Some notes on Online Teaching, along with my own personal lessons.
Lesson 1: Value of Synchronicity.
My biggest takeaway from the online teaching experience is the importance of synchronous time between students and faculty. Creating a high-quality learning experience is challenging, and synchronous time is a key ingredient to its success.
I suppose it is because synchronous time naturally facilitates opportunities for immersive kind of “Madeleine moments” for students. As a test, try to quickly recall a goose-bump moment that you had watching a YouTube video. Compare that to a moment you vividly recall when you were at a jazz club, watching a live game with friends, or an organic moment in the classroom when you made a connection between concepts enriched by the collective experience.
There is perhaps an indescribable human moment when you are in the same room, even if virtually, and doing the same thing. I thought of the transformational moment when the remarkable Helen Keller met M. S. Subbulakshmi, the Indian classical singer extraordinaire, whose distinctive voice still shines far above the prodigious voice talents in Carnatic music. The miraculous Helen Keller had already “listened” to classical music radio programs, a testament to limitless possibilities in learning, and the ability of music to transcend the barrier of sound itself. When they met, MS sang for her, and Keller running her finger over MS’s throat, reputedly exclaimed, “You sing like an angel”. True education seeks such electrifying synapses that are both intellectual and human.
Asynchronicity is efficient. Synchronicity is experiential.
Surely, as any teacher knows, there are imperfect moments in the classroom. Those offbeat comments of candor or error. But, imperfection is valuable. It is human and personal and makes it better for the synchronous experience. For my classes, I could get a voice actor with a persuasive timber reading the script. That’s not what the students want. They gain value, and I gain value when they see me wrestle live with the best way to explicate nuanced concepts.
I made some pre-recorded and edited videos. Our popular Coursera analytics MOOC had taught me that asynchronous videos are great for revising concepts and learning-by-doing math exercises. I told the students that I had already posted videos. My students were outstanding! Almost everyone showed up, purely for the experiential learning component. Students were extraordinarily attentive, understanding, and participatory during the synchronous class sessions.
Lesson 2: Production Quality Matters, But Not As Much As We Think.
It is great to have good studio lighting, great microphones, and speakers. Usually, I am very process-oriented, but this post won’t be about hardware tools and kits that you can buy to make home recordings great. I had a good set of high-end devices that were all locked up in my office, and when I started the class, I couldn’t buy them at short notice, as they were sold out on Amazon. Eventually, even with the devices, I discovered that the quality of production did not matter as much. The “content” eventually dominates over everything else.
Lesson 3: Software Makes a Big Difference.
The hardware didn’t matter much. On the other hand, software tools made a difference. I am not compensated in any way by the makers of these tools. I only recommend them since I found them useful.
Asynchronous Video Tools:
- Camtasia to record videos and short class videos. I think most of the video insights are common knowledge among instructors of online education. Make short crispy videos. Devise some test quizzes/questions at the end of the short videos. More emphasis on a precise and accurate script. (I spent time re-editing and eliminating the umms and uhs in my speech, which are usually part of my natural charm in in-class education).
- Slack is great for running asynchronous discussions. I do several cases in my classes and I had channels for each case. One general channel for asking course Questions and concepts. (I also had a “free” channel where I encouraged students to chat. On that channel, I ran an “Ask Me Anything” session and responded candidly to questions not just course topics).
- Forclass is a great tool for pre-class Questions, and I shared the responses on slack.
- I posted all lectures and videos on Canvas which is the LMS used by our university. I ran an online exam that was open for a week. In that week, students could take the exam anytime over 2 hours. I had to create numerical variants. Canvas exam worked well from both design and grading perspective.
- I tested ment.io and liked its features, but did not end up using it.
Synchronous Class Tools:
- BlueJeans is fine and works well for small group discussions. For larger groups, I found it a bit clunky, and I used Zoom, particularly its interactive elements like raising hands. I asked the students to be ON Video (audio exemptions based on prior discussions).
- I monitored the student’s free-chat box to direct the flow of discussion. In fact, I explicitly encouraged them to have cross-chat when the class was running. In “real life” class, people can’t cross-talk. I often prohibit it. On Zoom, with my encouragement, they were chatting across. I thought that worked better than in-class discussions, as I could then dovetail the direction of discussion based on a glance at the chat window. I feel it is not polite to glance elsewhere when someone addressing you in class. However, in the online environment, it was ok(?) to glance at the chat window. Marshall McLuhan correctly proclaimed that medium is the message. Nevertheless, I am still puzzled about how the etiquette and norms were so different online.
- If you feel it is distracting to glance at chatbox, you could use a human assistant. During some class sessions, a staff member kept notes on student questions and flagged them for me. I realized with a TA, such “on the fly” adjustments are easier to do in online classes than in an in-person class.
- I used PollEverywhere (an add-in within PowerPoint) to run polls to push discussions and run straw polls. It served twin purposes. It replicated the “nodding heads” reaffirmation in class. 🙂 It was a good way to take the temperature and know if people were still “with” me.
Lesson 4: Empathy Matters
Like everyone, I am away from my office (my personal citadel) and an active collegial atmosphere at the university. We were stuck in an apartment with young children with their own zooms besides our work. When I was teaching, my parents in India were (and still are) in lockdown. I still don’t know when I am going to see them next. Online funerals of family members and neighbors have down on us. Scores of people I know have been laid off.
Higher education is at crossroads. There are natural worries about online classes vs. tuition. I knew at least a couple of students who had lost their funding. I knew of international, first-generation, and graduate students who were struggling. Many students in the MBA program/Exec MBA program were stuck at home with young children. In fact, some of my students were physicians on the COVID frontline. Class time was their opportunity to connect (even if virtually). Recorded videos were ok for the future but probably did not compete well with their need for an educational experience. Our time together was their “downtime” to think about concepts.
I think that I am a fairly approachable person in the classroom settings, but a pretty private person online. To overcome distance online, we need to rethink how classes are done. The standard in-class jokes and methods don’t work online. Here is what I tried to do. To be honest, I don’t know if any of my attempts “worked”. I did not have success as a goal, but I felt it was natural to explore since we were all in an uncertain setting.
I shared with students at the beginning of classes some of my favorite art, thematically related to the lockdowns (e.g. Nighthawks by Edward Hopper). I showed them a quick scan of my apartment, my standing desk, and the online teaching set up, bookshelves, hobby cameras, and other instruments. I wore dress pants (no pajamas for me!), and proper formal shoes indoors (a no-no in a South Indian home). I wore a Wharton tie on the last day of class. During breaks (and for about 10-15 minutes after class), we talked about how people were coping. Before one session, I made a cappuccino and shared my latte art skills. I had emphasized that it was perfectly ok for families to show up during class — I waved hello to the young kids. This was partly selfish, as I knew that occasionally my kid had wandered in during my previous meetings. To my surprise, this never happened during class.
I often tell my students that I truly do not know what the best online course design is, but we wouldn’t know if we all did not try our best. We are figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of online education. One thing is for sure in my mind: online education is a net positive, and it is here to stay!