Teaching the pandemic

When McMaster’s new INSPIRE courses, part of the Intersession initiative, had to move online because of the COVID-19 pandemic, John Maclachlan said organizers were a little shaken – but quickly realized they had a unique opportunity.

“These courses, which are held outside the traditional fall and winter terms, are meant to be current, experiential and community-based,” explains Maclachlan, the director of intersession. “When we had to move online, we had to explore ways to bring community into the courses in a different way. For some of the instructors, that meant incorporating the pandemic into their teaching.”

In the INSPIRE 1A03 course, which includes a core class and a choice of three 12-hour modules, several instructors shifted the emphasis of their modules to focus on different aspects of the pandemic.

Patrick De Luca, for example, drew on his work as a specialist in health and geographic information systems (GIS) to show students how scientists use GIS to understand different aspects of COVID-19 – including using ZIP codes to map vulnerable populations in the U.S. Students eventually created “story maps” highlighting different aspects of the epidemic, like a map of vulnerable populations and health-care use, or how health care affected a local economy.

“GIS is an interdisciplinary tool, and students were able to use it to explore what they were interested in,” explains De Luca.

“If the purpose of the INSPIRE course was to inspire, this was a great opportunity. At least one student told me that they’d never taken a GIS course before, but they would now.”

Sashaina Singh, who works in McMaster’s Office of Community Engagement, and Khadijeh Rakie, who works in the university’s Equity and Inclusion office, co-taught a module reflecting on the pandemic through a social justice lens, as well as a longer introductory course on social justice and community engagement called Being in Relationship, where students were able to critically reflect on their own privilege.

While students weren’t able to directly participate in in-person activities within the community, they nonetheless connected the concepts in the course to the “real world,” with final research projects that highlighted community responses to the pandemic – a key principle common to all the intersession classes.

“It was important for us to demonstrate how the principles of community engagement and social justice are put into practice in real time,” says Singh.

“Focusing on the inequities being brought to light in the pandemic allowed students to increase their understanding of the concepts.”

Coping with COVID and Stress, a seven-week intersession course (INSPIRE 3EL3) taught by psychiatrist Catharine Munn and anthropology professor Tracy Prowse, took a similar approach, combining theoretical knowledge with four weeks of instruction in mindfulness meditation by Jill Axisa and Nikki Carter.

For Annie Xu, the course’s TA who also participated in the mindfulness classes, the practical aspect of the class was what set it apart from other classes she had taken.

“As a student who is also trying to become more resilient, I can understand how difficult it is to actually implement course concepts,” she says. “With its mix of theoretical and experiential approaches, the course is structured to make that as easy as possible, for as many people as possible.”

Munn says the course was always going to be about coping with stress, but the pandemic gave it a heightened relevance – and a unique sense of community.

“It’s one of those rare circumstances where we’re all facing the same thing. We all have different challenges, but there’s a commonality that ties us together,” she explains.

“This course gives us the opportunity to create awareness among students about their mental health, what they can do to prevent problems and hopefully mitigate some of those consequences during a time that challenges all of us.”