Dear all,

We're all in this together, and we're going to get through it together.

I'm sure you've all seen Chancellor Martin's announcement, and I know it's provoking a good deal of stress and anxiety, especially the closing of campus housing.  So before I talk about the impact on our course specifically, I want to just encourage you to take care of yourselves--physically, mentally, and otherwise.  You have plenty of time, with the extended spring break. 

Meanwhile, I'm going to be working for the next week and a half on figuring out how the rest of the course is going to look, and making sure you're still set up for success academically.  I don't have much in the way of concrete answers yet, but I'll try to discuss some aspects of what might happen below.

Lectures/class meetings: Class will be held online, of course.  I'm not sure if this will take the form of live, real-time meetings (at the same time as class is currently scheduled) or prerecorded video lectures, or some combination of both, but you should plan on the former just to be safe.  The rest of the university seems to be gravitating toward Zoom as a platform for online meetings, but I haven't decided for sure what we'll use yet.  Whatever platform we settle on, I'll probably hold a dry run sometime next week so you can get used to the technology, and while you're at it have a convenient chance to ask questions about how things work.

Office hours: Will also be held online, platform TBD.  I will probably make changes to the schedule, though, because I imagine it'll be hard to share hours between my two different courses when they're moved online.  I'll let you know about changes as soon as possible, as well as what the schedule will be for next week.

Subsections and homework: Will be moved online, or possibly replaced with an alternate activity; I'm still figuring that out.  Grading will still be only on attendance, participation, or whatever the equivalent is, and the two-absence policy will remain in effect.  Webwork will continue exactly as before.  I have already extended all existing Webwork deadlines by one week, taking into account the extended spring break.

Exams and grading: I don't really have any idea what's going to happen with exams yet.  It sounds like there may be some university-wide policy or guidance coming on how to adjust exams, so I'm holding off on any decisions until I hear that, but I do expect to have answers for you before classes resume.  At the very least, though, expect changes to the format of exams.  I will continue my usual system of providing a full-length practice exam before each exam, in the exact same format.  If exams change, I will also look at changes to the grading scale if needed in order to be fair to you in the context of sudden changes.

Course topics: Obviously, losing a week of classes will require some changes to the material we cover.  Thankfully, as I've told you before, this is a course focused around building skills, not regurgitation of facts, formulas, theorems, etc.  I'll send you a revised (and still approximate) schedule next week, and my intention is to focus in on the topics that are most suited to an online course, and that best build the problem-solving and communication skills we're aiming at.

Textbooks, notes, etc: A bunch of you are probably without your textbooks or notes after leaving them in your dorm while you travel.  I'm really hoping ResLife will be able to return them to you in a timely fashion, but I have no idea what's going on on that front.  I'm going to look into getting you alternate sources or material to study from, but I don't have anything yet.

Other issues: I'm sure I haven't thought of everything here.  Keep sending your questions and concerns to me, and I'll answer them as best I can.

What to do right now: Like I said, take care of yourself right now.  If you can, it would be nice to try to do, say, one Webwork problem a day just to stay sharp and make the transition back into classes easier.  But there's no time pressure--note from earlier that I extended all current Webwork deadlines by a week.

This is going to be a weird semester.  It's important that we all have each other's backs, and I'm confident that we will.  Stay tuned for more announcements like this one as we all get details ironed out.  And most importantly, I hope you and your family and friends stay healthy and safe.

--Dr. Johnson