Challenges and Successes of Emergency Online Teaching in Statistics Courses

Abstract

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in early months of 2020, education at all levels was pushed to emergency fully remote, online formats. This emergency shift affected all aspects of teaching and learning with very little notice and often with limited resources. Educators were required to convert entire courses online and shift to remote instructional approaches practically overnight. Students found themselves enrolled in online courses without choice and struggling to adjust to their new learning environments. This article highlights some of the challenges and successes of teaching emergency online undergraduate statistics courses. In particular, we discuss challenges and successes related to (a) technology, (b) classroom community and feedback, and (c) student-content engagement. We also reflect on the opportunity to continue to enhance and enrich the learning experiences of our students by using some of the lessons learned from emergency online teaching as new permanent online statistics courses are developed and/or moved back into the classroom.

Keyword:

• COVID-19
• Online learning
• Pedagogy
• Remote learning
• Remote teaching
• Teaching strategies

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the attendees of our Joint Statistical Meeting 2021 Birds of a Feather Discussion and our colleagues for sharing their own challenges and successes with us. We also appreciate the comments from the reviewers and editors at JSDSE.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.