Dr. Sara Milillo is Bay Path University’s assistant dean of curriculum development and instruction and director of science programs. She’s passionate about applied sciences, promoting math and science education for women, and increasing access through online opportunities. Sara has been using Carolina’s Distance Learning kits since 2016.
What roles have you taken on as an educator?
I have been fortunate to do a lot of different things. I have worked as a full-time researcher, where I was mentoring students who were up-and-coming, graduate students or undergraduate students who were interested in pursuing science. I have worked as an adjunct teaching night or weekend classes in sort of accelerated formats, condensed evening formats. I have taught online both full semester and accelerated, synchronous and asynchronous.
What is one of the best ways that you found to connect with your students both in the classroom and online?
I love to connect with students by phone. Zoom is wonderful, video chat is wonderful, social media or other ways of having those text-based exchanges, but there’s something about a phone call that is low-stress for students but also allows us to quickly make a connection and answer questions or to get them the help they need.
What is one breakthrough moment you had while teaching online that changed how you approach distance learning?
The realization that the distance learning approach was making science courses accessible to students who would truly otherwise not have the option to take a higher education science course.
It really made me recognize and appreciate the opportunity that we had to reach students in this way who wanted this learning, who needed it for their career advancement and otherwise would not be able to pick up and go take a night class or go to a physical campus.
What is one way your teaching approach has permanently changed because of your experience with distance learning?
Distance learning has absolutely made me a much more thoughtful educator. I have loved and been inspired by the transparency in learning and teaching framework (TILT). I think combining that with distance learning has made me realize what information is important to share with students, when it is important to share it with students, and just really be more thoughtful about what do they need to know when and that I’m taking care to be explicit with my own assumptions or things that I think are otherwise obvious but may not be to the student.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to a first-time distance learning instructor preparing for the fall semester, and why is it important?
When you are primarily interacting with students through a learning management system, there can be this desire to add all the bells and whistles, make things really fancy, and use all the technology to the max. What is the most important thing for the students to be focused on, and how can we make sure that we’re setting up our distance learning classes so that the students are able to focus on that and not be distracted by other features?
What’s your favorite hands-on lab activity that you teach online, and why does it resonate with your students?
There are a lot of activities that I really enjoy, but the first one that jumps to mind is definitely dissections.
With hands-on lab kits, I know each student has access to a dissection that they can interact with on their own and take their time and appreciate versus being in a group where maybe one student kind of takes over or it’s crowded and hard to see.
What do you think students are going to need as technology advances, as classrooms change in the future?
I think we’re absolutely seeing that we’ve already entered an age where the Internet replaced our old-school textbook, learning resources, and our access to information. Now, with artificial or augmented intelligence, it’s going to be the next era.
What are the things that we don’t have to necessarily have in mind that we can outsource to artificial intelligence and devote our energies to something else? We’re going to have artificial intelligence that gives us this wealth of information at our fingertips in a much more personalized and customized way. What is the next level of creativity that we get to unlock with that?
