Campus Technology Insider

Podcast: Students Supporting Faculty in the Shift to Hybrid Learning

• By Rhea Kelly
• 12/17/20

The Campus Technology Insider podcast explores current trends and issues impacting technology leaders in higher education. Listen in as Executive Editor Rhea Kelly chats with ed tech experts and practitioners about their work, ideas and experiences.

Students Supporting Faculty in the Shift to Hybrid Learning

When Boston University launched its hybrid learning initiative this fall, called Learn from Anywhere, the need for faculty support was top of mind. The institution provided training and coaches to help instructors redesign their courses and adjust their teaching for the new modality. But what about everyday troubleshooting and support during class?

To help ensure that hybrid learning could run smoothly, BU created the Learn from Anywhere Classroom Moderator program, essentially an army of student workers deployed in the classroom to help faculty and make sure remote students are connected with the on-campus component of each class. Scaling a program like this for a university of BU's size – 30,000-plus students – was no easy feat. Hundreds of student moderators were trained and assigned to cover more than 2,000 hours of class time per week, all while working within the constantly changing safety guidelines of a global pandemic.

For this episode of the podcast, I talked to Ernie Perez, director of educational technology for BU Digital Learning and Innovation, and Jill Beckman, executive director of Client Services, about how they rolled out the classroom moderator service and made it a success.

Resource links:

• Boston University's Learn from Anywhere initiative

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