May 26, 2020 Tuesday after Memorial Day

My last post was on May 13. But, this is how this goes. Teaching on line has been really stressful. I’ll be glad when I have a chance to recoup after this week, which is the last week of this necessary madness.

We have been in “remote-learning” mode since March 16. That was the date that our school told all the students to stay home. It came rather suddenly, as it did for most of us, which meant that many students didn’t know to bring things home with them. Even people who came back to school during the designated hours to pickup the books and things that they would need at home forgot certain things, making their life just a little bit harder as Zoom classes rolled out. Lots of students had to rely on friends of theirs to photograph pages out of textbooks with the telephones or iPads. And, I can tell you from grading, there has been a lot of collaborative work going on that, in a former life, would have designated as “academic dishonesty” but now it is so much a new normal that I would be hard pressed to justify it that way now.

Learning how to keep work meaningful, figuring out the right way for students to submit work, managing the increased time that it take to grade on line have all been challenges. In a profession that relies on heavy interaction with hundreds of students, plus faculty and administrators, daily the transition to screens has been challenging. (I am going to use the term “challenging” a lot.)
For better or for worse, the relationships that we have with our students now depends on the relationship with our screens.

The world of academics is hardly an equitable one. Many schools (and school districts) have it very hard. I am one of the lucky ones. I know this and I am cognizant and grateful for it every day. Every student in our school had his own iPad. It’s a requirement and “standard issue.” All teachers, well before the Covid Crisis, were using an online platform called Canvas, where students accessed handouts, homework, videos, and explanation of lessons. Teachers were already building modules and many were already having students submit all their work online. I admit that I was not one of those teachers. I am of the antiquated variety that prefers paper – collecting paper, holding it my hand, using a pen to grade and having the satisfaction of handing the paper back to the student. I know that times are changing, and I am good with change. But, not all things are for all people.
Administration has been absolutely wonderful through all this. We have a Technology Department (Information Services?) that has really risen to the challenge to provide a plethora of online training and support for teachers, students and parents as we wade through the muck of this misery.

I will be glad – as we all will be – when this mess is over.  

In the meantime I have been adapting to home being both work and living space. Throughout my career I have tried very hard to keep those things separate: “work at work, and home at home.” Now that boundary is blurred beyond recognition. I have classes from my office at home, have Zoom coffee hours in the morning in my kitchen, and afternoon cocktail hours with faculty and friends in my living room. I have rearranged furniture, redistributed books, and considered visual angles in ways that I never have before. This has made me rethink the composition and functionality of rooms that were once personal, but now must be public and functional. In many ways, my personal space is now public space. I have had to think about “staging.” What do people see when I turn on that camera? How is the composition of the space affecting the transmission of the primary goal? Is it balanced? Is it cluttered? Is there enough light? Do I have everything that I need so that I don’t have to leave the space for any length of time? How is the volume? Does my microphone work properly? I have never considered doing a video podcast (or vlog), but now I am doing one almost every day. I have actually spent money on new video editor software, gone online and purchased lighting, a green screen and a microphone. (There is nothing worse than being on a Zoom conference with other faculty and seeing people who have not accounted for even some of the basics, as they sit in front of a window with the light pouring in behind them which makes them come off on screen as someone from the witness protection program! Or, other people who sit in a dark corner of the house with the only the light emanating from their screen to illuminate their face, reminiscent of a scene from a horror movie.)

Remote learning ends for this academic year on Friday. We don’t know what September will look like. I am looking forward to having some time over the summer months to create and concretize online learning modules for any learning scenario that we may enter into next academic year. A lot of work to be sure, but worth it in the end.