Second COVID Edition Short-Course Attracts Grateful Audience in the Philippines

After my first “COVID edition” virtual short-course showed that it could be done (hosted by Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología for students in Peru), I selected another location where I previously had a well-organized in-person teaching experience with a dedicated and suitable audience: The Philippines. In 2018, De La Salle University hosted a weeklong visit, where my data science (formerly “big data”) short-course boasted the largest class size of the Instructional Odyssey to date: well over 400 participants. The virtual version this October, with the same organizers, attracted about half that number, which is still impressive given the format and the fact that many of the participants were giving up their university holiday.

The Chancellor of De La Salle University, Father Bernard Oca (highlighted in yellow, since he was talking), stopped by a Zoom session to the greet the class and express his gratitude.

I’ll go out on a limb and declare this group to be the most appreciative audience I’ve had so far, whether in person or virtual. I gather feedback from participants via a form on my website, and in this case the organizers also gathered their own feedback, which they sent to me in an 18-page document. The enthusiasm and gratefulness that came through from the participants’ comments was truly heartwarming. One reason for the outpouring of gratitude might be the wide variety of participants — not only university students, but also advanced high school students (one of the first to finish a challenging problem was an 11th grader from the Philippine Science High School), and a considerable number of college teachers from throughout the country. I also suspect the opportunity to participate in something enriching and out of the norm was a welcome “silver lining” during the pandemic — many commented that it was a real highlight in a difficult time.

Participant thank-you’s at the end of the course, and a surprise flower delivery from the organizers.

I followed the same approach I used for the Peru virtual short-course: I spent about 2.5 hours on Zoom with the class during each of the five days. In addition, a Stanford graduate student served as course assistant, running help sessions and going over assignment solutions for an hour each day — Radhika developed quite an enthusiastic following. The time change posed a challenge I didn’t have with Peru. On most days Radhika ran her session from 6:00–7:00 PM California time, that’s 9:00–10:00 AM in Manila, and I was on from 8:00–10:30 PM. (I tried to cut back on my daytime work commitments but was only partially successful, so it was quite a busy week!) Faculty organizers and three course assistants on the Philippines side ensured that all of the logistics ran smoothly, and they organized a discussion forum and help line for the students working on their assignments each afternoon and evening, while Radhika and I were asleep.

In all of my Zoom teaching I’ve been playing the Jeopardy theme song while students work on problems. It was a particular hit with this group, with many dancing along and several commenting about the catchy tune in their course feedback.

Will I do a third COVID edition? It might depend how long we’re studying and working from home across the globe, and what the prospects look like for eventual resumption of travel. I certainly much prefer delivering courses in person, but given the enthusiasm and gratitude of this group, there’s a lot to be said for continuing in this format for the time being.