A Reflection on Online Teaching: Looking Towards the Future

By Amanda Coen

For the past 16 summers I have taught for a residential science and math outreach program for high school students. Like so many courses during the previous few months, we scrambled to adjust to an online format when it became apparent that an in-person program was not possible. Some things went well. Others, like anything tried for the first time, need adjusting. Understanding the populations we serve, we knew going in that a majority of our students were going to have various barriers to access the online environment.

Access to tech was usually the simplest to address. In the traditional program, we provided students with a laptop for the summer. Thankfully, most of their school districts had done the leg work during the spring to provide loner laptops so that students could continue with classes when everything shifted to distance learning. This still required a herculean effort by the facilitating community college through which our program runs and the IT personnel managing the school district equipment. Various platforms, websites, and program needed permission granted so that students could work through the different learning activities we were using to enrich the student’s learning experience.

Even though we planned for a whole day of login tutorials and walking students through creating accounts and the various troubleshooting that goes along with the start of a course, this was not sufficient. At least for most students this worked, but a large handful were not fully setup before the end of the first week in a fast-paced program. Then there were the silent few who never reached out for help and it was only after a second week of missed assignments and requiring them to stay after class that they informed us that they did not know how to login or submit materials. Eventually, we got everyone setup, but it was harder to catch in the remote setting.

For instruction I tried to go with what I traditionally did: lecture and then open the meeting up for questions on the material. Knowing that students were sitting at screens for long periods of time, I tried to break up the topics into mini lectures followed by a break to move around, get snacks and just not be at the screen to reduce tuning-out. Still despite my best efforts to balance engagement and accommodation towards bandwidth demands for students often sharing a room with other family members working online, it largely felt like I was talking to an empty room. You have probably been there yourself, sitting at your desk teaching a wall of black boxes.

Normally I would be able to see how they were using class time and walk the room to engage with students one-on-one as they appeared to need help. Not that in the classroom students are readily volunteering to ask questions. But alone across the screen, they seemed even more hesitant than when physically in the same room with their peers.

This summer was not all bad. Students learned things about the ocean environment they had never considered before. Some even developed the comfort to ask questions in and out of class time. But like most of us in teaching, we strive to do it better the next time. So, what did I learn?

Zoom is a mixed blessing. I honestly don’t know what the students were doing for learning from their high school teachers, but a large contingent of my students did not know how to use Zoom. Do not assume your students are familiar with all the potential tools in Zoom. Or any platform for that matter. I plan on using an ice breaker activity as both a way to build community in the class and practice sharing screens.

Lectures alone do not work. I will try to move away from the lecture only format and instead try to encourage reading the material ahead of time so we can focus on discussing the material. I know that students will still be reluctant to speak up in class, but by incorporating various combinations of polls and games I hope to engage students more and help them build more of the community experience that develops in a traditional classroom.

Building connections with students. This is probably the hardest, but I felt the most disconnected from my students than I ever have before. Not being able to see them was a large part of this, but also there seemed to be general reluctance to reach out for help. I am not sure there is any “right way” to go about developing student connections. By being open and sharing more about where I am coming from, what struggles I have, repeating the messages of how to reach out for help each time, and fostering a sense of community in class, I hope to facilitate a better learning experience and provide them tools for success at the college level.