Innovations in Teaching: Art Lessons in a Virtual Environment

Robert Adamson checks in with students at the start of class using WebEx.

It was early March, and the coronavirus pandemic was tightening its grip on the country. Then the greater Salt Lake City area was shaken early March 18 by a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. All of that meant Robert Adamson did not change out of his pajamas most mornings for about a week, glued to the news for more information about COVID-19 and aftershocks.

It was the middle of spring break for Salt Lake Community College when Robert’s home in Millcreek shook, along with everyone else’s in the Salt Lake Valley. But he also had art classes – five in all – to prepare for virtual-only delivery as a professor in SLCC’s Visual Art and Design Department.

“The biggest challenge I think was the initial ability for everyone to learn the new technologies, like Webex,” Robert says. “We had a really short learning curve.”

Robert adjusted his spring break regiment to a routine that includes getting dressed like he is actually going to school every day. Three days a week he teaches five classes, including beginning and advanced drawing and oil painting classes, from his kitchen table or, after everyone wakes up, from a makeshift desk in his bedroom. He uses WebEx for demonstrations and sharing student works, toggling back and forth between screens and taking questions along the way. In a bit of fortuitous serendipity, Adamson created a handful of video tutorials a few years ago that he was using during class and has employed them in the virtual delivery of his classes via YouTube. Every class begins with Robert checking in with students, just to see how they’re doing.

“The thing I really miss is being there with the students and helping them draw on their drawings and having the face-to-face interaction,” Robert says. “Being online, spending more time to get set up and prepare, uploading pictures through Canvas, this is more work. I don’t mind that, but there is more prep work now. … My appreciation factor has gone up about the fact we have a building and classroom, which I had taken for granted for so many years. I have a whole new perspective, humility, appreciation and gratitude for everything about the school.”

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