When Miami University moved to online classes during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, a Farmer School professor quickly put his time and talent to work to help FSB faculty and students learn more about working remotely.

Dr. Justin McGlothin is a First-Year Integrated Core instructor. He’s also into technology and how it can be used to engage and learn, so when fellow FYIC staff met to talk about making the transition from in-person classes to online, he had an idea. “I volunteered to put together a couple of videos to help the staff because that's how I often learn new things -- I go to YouTube,” he explained. “I figured that I could help the rest of the team by putting some videos together.”

McGlothin has created several videos so far since that meeting, on topics ranging from finding, scheduling, and starting WebEx meetings to tips on editing video for YouTube. 

“The first couple of videos I put together were staff- or faculty-facing. Then a switch went off in my mind to not do just faculty-facing videos, but to do them in a way that could help students too,” McGlothlin recalled. “One of the videos I put together was how to do a team presentation on WebEx. The idea there was to help educate our faculty on how it could be used, and then also in the same format, be able to share it with students so that they could learn how to use it as well.”

McGlothlin already had some previously-created educational videos on his YouTube channel, and created a special episode of the FYIC Podcast he hosts with JL Zoeckler that centered on the changes students would be facing in the coming weeks. “It all starts with a full effort in the classroom. The students are patient, I am patient. We just figure it out together, and we're willing to pivot where we need to,” he said.

He pointed out that the remote interaction can be disruptive for students, but can also have tangible benefits. “We’ve tried to position this as quickly as possible into ‘Here's another opportunity to learn, to develop skills to work remotely, because most of the time, you'll have some sort of remote interactivity with either staff or customers,” McGlothin noted. “So I've kind of positioned it as a really good thing to add to their skillset.”

Visit Justin's YouTube channel

The FYIC Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, and IHeartRadio