Ontario colleges — institutions of applied learning — are facing unique challenges in how to deliver curriculum online amid school closures due to the coronavirus outbreak.

That’s because many programs include hands-on experience, lab work and work placements that add to the complexity of moving classes from a regular learning environment to a virtual one, scheduled to begin Monday.

“There’s no question this is going to be really tough,” said RM Kennedy, chair of the faculty division at OPSEU, representing 17,000 unionized faculty.

“We’re struggling. Everybody is doing their part to try to make it work, but it’s really hard. The anxiety and the stress is very high amongst teachers, students and administrators.”

“We still do have a lot of theory, but obviously, we have much more practical hands-on components than the university sector,” said Kennedy, who teaches in Centennial College’s humanities and social sciences department. “Everybody has been working around the clock to try and find solutions.”

Last Thursday, in an unprecedented move, the province announced the closure of elementary and secondary schools until April 5 to help fight the spread of COVID-19. Post-secondary schools followed suit, cancelling in-person classes to minimize transmission. On March 23, all colleges will resume classes, with educators teaching at a distance.

This week, college teachers have been busy figuring out what working remotely will look like for their classes. Kennedy notes, “there’s no way we can put together quality online courses” in a few days and suspects faculty will begin next week to roll out video lectures, post material online and teach via email.

Andrew Cooper teaches computer numerical control programming at Centennial College and runs labs where students work on computers and simulators drafting parts for planes. He says working from home is going to be “extremely tricky.”

“I got a lot of energy from the classroom environment,” he said. “For me, it makes more sense to teach from the machine, than it does via a machine.”

Students will also need to adapt. For instance, those who need to demonstrate a manual practical skill may have to submit a video recording of themselves in action. But in some cases students won’t have the tools, machinery and equipment needed for such demonstrations.

Kennedy said faculty have been asked to identify which courses cannot achieve the learning outcomes without an in-person component — this could include courses in the trade, and those with important clinical and lab components.

The goal is to try and get as much as possible done remotely, particularly since the current semester is about two-thirds complete. To successfully complete a course, students must conquer about 80 per cent of the learning objectives.

“We are being as creative as we possibly can,” said Chris Janzen, senior vice-president academic at Ottawa’s Algonquin College.

“It’s the applied component that’s a challenge,” said Janzen, the former dean of tech and trades. “There is nobody who is going to lose their term, but the completion of that program may be delayed.”

Adding to the challenge, said Kennedy, is that some schools were unable to lend out necessary technical equipment, such as laptops, as teachers and students were sent home before the equipment could be distributed.

An international student from Toronto’s Seneca College, who doesn’t have internet access at home, spent the last couple of days scrambling to find a friend whose Wi-Fi she can use. Now she’s moving 110 kms north to Barrie to live with a friend until she finishes her program.

“It’s been a bit nerve-racking,” she told the Star, asking that her name not be published because she’s been criticized on social media for not returning to her home country during the outbreak.

She was accessing Wi-Fi at Seneca libraries, but they’re closed as are public libraries. She can still access internet in the college’s common spaces, but she wouldn’t be practising the social distancing that health officials say is key to slowing the spread of the virus.

“The greatest challenge is figuring out how we’re going to navigate the online space, in terms of my courses. I want to know that I’m getting from my program what I deserve,” she said, noting tuition was “expensive.”

Niagara College spokesperson Michael Wales said staff are working on ways to deliver programming “with the goal of students being able to complete their semesters by April 17.”

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In the event regular classes don’t resume within the next few weeks, the advocacy group Colleges Ontario is conducting a sector-wide survey to see how schools may proceed. Questions include whether they would extend the current semester or delay the start of the summer term and what they would do about convocation.

“You can just imagine the variety of topics that are being discussed right now,” said Don Lovisa, chair of Colleges Ontario, which advocates on behalf of the province’s 24 publicly funded colleges.

Lovisa, also president of Durham College, said it’s crucial to get graduating students through their programs, noting returning students have a chance to catch up.

While he recognizes teachers are facing big challenges, he says many already use the internet to share resources or deliver parts of their courses.

“If you look at the college system, we have a very, very large footprint in online learning,” he said. “This is not entirely new for us.”