Suite for Education.) Meet also allows you to share your webcam (video) for instructor presence and demonstrations, and present/screen share your PPT, Google Slides, or your computer screen as you lecture [How-to]. Recommended: Watch the tutorial on using Meet.

Alternatively, if you need something more, for instance breakout rooms, consider using Zoom [Meet vs. Zoom comparison chart]. Request a Zoom account from UH ITS.)

Record video lectures or mini lectures
Use Google Meet to record your lectures or mini lectures as videos that students can watch later. Video recordings get saved in your UH Google Drive and then you'll need to share it [How-to]. Recommended: Watch the tutorial on using Meet.

To share, in your My Drive > Meet Recordings, select the file and click on the Share button.

Click on the "Advanced" link at the bottom right corner of the share pop-up window.

There are different sharing levels. If you are doing a recorded video with no audience, you may consider sharing the link as "anyone with link can view" or "anyone in UH with link can view" for an added restriction. If you are recording a live class session with their consent, you may consider sharing the link as "anyone in UH with link can view" for an added restriction. Doing so will prompt the viewer to log in with their UH credentials to view the recording.

Once your file is shared, copy the share link and paste it where you want to share it such as in a Laulima Announcement or embedded [How-to] in your Laulima Lesson. (Note: Due to file size, do not upload the video file to Laulima.)

Activities and Assessments

Focus on your learning outcomes to prioritize what activities and assessments students need to do. There are many tools in Laulima for students to do their activities and assessments online. UH Google Docs is another option especially for collaborative assignments. The following are just a few basic tools to get started with. Click on the tool's name below to learn what it is and the "How-to" link for steps on how to use it.

Grades

Keep students informed of their progress/grades by adding the Gradebook Classic tool to your Laulima site [ How to]. If you use the tools in Laulima, most have the option to link to Laulima Gradebook which means when you grade within the tool, it automatically inputs the students' grades into the Gradebook. Make sure to checkmark or enable the "link to Gradebook" option when you're in the different Laulima tools such as Assignments and Tests & Quizzes.

Leeward Quick-Start Laulima Template

We've designed a Laulima course site template as a quick-start for you to populate with your course content, activities, and assessments that utilizes the Laulima tools mentioned above. And (as a bonus), the Laulima Lessons tool [ How-to] to help you present and gather all of your course content, activities, and assignments in one organized page by week, like a course schedule (see screenshot below).

Request a copy of the template to be imported into your course site(s).

Recommended: Watch the tutorial on how to use the Leeward Quick-Start Laulima Template.

We're here to help

In addition to the tutorials linked above for you to do on your own, the EMC Educational Technologists, DE Liaisons, and your Division Chairs and colleagues are available to help you. We also hosted several workshops to get you started that go along with this guide and offer one-on-one assistance as explained below.

Workshops

While these workshops have passed, please refer to the recordings or resources.

Updating and Posting Your Syllabus and Course Schedule to Laulima [View how-to links above]

Using Google Hangouts Meet for Online Lectures [Watch tutorial recording]

Using the Leeward Quick-Start Laulima Template [Watch tutorial recording]

Conversations on Online Assessment Strategies [View doc]

Need Assistance?

Request an appointment with an Educational Technologist. We are available Monday through Friday from 8am-4pm to meet with you on the phone, Zoom, or Google Meet.

Simply have a question? Email us at edtech@hawaii.edu.

Resources

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Teaching Continuity Guide for Remote Instruction

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In the event of a disruptive event that prompts the campus to move classes online, this guide will help you transition your face-to-face instruction to distance-delivered (or remote) instruction in the simplest way possible to ensure continuity of your face-to-face class. (Those already teaching DE courses should continue teaching as they normally do.)

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Now available on the Data
Governance intranet (UH login is required). Click below to login.

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I include this statement in my online class which may also apply to faculty who wish to post to UH YouTube.

Through a partnership with Google, all University of Hawai'i user accounts are setup with a core set of Google App.  These core apps include such basics as Gmail (email), Calendar, and Google Drive/ docs.  Since this is an a educational technology class we will also be extending our use of UH Google Apps to include UH Google YouTube.

Enabling UH Google Consumer Apps:  Please go to  UH Google Consumer Apps (be sure to read Google's Terms of Service) and enable Consumer Apps for your Google@UH account.  This will enable access to tools like UH YouTube which we'll be using later in the semester.

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Show & Tell Screen Casts (Aka. Group Presentations)

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Show & Tell Screen Casts (Aka. Group Presentations)

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As a culminating activity consider having students do a screen cast (short video recording of their screen).  Student favorites free tools for this has been ScreenCast-O-Matic, Screencastify or as a last resort using their phone to record. Then they upload their video to UH Google Drive or UH YouTube or Flipgrid.
Students' face does not need to be visible, their voice narrates their path to learning.  Video links can be shared in Laulima Assignments or with the class via Laulima Forums.

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"BeeLine Reader is a research-backed tool that improves reading ability for students of all ages and skill levels."
College students can request free COVID access. You can trial it yourself for 2 weeks to see how it works.

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BeeLine Reader: making reading on-screen easier and faster.

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BeeLine Reader adds a color gradient to text to help you read faster and more accurately.

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Students come together, share music, and inspire!

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Students come together, share music, and inspire!

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Here's an inspirational (and motivating) example of some students coming together, sharing their talents online, and putting together an inspiring and uplifting video!

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"Yes, we can!" Building a Positive Presence During a Pandemic - 4/15/2020

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"Yes, we can!" Building a Positive Presence During a Pandemic - 4/15/2020

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by Bobbie Martel

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A curated document by the UH Online Innovation Center

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Zoom Quick Tip #1: Integrating Audio into a Zoom Session

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Zoom Quick Tip #1: Integrating Audio into a Zoom Session

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by Brent Hirata (Ed Media Center)

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Zoom Quick Tip #2 : Integrating iOS devices into a Zoom session

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Zoom Quick Tip #2 : Integrating iOS devices into a Zoom session

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by Brent Hirata (Ed Media Center)

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Be a Zoom Master: Tips that WOW with Brent Hirata, Warren Kawano, Syreeta Washington, and Erin Thompson

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Preparing Teachers & Students for Online Learning

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Preparing Teachers & Students for Online Learning

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A clearinghouse for free commercial and open educational resources for teaching online.

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In response to the recent developments due to SkillsCommons and MERLOT have created this FREE online resource to help both Teachers and Students prepare to start teaching and learning online.

Free Teaching and Learning Online Materials

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In response to the recent developments due to SkillsCommons and MERLOT have created this FREE online resource to help both Teachers and Students prepare to start teaching and learning online. Free Teaching and Learning Online Materials

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A graphic to depict the progression from Fear to Growing Zones. Submitted by Leanne Riseley

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Implicit Bias & Stereotype Threat with Ashley Biddle

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CREATIVI-TEA hosted by Anika Gearhart-Edwards (Social Sciences)

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CREATIVI-TEA hosted by Anika Gearhart-Edwards (Social Sciences)

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Grab a cup of tea (or coffee!) and join this weekly crocheting group every Friday from 10am-11am online via Zoom to unwind from the stressors of the week. We supply the materials for you! Contact Anika at anikag@hawaii.edu.

Join on Zoom:
675-729-7569    OR
https://zoom.us/j/6757297569

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4-minute Box Breathing Meditation with Kelly Kennedy (Language Arts)

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4-minute Box Breathing Meditation with Kelly Kennedy (Language Arts)

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Originally created to support her ESL students, Kelly is now sharing this with anyone who needs a quick "reset" during the day.

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Kapiolani CC HOSP instructor, Amy Shiroma, reflects on life lessons that inspire and encourage her during these challenging times.

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Listen and learn more about The 'Ulu Branches. Scroll down each column for more stuff!

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Listen and learn more about The 'Ulu Branches. Scroll down each column for more stuff!

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Return to Under the 'Ulu Tree here.

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"I Will Survive" cover (for the transitioning online teacher)

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"I Will Survive" cover (for the transitioning online teacher)

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Mahalo to Christine Walters for sharing.

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I Will Survive, Coronavirus version for teachers going online

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It is an easy read that gives 10 essential practices, common misconceptions, and where to find help. A good overview of online teaching with some practical tips.

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Share your "Under the tree" story here and strengthen our campus community.

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Share your "Under the tree" story here and strengthen our campus community.

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Aloha mai kākou!

I was born and raised near the Aloha Stadium in a quaint, isolated neighborhood called Foster Village located in the Hālawa Ahupua'a on the island of O'ahu. My parents were not rich, but what they lacked in finances they made up for in providing a strict yet loving home for me and my three older sisters. Some of my fondest childhood memories include a fixture on our home property, our family's mango tree. That tree grew up along side of me. Only a sapling when I was born, our tree grew bigger and stronger each year, never failing to provide us with ample Hayden mangoes (which are THE best mangoes!). I climbed her branches, used our homemade mango picker (cloth bag on a broken broom handle) to pick her ripe fruit, raked her leaves, and apologized to her when my lackluster volleyball skills caused her fruits to prematurely fall to the ground. Under the mango tree, my family played games, had picnics, told stories, and learned life lessons. We always took family pictures under her shade, as if she were our family member too. Now that I reflect on it, she actually was.

In 2019, my dad joined my mom in heaven, leaving my sisters and I to make the difficult decision to sell our childhood home. The only solace we had in this heart-wrenching decision was the hope that the next family to occupy this special place would be just as blessed as we had been, adding to the positive mana of the space. The day before we turned over the keys to the new owners, I returned to my childhood home alone and hugged my tree. I thanked her for all the years of priceless memories she provided to me and my family. I became the person I am today because of the experiences and relationships that were built under the mango tree.

Here at Leeward Community College, finding time to connect and talk with our colleagues is an important part of building community on campus. However, demands of the job, endless deadlines, and transitioning work practices in order to best serve our students can leave us feeling overwhelmed and isolated. Under the 'Ulu Tree is a blog site that pays homage to the power of taking time to nurture relationships, just as my family did (and many local families do) under their own mango trees. We reference the 'ulu or breadfruit because this tree has special significance and connection to Leeward at Pu'uloa. It graces our campus grounds and decorates our facades. Under the 'Ulu Tree provides a space where sharing and encouragement can occur among peers. It is a way to bui ld community, strengthen organization al culture, nurture productive collaborations, and promote creativity, innovation, and fun in the work place.

Here you will find links to:

Helpful Mentors on campus who are willing to assist you in teaching and learning practices

Virtual Talk Story Sessions that allow for brainstorming, sharing, and support on hot topics

The 'Ulu Branches Resource Clearinghouse where any Leeward employee can share links to educational resources, articles, teaching strategies, wellness tips, or even personal items that inspire us or bring joy.

The Idea Exchange is the classified ads for collaboration among Leeward employees. Whether you are seeking help and support for your brilliant idea or looking for ways to contribute and lead on campus, this is the site for you.

If you have an idea of what else we should include on this site, contact Erin Thompson at enkt@hawaii.edu. I'd love to hear from you.

Until then, I'll hope to see you Under the 'Ulu Tree.

Me ke aloha nui,

Erin Thompson, Innovation Center Coordinator

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Aloha mai kākou! I was born and raised near the Aloha Stadium in a quaint, isolated neighborhood called Foster Village located in the Hālawa Ahupua'a on the island of O'ahu. My parents were not rich, but what they lacked in finances they made up for in providing a strict yet loving home for me and my three older sisters.

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Leading our classes with engagement & PEACE

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Leading our classes with engagement & PEACE

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has caused a fast and radical shift across colleges and universities to remote and online teaching models. As such, our face-to-face courses have been taken out of the physical classroom and thrust into virtual domains. While many instructors are fluent and may prefer online teaching practices, others are struggling to rapidly expand their skill sets and become fluent in technologies they have never, or perhaps only briefly, explored.

Although this transition to a remote teaching and learning format is uncomfortable for many of us, it has been inspirational to witness the collaborations that have emerged as a result of this pandemic. More specifically, in order to support these hasty efforts to move teaching online, a variety of communities of instructors have emerged to provide guidance, advice, tutorials, and other resources to help themselves and their colleagues achieve "good enough-ness" (teaching excellence is not the goal right now) in continuing to teach their students.

The recent emphasis on logistical resources and teaching-related information is understandable. Anecdotal accounts abound of instructors experiencing great anxiety at having been directed simply to "put classes online", and these resources and information can help alleviate that anxiety and empower instructors to keep teaching. What has received less attention, however, has been discussion of how we as instructors should lead our students and inspire them in this time of emergency. Indeed, it is important to remember that while this is a new and unsettling experience for us, this is an equally new and unsettling experience for our students (many of whom are likely to be displaced from their housing situations and/or face economic hardships).

How we address these changing circumstances to our students will markedly impact their own reactions. We have an opportunity to use our teaching personas, philosophies, and practices to both help our students understand and manage the gravity of this current crisis and reassure them that we have some control, even in this uncertain situation, to create positive personal and professional experiences through our continuing academic connections. Below, we provide recommendations for how we can use our teaching personas, philosophies, and practices to lead our students during this crisis.

Acknowledge, and accept, that things are different now for us and our students. We could not anticipate the essentially universal transition to remote learning models. Many instructors do not want to teach online, and many students do not want to learn online. We are justified not only in our frustrations caused by this transition, but also in our desire to commiserate briefly with colleagues about how difficult and scary this will be (and not just academically, but cognitively, emotionally, physically, socially, etc.). But rather than focus on the negative, we recommend that instructors immediately transition to discussing with their students how they are ready to accept and lean into these changes. As instructors, we have the unique opportunity here to provide guidance, excitement, and inspiration about the changes we are facing. We have the opportunity to communicate with our students the value of this modified educational experience, which is a much more effective use of our time and skills than grieving about how things were or could/should have been.

Show your students that you will be reasonable and empathetic. Once you have acknowledged the changes and guided your students to accept that these changes will happen, you have the opportunity to reassure your students that, at least academically, things will be okay. Explicitly state to your students that you will shepherd them through this difficult time by making changes to their academic experience that are reasonable and fair. Share with them your empathy to their experiencing potential crises in many domains of life. Your student athletes may have had their seasons cancelled. Your senior students may not see their friends again or experience walking across the stage to receive their diplomas at graduation. Your students, or their family or friends, may be impacted directly by COVID-19. Let them know that you recognize that your class is not the only responsibility or concern they have right now, and let them know that they can trust you to continue to promote their learning and academic success through this difficult time.

Model engagement, optimism, and PEACE for your students. Our teaching philosophy is called "Trickle Down Engagement," and is based on the idea that instructors' engagement in the course and the content will impact students' engagement, and ultimately, will facilitate their learning. Our Trickle Down Engagement teaching philosophy is based on theories of self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 1985; 2008; Ryan & Deci, 2017), intrinsic motivation (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999), positive psychology (Fredrickson, 2001), and emotional contagion (Frenzel et al., 2009), and our data supports this link between instructor engagement, student engagement, and student learning (Saucier, Miller, Jones, & Martens, 2020).

We believe that in times of crisis, instructors have the unique opportunity to model their engagement intentionally and palpably to their students to guide and inspire them through that crisis. Instructors have the opportunity to model acceptance of (as we stated earlier) and optimism about the situation. Further, instructors have the opportunity to bring PEACE to their students. In saying this, we mean not only that instructors can promote a sense of calm, reassurance, and positivity to their students (Saucier, 2019a) while teaching remotely, but PEACE is an acronym the describes the teaching persona they should make apparent to their students all the time. Instructors should explicitly manifest the attributes of Preparation, Expertise, Authenticity, Caring, and Engagement (PEACE) to their students (Saucier, 2019b). By doing so, instructors can use their teaching personas intentionally to inspire their students to persevere through the challenges we currently face.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world and will fundamentally change how we face many aspects of life. The transition of education to remote teaching models has been and will continue to be difficult for instructors and students. While this pandemic is (hopefully) temporary, we may make permanent impressions on our students by focusing on more than how to deliver our content in online modalities. We as instructors have unique opportunities to use our teaching personas, philosophies, and practices to inspire our students to keep learning, especially as we keep teaching in engaging and PEACE-ful ways.
Bios:
Donald A. Saucier, PhD, (2001, University of Vermont) is a university distinguished teaching scholar and professor of psychological sciences at Kansas State University. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles, and he has been selected as a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and the Midwestern Psychological Association. His numerous awards and honors include the University Distinguished Faculty Award for Mentoring of Undergraduate Students in Research, the Presidential Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Teaching Resource Prize. Don is also the current faculty director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Kansas State University.

Tucker L. Jones, M.S. (2018, Kansas State University) is a doctoral candidate in the department of psychological sciences at Kansas State University. His research interests focus on exploring the various factors that are associated with emotional and behavioral responses to others. Tucker's recent work has examined (a) individual differences associated with emotional and behavioral responses to ambiguous social situations in which rejection might be inferred, (b) antisocial and prosocial teasing in children, and (c) individuals' reactions to children/adults with various undesirable characteristics.
References:
Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological bulletin, 125(6), 627-668.

Deci, E., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Springer Science & Business Media.

Deci, E., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Facilitating optimal motivation and psychological well-being across life's domains. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 49(1), 14-23.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American psychologist, 56(3), 218-226.

Frenzel, A. C., Goetz, T., Lüdtke, O., Pekrun, R., & Sutton, R. E. (2009). Emotional transmission in the classroom: exploring the relationship between teacher and student enjoyment. Journal of educational psychology, 101(3), 705.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. New York: Guilford Press.

Saucier, D. A. (2019a, September 19). "Having the time of my life": The trickle-down model of self and student engagement. ACUE Community. https://community.acue.org/blog/having-the-time-of-my-life-the-trickle-down-model-of-self-and-student-engagement/

Saucier, D. A. (2019b). Bringing PEACE to the classroom. Faculty Focus: Effective Teaching Strategies, Philosophy of Teaching. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/bringing-peace-to-the-classroom/

Saucier, D. A., Miller, S. S., Jones, T. L., & Martens, A. L. (2020). Trickle down engagement: Effects of perceived teacher and student engagement on learning outcomes [Manuscript in preparation]. Department of Psychological Sciences, Kansas State University.

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Leading Our Classes Through Times of Crisis with Engagement and PEACE | Faculty Focus

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The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has caused a fast and radical shift across colleges and universities to remote and online teaching models. As such, our face-to-face courses have been taken out of the physical classroom and thrust into virtual domains.

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Tips for looking your best when presenting and teaching online.

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Thanks to technology, we can conduct business with anyone, at any time, almost anywhere in the world.

While face-to-face meetings are still relevant and important, our phones, computers and tablets make connecting with colleagues, clients and prospects highly effective. With videoconferencing becoming the new norm as businesses across the Globe close traditional offices and send people home to work remotely in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many business professionals are looking for tips and strategies for using video conferencing most effectively.

Here are 5 ways to enhance your video conference preparation:

#1 Backgrounds Matter
Whether you are dialing in from home or a formal office, make sure you have a neutral, non-cluttered background so that people can easily focus on you and what you have to say. If your background is light, wear something dark or bright. If it is dark, wear whites or pastels. You want to avoid blending into the background and losing your on-camera clout. Be sure your desk is cleared off too. The details matter!

#2 The Eyes Have it
Be sure to place the camera at eye level so that you are centered on the screen during the call and easy to see. When necessary, place books underneath laptops until your eyes are at the same level as the camera lens. Next settle yourself at your desk and avoid fidgeting. You want to be looking into the camera when you are speaking and at the face of others when it's their turn. Resist the urge to look at yourself in the smaller frame in the corner of the screen. Although many people use headsets and earbuds during their calls, video chats without these devices can lend themselves to a more natural and connected vibe.

#3 Match the Occasion
Some think that videoconferencing doesn't require the same level of polish and prep that an in-person meeting does. This is a mistake, especially as the quality of this medium continues to improve. It really does feel like you are in the same room with others. You might think that things like stains and wrinkles are less noticeable, but they can be quite visible. Why risk it? Of course, if you are working remotely and your call is with colleagues, nobody expects you to be formally dressed, even on a video call. What you want to avoid is looking like you just rolled out of bed or off the treadmill and are not focused on the business at hand. Show respect for yourself and others by wearing well cut business shirts, tops, sweaters and jackets even if you are wearing sweatpants and flip flops out of camera range. Grooming also matters. If your videoconference is more formal, follow suit. Common sense rules.

#4 Eliminate Distractions
The outfit you choose should make you feel confident and comfortable while not being distracting. Use color and patterns effectively. Too much of a strong pattern can diminish your presence on camera. Smaller patterns used as an accent with solid colored clothing is typically best. The camera loves blues, greens, and also pinks, reds, corals, purples and browns. Bulky fabrics can add pounds. If you pay attention to fit and fabric first, the rest of your outfit usually takes care of itself.

#5 Show Respect for Yourself & Others
To avoid being over-exposed, dress on the conservative side. Plunging necklines, crop tops, tank tops and spaghetti straps give the impression that you are out of touch with business protocol. To keep you cooler, choose natural fabrics. Women, avoid over-sized earrings that move around a lot when you speak. Likewise, jewelry such as stackable bracelets that make noise with hand movements should also be avoided. You want people to instantly connect to what you are saying, not to what you are wearing.

Bonus Tips for Crisis Communicators
Here are some extra tips for leaders conducting more formal calls during our international crisis:
Men

A well-fitted blazer is an easy choice. Regardless of color or texture, blazers tend to frame people well on camera, allowing you to be the focus. A dress shirt with a tie is best for very formal announcements and conversations. A dress shirt sans tie works for many situations, industries and leaders too.

If you want to forgo a jacket and just wear a dress shirt, that can be appropriate, especially on conference calls with your inner circle and teams. Solid dress shirts and those with patterns work equally well and allow you to express your own style. Be aware that dress shirts without an outer layer are more difficult to pull off on conference calls. Wrinkles are hard to hide and can be distracting. When you sit, "billowing" can often happen, adding an additional distraction and often pounds to your frame.

Like a blazer, a dark or bright sweater over a dress shirt can frame the body well while eliminating the billowing effect referred to above.

Avoid short-sleeve dress shirts and polos (they are too casual for most industries, especially during times of challenge or crisis) and always tuck shirts in. Well-maintained belts, slacks and shoes finish things off. You want to come across as polished and relaxed. Even if your video conference set-up shoots from the waist up, people tend to feel more confident when they are properly dressed head-to-toe for formal video calls.

Women

For women, the above rules also apply. Dresses and business tops sans jackets that fit well and do not cause you to be over-exposed on camera work well too. Zippers on jackets, sweaters and tops are great on video as they create a strong vertical line that naturally draws the eye of viewers to your command center - your face and eyes.

Professional sweaters in a variety of lengths and cuts can also work as effective layering pieces.

Well placed jewelry can add extra visual interest as long as it works well with the outfit and it is not a distraction to the camera's eye or noisy when you move.

Make-up can significantly add polish and a finishing touch, even if you don't wear it daily.

The Last Word
Dressing for videoconference success does not have to be complicated. Make it a practice to give yourself a few minutes before each call to check your appearance one more time before signing on. Keeping a brush or comb, lipstick and other basic make-up essentials along with a small mirror at your desk can help. If your team will be on the call, discuss wardrobe as part of your prep. Using videoconferencing effectively is a way to make strong first and lasting impressions. Practice and prep make it easier.

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Dressing From the Waist Up: Enhancing Executive Presence on Video Conference Calls

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Thanks to technology, we can conduct business with anyone, at any time, almost anywhere in the world. While face-to-face meetings are still relevant and important, our phones, computers and tablets make connecting with colleagues, clients and prospects highly effective.

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KP Education Systems - FREE online curriculum

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KP Education Systems - FREE online curriculum

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KP stands for Knowledge in Practice. This principle is key in the development of our learning methodologies, which are built upon years of experience and user feedback. KP combines the best practices in educational design with innovative new frontiers like gamification and Project-based Learning (PBL) to produce an experience that is engaging, effective, and fun.

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KP stands for Knowledge in Practice. This principle is key in the development of our learning methodologies, which are built upon years of experience and user feedback. KP combines the best practices in educational design with innovative new frontiers like gamification and Project-based Learning (PBL) to produce an experience that is engaging, effective, and fun.

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By Adam Weiner, JD, CFSE

With many culinary schools canceling or postponing classes for days, weeks, or indefinitely, here are some suggestions on how to teach and assess students remotely. Don't worry, I am not a techie and these suggestions don't require you to be one either. Believe me, your students will know how to do everything and they can always guide you through it via email, text, or oh my gosh-on a phone call.

I know it may seem difficult to assess students' work without seeing it in person. Relax and try these options:

As a practical matter, there are many things you don't need to taste to know if it is good. You can look at a poached egg and know whether it is overcooked without tasting it.

Remember, Beethoven composed over half of his music when he was deaf. If he can write the 9th Symphony without hearing a note, then you can look at a picture of hollandaise and know if it has separated.

There are many job and life skills we need to teach that don't require cooking. Skills such as food costs or the foodservice industry economics.

With your students' grasp of modern technology, you can virtually (or remotely) review everything they do except for actual tasting. Let's face it-and this is blasphemy-when they start working, the sous chef or chef will want your students to cook things the way they want them to taste. They need to know cooking principles and knife skills, but the actual taste profiles will be adjusted by the sous chef and chef. In other words, how food tastes is not the most important thing you are going to teach them. Yes, as stated above, I know that is blasphemy.

You can help maintain the students' professionalism by requiring them to wear their classroom uniforms (if you have one) in all videos, virtual classes where they can be seen and submitted photos.

There are many great culinary arts Learning Management Systems. My favorite is KP Education Systems.

With the above in mind, here are 10 educational activities your students can do remotely and allow you to follow control and review as a culinary instructor. All the items below can be implemented expeditiously.

1. Assign your students specific skills to practice at home, such as their knife cuts. Then, have them make a video demonstrating those cuts and send it to you.

2. Since the best way to learn a subject is to teach it, assign different students different topics to teach. Then, assign a time to have them teach a video class for all the students.

3. Have your students create a food-based podcast. They can either create one based on a personal area of interest, or you can assign one. Who knows, your class may be the next big thing on Spotify. See "Stirring the Pot with Chef Adam".

4. In a high school context, there are many things difficult to do in one-hour segments. Although, I wrote an article on how to teach braising in 50 minutes, you could now use their at-home time to practice cooking skills and techniques (like braising) that usually take more than 50 minutes.

5. Take a look at my article on teaching international cuisines and modify it to have students work individually and not in groups. Then each person must do a live video conference for the class, or post a video on an appropriate sharing site, for the class to review.

6. Teach an online class on resume writing and have your students submit a resume.

7. Teach an online class on interview skills and have your students practice interviews with you online.

8. Follow up with your class on resume writing and interview skills by teaching how to find a job. I wrote a two-part article for your reference on this which you can find here: Part 1 and Part 2.

9. Have your students work on collecting letters of reference.

10. Finally, in March of 2019 I wrote an article on a multipart capstone project involving a role play catering assignment. It is set up as a team assignment which you could keep with the requirement they work together remotely. Or you could modify it to be done individually.

Ten more ideas will be posted in a few days. Remember, KEEP CALM AND WASH YOUR HANDS.

Adam Weiner, JD, CFSE, has been a culinary instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 16 years.

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10 projects and lessons instructors can implement online immediately. By Adam Weiner, JD, CFSE With many culinary schools canceling or postponing classes for days, weeks, or indefinitely, here are some suggestions on how to teach and assess students remotely. Don't worry, I am not a techie and t...

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Provided by Leanne Riseley

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Alternative Test & Assessment Suggestions

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Alternative Test & Assessment Suggestions

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Provided by Kay Ono (with permission from Charles Sasaki)

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Inspirational poem by Kitty O'Meara

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Kitty O'Meara's prose poem inspired by the coronavirus pandemic-which begins with the line, "And the people stayed home," is going viral.

The poem has inspired thousands of posts on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

But who is Kitty O'Meara, the mysterious author of this work that has so deeply resonated with people? We spoke to O'Meara herself, and got some answers.

Kitty O'Meara is the poet laureate of the pandemic. Her untitled prose poem, which begins with the line, "And the people stayed home," has been shared countless times, on countless backgrounds, with countless fonts, since its first posting. It was most widely popularized by Deepak Chopra, and has since been shared by everyone from Bella Hadid to radio stations in Australia. The poem has become shorthand for a silver-linings perspective during the coronavirus outbreak-the hope that something good can come out of this collective state of "together, apart."

The poem begins with the evocative line: "And the people stayed home," and goes on to describe an idyllic version of the months to come. Through O'Meara's lens, the era of social distancing could be taken up by purposeful activity like meditation, exercise, and dancing, and result in a kind of global healing.

The poem reads like a cross between a proverb, Instagram poem, and, if you're feeling optimistic, psychic prediction.
And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently. And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal. And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

It's obvious why this meditative poem has resonated so deeply with people: It inserts the idea of individual agency back into something out of our control, and imagines that the time after this will not only exist-it'll be better than before.

Instead, the major mystery has become the identity of its mysterious author, a woman whose online presence boils down to a blog, a Facebook page, and lots of people asking: Who is Kitty O'Meara?

OprahMag.com got answers, catching up with O'Meara (virtually, of course) from her home outside of Madison, WI, which she shares with her five rescue dogs and her "dear one," her nickname for her husband, Phillip. A former teacher and chaplain, O'Meara is now retired.

"It offers a story of how it could be, what we could do with this time," O'Meara tells OprahMag.com of her viral work.

Fittingly, the poem is proof of what O'Meara has chosen to do with herself while social distancing: Write. "And the people stayed home" was written in one sitting, the byproduct of months of built-up anxiety while watching the pandemic brew on the news.

"I was anxious for the past few months. I knew this was coming and I couldn't be of service," O'Meara tells OprahMag.com. After years working in palliative care, O'Meara is especially concerned for her friends who still work in the health care profession and are on the frontlines of battling the virus.

"I was getting kind of sad. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't help my friends. I was very worried about them. My husband said: 'Write. Just write again,'" O'Meara recalls.

So, she did. "I just kind of sat down and wrote it," O'Meara says matter-of-factly, crediting "spirit" with the process. "I saw the maps of the receding pollution over China and Europe. I thought, 'There you go. There's something of blessing in all suffering.' And I thought with my passionate love for the Earth, maybe that's one good thing."

Immediately after writing, O'Meara shared this poem with her friends on Facebook. "I post stuff like that all the time. I usually don't get a lot of response," O'Meara says. "But this found its niche."

That's an understatement; the poem resonated with people instantly. Soon, a Facebook friend asked to share the poem with her own followers, and within three days of posting, her husband, encountered the poem elsewhere on the Internet. Kitty O'Meara had officially gone viral.

"Going viral is a free-fall of craziness. I was starting to get messages and texts and every other kind of communication you can receive. [My husband and I] were both laughing. Dumbfounded," O'Meara says about the onslaught.

Since going viral, O'Meara has been flooded with letters from new fans from around the globe sharing how her words provided them with solace. "It's just amazing," O'Meara says. "I saw going viral as a gift to me. I was able to offer spiritual care."

She's also received the scrutiny and vitriol that comes with an increased internet presence. Irene Vella, an Italian journalist, claims that O'Meara's work is a translation of her own poem. O'Meara denies those claims. Vella's poem, written in Italian, is also inspired by coronavirus, but is apparently different, per the translation.

"I believe the same spirit is moving through artists and we're interpreting this suffering, and fear, and anxiety in ways that are bound to echo feelings and ideas being expressed in other ways," O'Meara says, of the poems' thematic resemblance. (OprahMag.com reached out to Irene Vella for comment, but had not heard back as of publishing time.)

Internet drama aside, O'Meara has gained a passionate following in the past week. While O'Meara has "always considered herself a writer," the response to this "mini-reflection," as she calls it, is an encouragement to keep writing-especially through the age of coronavirus. "Write, that's what you do. So that's what I'll do. I'll keep writing," O'Meara says. "We have gifts. It's a good reminder that whatever your gift is, and however small it is, keep using it. This is a really good time for that."

These 15 minutes of internet fame won't change O'Meara's approach to writing, which has always been intensely personal. She wasn't seeking online fame when she wrote, "And the people stayed home," and isn't now-in fact, imposter Instagram accounts are already popping up to fill the void of O'Meara's online presence.

"Going viral is something I'll be turning over and sifting through for a long time. I can't label it and put it on a shelf right now. I hope it's over, because that's not what I ever longed for," O'Meara says. She also admits the experience of so many people reading her work is somewhat "embarrassing."

"For me, it's time to go back to my writing. It's time for other people to put their creativity and contributions forward," O'Meara says. As such, O'Meara encourages her new fans to activate their own creative sides.

"I would invite people to pick an art form and go for it. People say, 'All my life, I wanted to do this, I wanted to do that.' That's another huge gift of this time. Play with those things. Might be a dancing thing. Might be a work out thing. Might be a knitting thing. Might be visual art. This is the time. Do it," O'Meara encourages.

To O'Meara, this is a time rife with frustration-as well as the potential for transformation, as her poem demonstrates. "We can wallow where we are or we can see the invitations. Anything that you can tap into that allows your feelings to be expressed creatively will do that for you. You will feel better on the other end of it. You will be changed," she says.

O'Meara is not an expert on dealing with this global crisis, she says. She's just another person, trying to find grace in the free-fall.
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"I don't want people conferring any guru status on me, because I fumble around just like anyone else. I've always written from my heart. I'll continue to do that."

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The Story of How That Viral "And the People Stayed Home" Poem Came to Be

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Kitty O'Meara's prose poem inspired by the coronavirus pandemic-which begins with the line, "And the people stayed home," is going viral. The poem has inspired thousands of posts on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. But who is Kitty O'Meara, the mysterious author of this work that has so deeply resonated with people?