Teaching Pottery Online, with Social Distancing

Governor's Directive for Moving Teaching Online

Friday afternoon I attended an emergency meeting at my school in response to the COVID-19 directives from Governor Inslee. In a press conference earlier in the day, he had asked all K-12 school to close from Tuesday of next week (March 17) through April 24. He also told state colleges that they would be required to move classes online or observe social distancing.

The tools that make me think I cannot teach this class online.

Essentially, the state would prefer all faculty and all classes to move online. There are some fundamental concerns about this plan and most of them have to do with equity and access. A significant number of our students at YVC do not have reliable computers or internet at home. With the K-12 schools also closed, working at home will be more difficult for all of our students who live with children, including students who had originally intended to take online classes. 

Bisqueware from my hand-building class this quarter, before glazing. Clockwise from middle: Sean Wilkinson's extruded ears, coil pottery by Zanity Conteras (back), Ibet Vargas, Amy Wade, and an anonymous student. 

Only about 15% of classes at YVC are normally taught entirely online, meaning the majority of our students were not planning to take their spring classes online. Besides equipment and internet access, students may not feel that learning online is best for them, and they might be right. Taking an online class requires time and tools, but it also requires students to hold themselves to a regular schedule without the expectation of a class meeting to support them. As anyone who has wasted a lazy weekend knows, this can be tough.

Pottery and sculpture from various students waiting for next week's critiques.

Trying to do all the work for a 5-credit online class on a Sunday night leads to burn-out and frustration. I always advise my students to spread out their time and work on the class daily so that it doesn't feel overwhelming. I often ask my students to give tips to their classmates and I remember a couple of years ago a student saying "Don't wait until you feel motivated, because you arer never going to feel like doing the homework."

Work fresh from the raku firing last week, both shorter pieces by Eryana Weaver.

Social Distancing in Classes that Can't Be Taught Online

I'm scheduled to teach three classes next quarter. One is entirely online, so moving online doesn't really impact the organization of that class. But the clay classes are a different story. I am schedule to teach functional pottery next quarter. The outcomes and objectives of this course focus on making and glazing pottery. In particular, this objective, "Create functional and visually appealing forms using the potter’s wheel" tells me that this class cannot be taught entirely online (I think it is safe to assume that most students don't have a potter's wheel at home). 

A student throwing on a potters wheel (in the old studio).

My administration understands that not all classes can be taught online and the state has indicated that we're allowed to teach classes in person if they can't be moved online. But if we do teach them face to face, we need to follow social distancing guidelines that dictate that people can't be within 6 feet of each other for more than 10 minutes.

That yard stick gives a sense of how far 6' is. The 16 student wheels are currently in groups of 8, each roughly a yard from its 5 neighbors.

My clay studio at school is very large, with wheels on one end of the room and work tables on the other. There are 16 student wheels, but they are currently set up roughly a yard distance from the wheel on either side, across and both kitty-corner wheels. Logistically, there are two main options for separating the students from one another. I can move the wheels away from one another, which would also entail moving the work and wedging tables. The other option is one that has been discussed for lab classes, the class could be divided into different meeting times, so that there were fewer students in the room at the same time time. Wheels and wedging tables would still need to be moved if the class had 8 students, but there would be less moving required.

A view of the studio before the metal shelves were put in place (the wheels are in different positions today).

I went in to the studio yesterday to measure distances. There is room to place fit 16 student in the space each with a buffer of 6', but there would be a lot of moving to do. This would create a very different atmosphere in the clay studio, but at least everyone would be in the same class meeting time. However, I realize now that my measurements didn't account for me. Where would I be? How could I teach 16 students effectively from this distance? 

In the foreground, the distance between facing wheels, in the background, the six wedding tables much too close together.

Both a meeting of 16 and a meeting of 8 would necessitate some thinking about processes in the studio. Once folks move from their wheels, our 6' distance is lost. And students would need to get tools, set up their wheels, get clay, wedge clay, put finished work away, and clean up daily. Later there's kiln loading, glazing, and firing. The main room is larger than the glazing room. where we could probably only fit 5 students in at a time (and apparently they would have to synchronize all their movements from wax, to brushes, to spray booth to glaze buckets). 

the glazing room. the center counter is less than a yard, so folks would have to stagger themselves on different sides of the table or spread out long the 18' feet of glaze buckets (with 6 different glazes within each of those 6' distances).

Students would certainly need to glaze in shifts. Wedging tables, too, would need to be moved. We have six wedging tables where 12 students can reasonable wedge at once, but maintaining the social distance would require us to move all six tables apart and only 6 people could prepare their clay at once. Presumably they'd each be pulling clay from our 4-7 different buckets, but how long does the virus live in clay? What about throwing slurry (clay mixed with water) and washing up? Do we need to set up different protocols for throwing and cleaning? Our work study students and hourly employees usually run laundry and recycle clay, does this put them at risk of handling contaminated towels, clay, and slurry?

A demonstration of what teaching with a 6' gap would look like. 

But the thing that I've been really thinking hard about is the distance I am expected to maintain from students. I wanted to think about this distance Friday night, so I laid out a yard stick and a couple of rulers to measure a six foot distance from my own wheel at home. That's a loooong ways to stand away from someone who is throwing. It is difficult to see what someone is actually doing with their hands, or even how thick their thrown walls are. These are things that I point out daily in class and it is the most efficient way for students to see what is happening.

Pottery from last week's raku firing. Beautiful copper glazes, but I can't remember whose pots these are.

Normally I walk between the two rows of wheels and I often kneel down in front of students' wheels to give individual instruction and correction. This puts me within two feet of the students. Sometimes I even touch their hands to adjust their hand position when they can't understand what I am describing or showing. Transferring precise hand positions and pressure from what you see to what you do is not as easy as it looks.

The dark text is a simplification of my course outcomes and objectives. The red circles are the things that require students to make things out of clay or glaze these same things

Teaching Pottery Classes Online

So, the big question is, how could I possibly teach a class with students on the wheels when I can't get close enough to see their hands and interiors and they can't get close enough to me to see the same?  To help me think this through, I want to return to my course objectives and outcomes. These can be divided into three categories: making, glazing, and firing. As I read through these course objectives, though, I see that besides the obvious need to actually use these techniques, there is also a focus on demonstrating understand of techniques, processes, and materials.

One of my many video demons for the Functional Pottery classes.

I already have a lot of elements of this class online. This class is flipped, meaning that students can watch all or nearly all of my demos online. I've already put my lectures and tests online.. The only thing they really can't do online is the making itself. They can't make pottery, glaze pottery, mix clay, and load and unload kilns online. 

students throwing (in the old building) within 6' of one another

But I've been thinking about this all weekend. maybe students can virtually load kilns. Maybe they can virtually identify placement of foot rings and handles and analyze form from pictures. Maybe they can even practice and get feedback on the placement of their hands (virtual hands) and tools during throwing and trimming. Last week people were laughing at me when they talked about loading kilns virtually, but now I'm thinking it has possibilities. Also, why doesn't a virtual game of loading a kiln already exist?

With one relay damaged, we were down two one electric kiln for the end of the quarter, so things got loaded extra tight in order to have everything glazed and fired before our Monday critique (which, of course, was moved online due to the COVID-19 precautions).

I'm picturing a lesson in SoftChalk that would include drawings or photographs. Students can sort correct hand positions versus incorrect hand positions. They can write or select answers about why these positions are correct. They could take pictures of their own hands or their own pots and identify what they've done correctly or incorrectly and what needs work. With a picture of a kiln interior, they could place things correctly or incorrectly. This would approximate hand-on activities without the interpersonal risk.

Raku firing (I admit, part of me feels about like this looks--things are on fire and the results are not entirely within our control).

What Cannot be Moved Online

Either scenario (one class meeting of 16 students all spread throughout the room) or two meetings of fewer students each solves the problem of getting students access to the wheels. The personal instruction which is both my favorite part of the class and probably the most effective part of the process, is perhaps insurmountable. I don't mean to be defeatist, but I think it is more difficult to apply instructions given at a different time or instructions that include small adjustments that you can barely see. But that gutting that part of the process does not mean that we can't approximate the content that students would receive in normal circumstances.

No idea how we could safely fire a raku kiln with 6' between participants. Maybe the COVID-19 risk will be gone by June when we usually fire.

Unfortunately, I think there are several parts of the class that may simply have to be skipped this quarter (or, optimistically, saved until after the COVID-19 threat has passed). I can imagine a way for students to load kilns one by one, but I usually supervise this process closely so that things don't break. If I were to, literally, step back during this process, the damage risks would increase. I'll have to think about whether that's worth it. Additionally, clay mixing might have to go and critiques will certainly have to move online. 

Running a critique live is fairly relaxed, but converting it to writing for an online critique makes it look tedious.

The Next Weeks: Online Finals & Massive Planning Efforts

I've moved my live final critique for Monday and Wednesday of this week online, per instructions. I think the critiques will be able to accomplish the course objective of having students "Exhibit knowledge of functional glazing techniques in discussions and other assignments." But the critiques next week will be less pleasant, less fun, and involve more technical frustration than I like. There will also be fewer donuts to celebrate our accomplishments. Even local establishments like Don's Donuts is impacted by these restrictions.

Pottery finished last week by Jamie Barker in my winter throwing class, including our only final critique donut.

Tomorrow I anticipate there will be meetings about what we are doing next quarter. We are supposed to finish up Winter quarter on Friday, March 20, the return for Spring quarter on Tuesday, March 31. Assuming that the quarter doesn't get delayed, which some schools are doing, that gives faculty just over a week to make significant changes in their classes and solve intractable problems about delivery and access. 

During the raku firing, someone's glaze dripped onto this sculpture by Ibet Vargas. The glaze dripped and pulled into a thread as the piece was removed from the kiln, then cooled into a tiny sliver of glass.

There are several workshops and lots of online training and assistance available to faculty next week, but, of course, most of us are at capacity with the usual end-of-quarter grading, cleaning, (firing), and paperwork next week. On top of that, many faculty (perhaps the 85% of classes that are not taught online) are scrambling to make major changes to move our finals online as well. All this is to say that I'm probably not the only one who took a significant amount of my weekend to revise my finals, communicate with students, and start planning for major changes in spring. And I won't be the only one to trade at least a portion of my spring break for solid chunks of intense planning and course development.

A full view of Ibet's slab-built sculpture (from above). She used horse-hair on the surface to create the black smoke lines

If you are also trying to move your pottery or art class online or observe social distancing for spring, what does your plan look like? What access and delivery issues have you solved? What resources are you using? Who knows of a virtual kiln loading app or game? I'd be happy to connect with you. 

If you're a clay instructor and on Facebook, I know the Clay Buddies group has some conversation threads going about teaching online, but I haven't seen much about social distancing.