Teachers & Students: Going Online for COVID-19

Mural reads, "We Are in This Together," Artists Mike Fudge and
Kaiser Permanente created this mural to combat the stigma of mental illness.

Being a college professor and a first year law student, the idea of classes going online fills me with dread on both ends. As a professor who spent over 9 years teaching face to face classes and the occasional hybrid, when I got into law school I switched to teaching only online courses. Even though I'd taught these classes for years, converting them to an online platform was grueling.

You have to remember that what makes a class interactive, engaging, understanding and educational is inherently different from ftf to online.

Face to face classes allow instructors to adapt their lesson plans depending on the real time feedback from students. If instructors realize the class, "isn't getting it," that is communicated and the teacher can decide to spend an extra day or two on that particular sticky point. In online classes, students may email or they may just muddle through the assignment or skip it altogether. When the last two happen, the professor has to decide how to address this. They can post a mini lecture, open a discussion board, send a mass email addressing the confusion and then extend the assignment due date. But what about the students who already turned it in? Then you are looking at deleting the early submissions, hoping students read your email so they know to resubmit. It's a communication issue, equivalent  to canceling a face to face class 4 minutes before it was set to begin.

Prepping for online classes is done in a holistic way where, a professor considers where they want the class to go and how we are going to get there. Using interactive multi-media we create the course content that has to be fair use, accessible on whatever device students may have and have subtitles and pause buttons. Also it cannot have colors that someone who is color blind would not be able to see. When you prep an online course it is before you receive any letters from students outlining any accommodations they may need due to a disability they may have. Teaching face to face classes is more forgiving for prep. You prepare your class prior to the start of the semester but then again before each class, depending on attendance, current events or student interest.

Learning how to teach without being in the room with students is a skill. Usually teachers receive weeks of trainings to prepare an effective online course. The course is then piloted and checked and adapted before it is released. What we are seeing professors forced to do now is, take a class they had prepared for face to face and  make it an online course in a few days. This is unheard of. It is scary, especially for a group of peope who tend to be over achieving perfectionists, but it is neccessary.

Be compassionate, do away with late policies. Open dialogue with students whether it's email or phone calls. Be creative. Allow yourself to be "just okay." And understand that this isn't going to be the online course that wins you an award for best design but it will allow people to remain healthy and safe and alive.

As a student, being in the classroom, being able to ask professors questions in real time, amd hear students discussing the course material--even taking notes are all tied to student's ability to recall information.  Online courses have a reputation of students essentially having to teach themselves. Not to mention having a quiet home to host Zoom calls is a privilege not afforded to nontraditional students whose kids are now off for three weeks.

To have all this stripped away in the name of social distancing feels like a disadvantage to the high tuition we are paying. I understand how unfair this feels but it is neccessary. Paying tuition is neccessary because as hard as we as students will need to work, so too do the faculty at the institutions we attend.

This isn't what teachers or students signed up for but this is where we are, so let's meet one another with empathy and compassion and finish this semester.