Reflections on Teaching Online

Reflections from the frontline: my first foray into online teaching

This post was written by Clare Maxwell, a lecturer in EAP  in the Language Centre. If you would like to post your experiences of teaching during the pandemic please get in touch with Alex Ding (a.ding[@]leeds.ac.uk)

Like many others, I have found myself thrown in at the deep end of the online teaching experience, in order to continue to deliver in-sessional support to students in the School of Design. It’s been a huge learning curve, but on the whole a positive experience. I’ve enjoyed the challenge, and it’s forced me to use technology that in the past I have perhaps avoided, whether due to time constraints or not wanting to move out of my comfort zone. It’s not been without its challenges however, and there are a few observations that I felt I wanted to share. With numerous colleagues in The Language Centre working hard to get everything online in preparation for summer pre-sessionals, I feel that being able to draw on some of these very early, if small, experiences of going online will be really important.

So, after much thought, here goes: a few points that I feel might be worth considering by anyone planning ahead for online delivery of courses during these strange and unprecedented times. It is fairly long (sorry!), so if you’re short of time, just read the headings and then skip to the ‘takeaways’ at the end…

 

 

Background (the descriptive bit)

Context

I chose to take the School of Design in-sessional classes online after 2 weeks of rapidly decreasing numbers as students were choosing not to attend due to their fear (yes, literally) of COVID-19. Many were under pressure from parents back in China to not go out. Some were from Wuhan City/ Hubei province and had first-hand experience of the impact of the virus, and a number had already experienced self-isolation in early February when they returned from China after the Christmas break. As the in-sessional classes are not compulsory, it was one less risk they needed to take. As it turned out, my decision coincided pretty much with the university's rapid decision to move all teaching online.

My tech (or non-tech!) background

I have, in the past, been on the receiving end of asynchronous online courses (Open University, and University of Leicester), but had zero experience of synchronous online teaching or learning. I would say I'm your fairly average user of technology, generally comfortable with it, but not particularly adventurous with it in the classroom. Up until the recent crisis, I was a regular user of social media (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp etc), but had rarely made video calls. I am comfortable with Teams and Yammer but had only previously used them for communication with colleagues. I have fairly regular Zoom meetings with a small group of EAP colleagues in other institutions, but these have never been set up by me. Let’s say that in the classroom I had ‘dabbled’ with technology (occasional use of Padlet, shared files on One Drive for collaborative writing, online journals, screencasts….), but nothing major. To sum up: comfortable with technology, just not adventurous.

Getting online

I needed to learn, from scratch, very, very quickly (in less than a day). I didn't have much time to think through and consider all the options, hence my choices can in no way be considered research- or evidence-based, rather I’d say they were circumstance- and needs-based. I vaguely thought about the synchronous versus asynchronous question (new terminology for me!) and went for synchronous, in spite of hastily posted memes I’d spotted out in the twittersphere suggesting that “asynchronous is best”. I chose to go synchronous because I was getting a sense from many students that they wanted and needed human contact of some kind. I also felt, rightly or wrongly, that teaching ‘live’ would require less adaptation of my existing materials than creating lecture-style videos.

I went for Blackboard Collaborate because, as I far as I knew, it was the only thing I was certain was available to both me and my students (through the university VLE). I had heard from teaching friends in Italy that Zoom works well but as far as I was aware the university didn't have an account. I also couldn’t be certain at this stage if all students had access to Teams. I worked out the nuts and bolts of Collaborate quite simply by creating a session, and playing around with it. I wasn't able to try everything before my next scheduled class the following day, so had no idea how everything worked (e.g.: how do breakout groups work?) nor was I even aware of all the possible functions (who knew you could share google tabs?). I only knew the basics, but had just about enough to be able to run with it.

I spent a LONG time planning that first lesson, thinking about EVERY move of the lesson, and how to manage it at a practical level: how to communicate with the students, how to encourage the students to communicate with each other and me, how to manage chat, how to give feedback, how to avoid an overly teacher-centred lesson. I considered what features I would need to use and each step for using them, trying to work out how I could replicate what I would do in the classroom, and realising that some things you just can't.

After that first class, I accessed some scant training. An online Collaborate session organised by the university’s Organisational Development and Professional Learning (OD&PL) unit, which put me in the students’ shoes so I could ‘see what they could see’. A meeting on Collaborate with a colleague to share our mutual experiences and again, 'be the student'. A group chat with other in-sessional colleagues on Teams to share ideas. All of these helped me pick up small but valuable tips as to how to use the technology to best effect.

In that first week I taught four classes of 2 hours each. I have since taught further classes and have continued to offer regular drop-in sessions over the Easter break. It is fair to say that I am completely self-taught and in spite of the challenges it has worked fairly well up to this point. On reflection, I feel this initially positive experience stems in part from the following:

1. My teaching context means I could manage the entire process myself. I decided how, when and what. As a result I was able to do things at my own pace and learn gradually (during the first class I was unaware of many of the functions of Collaborate, but it didn’t matter, I made it work with what I had).
2. I knew all of the students already: I have been teaching them since Semester 1, and had already built a good rapport. This, I’m sure, made it much easier to manage any difficulties during the class (for me and them!), and similarly meant that not seeing their faces (see below) was not so much of an issue.
3. The groups were relatively small. The largest group I have taught so far is 13. That already became a little difficult to manage at times (e.g: managing break out groups, and managing chat – see below), but was do-able. I was interested to note when attending the OD&PL training session (which fundamentally was a live lecture thus requiring less ‘classroom management’) that there were three moderators: one person presenting, and two others monitoring and responding to chat messages.

It was these points that made me wonder how different the experience would have been had I been on a larger programme, managed by others, with less flexibility in terms of learning outcomes, assessment, syllabus and materials. I can see how the necessary focus on these fundamental aspects of course design and management, might lead to overlooking some of the surprises that cropped up from my experience, and that I think are definitely worth keeping in mind.

The biggest lessons I’ve learned

Lesson 1: Everything takes longer

I sometimes didn't get through half of what I’d planned and/or would have normally covered in a face-to-face lesson. I can't say for certain the exact reasons for this but the following certainly had an impact:

• time taken in the early classes in working out the technology myself (dithering around, trying to find my way around!) and in introducing the technology to the students. Time taken for the students to dither around to find their way around. The more technology, the longer it takes. Introducing new features (eg breakout groups) and/or combining multiple technologies (eg sharing files on One Drive and sharing screens to work collaboratively) means more time needed to explain/direct students.
• not being able to see where students are in a task. The only way I could know how far they were into a task was by asking them, which meant interrupting them in said task. Not ideal. I actually gave the students much more time to do tasks for this reason: possibly not a bad thing, as it made me realise maybe I rush them at times in face-to-face classes.
• dealing with connectivity issues (mine and theirs).
• having to keep re-loading materials as I moved from PPT slides, to whiteboard, to screen-share etc.
• managing breakout groups. This can take AGES. A large(ish) group divided into pairs or even threes creates lots of groups! It takes some time (technically) to enter and exit a breakout room, chat to the group and move on. On Collaborate it's made worse by the fact that if you want to give instructions on screen you have to enter each individual room to post onto the screen, so while you do that the other groups are waiting. Of course there are ways around this (e.g.: get the students to screenshot the instructions in the main room before going into breakout), but it's just another thing to think about and remember, and another screen that students need to have open.

Lesson 2: It's TIRING.

Now it might be my age, but after just 4 classes of 2 hours each, I got to the end of the week and I was seriously exhausted, particularly on days when I had 2 classes (so 4 hours in a day). I certainly found it more tiring than face-to-face teaching. I have reflected on why this might be. Again, no evidence to back this up, but my thoughts are:

• It's all new. Obviously this experience was all in week one and I was dealing with learning the technology very quickly with lots of input and things to think about. I'm sure it will get easier with time. However….
• It requires serious and constant multi-tasking in terms of teaching, talking, listening, monitoring, reading the chats, noticing students who have connectivity issues, sharing screens, responding to chats etc etc etc etc. There is no let up at any point in the lesson.
• It is solid screen time. Two full hours of intense screen time. Sitting down (I never usually sit down in class!). I tried to factor in a short break in each lesson, for myself as much as the students, which of course adds to the issue of time highlighted previously. From my perspective, all this screen-time was then interspersed with more screen time between classes to do non-teaching work (prep, admin, scholarship, team meetings etc). I woke up 3 days in a row with quite severe headaches in that first week, in spite of not feeling particularly stressed.
• It is difficult to gauge student response on the spot. 99.9% of my students would not use their videos. The vast majority said this was because they were embarrassed (as reported in the in post-lesson feedback forms!), but many also because it can cause connectivity issues. No encouragement or coaxing would make them change their minds. Not seeing the students makes it difficult to gauge response, and that lack of immediate feedback is mentally challenging. I had to keep asking for little signals that they were a) still there, b) still engaged, c) understanding etc. It's a bit like being on stage and getting no response from the audience, you feel you have to work that much harder.
  

  "Silence" by Sixth Lie is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 3: The technology issues are not always what you’d expect

Perhaps naively, there were technology issues that I simply hadn’t considered. This is not about the kind of issues we might have in the classroom such as a whiteboard not working (you can find a way around that!). This is about wi-fi connections, and devices, both teachers’ and students'.

• I have watched while numerous students enter and leave the classroom 3, 4, 5, 6 times as their connection continues to fail. Nothing I can do, except record the session and let them watch it later (which doesn't make for a great learning experience: less satisfying than just watching an online lecture I'd say), assuming of course that the students are happy to be recorded: permission required! Also, on Collaborate, recording stops when students go into breakout groups…..who knew? Hence I have a number of recordings of just the first 20 minutes of my 2-hours classes: not much use to anyone.
• As mentioned previously, some students just will not use their cameras. Even more problematic: some students cannot get their mics to work. I had to manage one session where one student could only participate using the chat function while everyone else spoke on mics. I could sense her frustration. Another student couldn’t hear anything in the breakout rooms. Obviously there is little we can do about this, and it adds to the things to manage (see multi-tasking in ‘Lesson 2’), and, yep! it makes things take longer (‘Lesson 1’).
• Any combination of a variety of technology requires careful planning and practice (and possibly training?). I tried to incorporate additional technology (such as shared files on One Drive) to try to allow student collaboration in producing written work. This required very careful management, careful planning, and very clear instructions. I have no idea how well the students managed the switching from one screen to another, from one platform to another. One student gave feedback that at times they felt they needed two or three devices! We need to bear in mind that students (and teachers!) need time to get to know the technology. Time needs to be built into the early classes of a course for this (and yes, we're back to ‘Lesson 1’ again: time!). The more technology or platforms we use, the more the students (and teachers) need to learn, and the more scope there is for error or feeling an idiot in class. Fine if you know your students well (like I do.....we've had a few laughs at my expense!), but more difficult for new students/tutors.

Lesson 4: We're in the middle of a pandemic.

This observation is not about online teaching/learning in general, but about online teaching/learning during a life-threatening global pandemic. We seriously need to remember this, and we need to think about the state of mind of the students we are teaching (and of the teachers doing the teaching!).

• We need to be extremely mindful of the personal circumstances our students might be experiencing. I can only speak for my in-sessional students but, from the conversations I have had with them, they are frightened, some haven't left their accommodation for weeks, some are only getting fresh air by sticking their heads out of the window. They are thousands of miles from home. Their parents are frightened for them and are telling them to not go out, or urging them to go back home. Flights have been cancelled so they can't leave. They are not getting the opportunity to speak English. Their lifetime opportunity to study in the UK and gain all the benefits of living in another country has been cut short. They may have family members who are ill, or may be bereaved. They are stressed and anxious about their studies, as the goalposts are necessarily moved for their final assessments. Students may be finding it much harder to study and possibly fully engage in the way they normally might in less trying circumstances. I feel like we need to cut them some slack if we can.
• We need to be equally mindful regarding teachers. I have found the (barely begun) transition to online teaching ok for the reasons listed above. Being able to manage this in my own way has made it relatively painless. I cancelled my second scheduled online class because it wasn't ready….let me rephrase that, because I wasn't ready! But my cancelling had no major consequences (and in my defence, your honour, I did hold the lesson the following week, and then added a bonus class because we didn’t get through everything….. so 2 for the price of 1, the lucky lot!). I am trying to imagine how different, and potentially how much more stressful, it would have been if a) I had other staff to manage and/or b) I was teaching on a high-stakes course with set materials, stricter learning outcomes, high-stakes assessments and little flexibility to manage the many ‘unexpecteds’ I have experienced.

The take-aways….

Of course, all of my observations stem from my initial and immediate experiences of getting online to respond to a rapidly evolving situation. Many of the issues I encountered will no doubt improve as we adapt to this new reality, and over time with increased confidence and experience. But hopefully, sharing these frontline experiences can help with planning for future courses, to pre-empt and mitigate some of the practical issues, and to be mindful of both teacher and student well-being.

From this perspective, I feel that we need to be realistic about what we can deliver, and what we can expect the students to learn, in the time we have and the extraordinary circumstances we are living in. To sum up, I feel we would be wise to:

1. lower our expectations in terms of what we think we can cover on a course and how much students will learn.
2. allow increased time for students and teachers to get to know each other and build a rapport: I think it will be harder online.
3. allow time for students and teachers to get to know the technology and become confident with it….small steps! Don’t bombard them with everything at once.
4. consider carefully just how many students we really can manage in one online class with just one teacher.
5. consider carefully just how many hours teachers are going to be sitting in front of a screen on a daily basis, and the mental tiredness they will likely accumulate.
6. be prepared for the technology issues and consider how we might (or indeed whether we can) mitigate these (particularly students’ technology issues), and think about the implications this might have in terms of student learning and achievement.
7. be mindful of the additional anxiety and stress that may be caused by the current crisis we are experiencing, and the impact this may be having on both students’ and teachers’ mental health, resilience and ability to learn.

This reflection turned out to be much longer than I expected. So, if you got this far, thanks for reading, and good luck with the transition to online teaching and learning!