Saint of Santa Fe | Mari Jayne Frederick

August 3, 2020

"An online, or virtual hybrid course, should not be a correspondence course. Those were from years ago where you sign up, get a packet of material, do the work, and if you had a question you could contact that instructor. But mainly you were left to your own devices and you didn't have an interaction. We've developed so much now because of the technology we have available to us.

Everything I do I try to make it so you are live with me synchronously, so we interact. As much as students want to be in a classroom interacting with each other, as an instructor, it's my job to make it feel like a classroom. I try to make sure that everybody is heard.

And you're not just with me, we have our business community involved. People who would potentially hire you as an employee they come and serve and panelists in classes. They interact with you and help guide you in the projects that you would be doing, saying 'think about this, this is what we'd be looking for.'

A challenge has been adapting to an online lab-based class. We came up with a remote lab kit, with equipment we could loan out for my Introduction to Networking class. We're still offering the labs remotely this Fall because some students are concerned about coming to campus. So you get these hands-on lab packed containers, you check them out, all your labs are there as you work during the term. Your instructor is live with you, and they oversee what you're working on. It would be the same thing if we were in the classroom walking table to table to work with you. That's the beauty of online. It's not like those old correspondence courses. You literally have the capability of interacting in real-time, from anywhere. You're never limited."

- Mari Jayne Frederick, Associate Professor, Networking Systems Technology