JACKSON, Tenn. — April 3, 2020 — Union professors like Jeremy Blaschke are doing their best to keep their online courses fun and engaging for their students. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the university moved all classes to an online format beginning March 16, which will continue throughout the spring semester.
Blaschke, an assistant professor of biology in his fifth year of teaching at Union, has gotten particularly creative with his online zoology course by crafting a space exploration mission backstory, along with a spaceship background and costume, for his YouTube video lectures. When first faced with teaching his courses online, Blaschke said he felt intimidated, especially as an introvert.
鈥淭rying to do a lecture to an empty room, I tried that a few times and it just doesn't work well for me,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 don't have the energy, you're not interacting with the students, and so you're missing a lot.鈥�
That was when he thought up a scenario where talking to a computer, not an audience, made sense 鈥� if he was pretending to explore a different planet full of new lifeforms and sending back 鈥渕ission reports鈥� to Earth. Blaschke 鈥� whose expertise is in parasitic insects 鈥� said he had thought of doing something similar to this for a long time, but not quite to this extent.
鈥淭here are some really crazy animals that we talk about that people have never heard of and have never imagined being real animals, and so for a lot of these, they seem alien already,鈥� Blaschke said.
Blaschke spent a few days planning his story out and deciding if he would actually do it or not, but was encouraged by his wife, who helped with ideas and creating some costumes for his videos.
The premise of his story is that he is 1,000 years in the future where humans inhabit the Earth and Mars, but almost all other life has gone extinct and humans are trying to find a new planet to inhabit. Blaschke is part of a 10-member space crew exploring a potential new planet, and he sends reports on the creatures he discovers back to a group of future biologists (the students) who will be joining him on a new colonizing mission later.
To help his students get invested in the story, Blaschke broke them into groups and tasked them with creating the names, backstories and personalities of his other 鈥渃rew members,鈥� which he is now weaving into the story.
Collette Truitt, a freshman cell and molecular biology major from Paducah, Kentucky, is one of the students in this class. Truitt said she enjoys watching the videos and seeing more of her professor鈥檚 personality.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really fun and engaging, because you get to look forward to what鈥檚 going to happen next in the story along with learning about creatures on this new planet, so it makes it so much more engaging,鈥� she said.
Blaschke posts his lectures and lab dissections on YouTube for the class to watch, and they also meet over Zoom for questions and discussion. He said it has required a lot of extra time and effort on his part to create this content 鈥� learning video editing and production and coming up with creative ideas 鈥� but he would continue to do it as long as the students were invested and enjoying it.
Ben Scott, a freshman cell and molecular biology major from Columbia, Missouri, said having a backstory has made the lectures more fun since they are not able to ask questions and engage as they normally would in person.
鈥淚 appreciate how much extra work he鈥檚 putting in this to make it continue to be interesting,鈥� Scott said.
Along with providing some fun and levity, Blaschke said he hopes that this scenario helps his students deal with some important big questions in biology, such as exploring the value of animals and discussing environmental ethics.
鈥淚t helps them imagine a world without animals and then imagine discovering a world with animals,鈥� Blaschke said. 鈥淭he feelings it elicits should inform their philosophy about how they treat life now, I'm hoping.鈥�