A reflection on online teaching after the onset of the COVID19-pandemic

15 June 2020

Teaching online – An experience that revealed both difficulties and opportunities

Here I reflect on my personal experience of transitioning from live to online teaching during the (first) “COVID-19 semester”

What will the future of higher education look like? At least in the foreseeable future, teaching is likely going to be largely online, with students studying from their home or dormitory and doing their project work and assessments remotely. Over the past months after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we certainly got a glimpse of what such a future would look like. Here, I want to discuss how I personally experienced the transition from live to online teaching and what my views on the pros and cons of online learning are.

I must admit that I initially had great reservations about switching to remote teaching and tried to delay it as long as possible. This is partly because the direct interaction with students is one of the things I enjoy most about teaching. Furthermore, both courses that I taught over the past semester (a Year 2 Life Science undergraduate module on cell biology and a postgraduate module on transferrable skills) are largely based on analytical and critical thinking. For instance, in the case of the undergraduate course, a lot of the class time is devoted to solving and discussing scientific problems. This includes understanding of research methodologies, practice of data interpretation and discussion of approaches to answer scientific questions. Practicing these skills involved weekly problem-based online quizzes and in-class activities, via both polleverywhere questions (early during the semester) and increasingly as the semester progresses via in-class discussions. Hence, when it became necessary to move to online teaching, my concern was that the in-class activities (polleverywhere questions and in-class discussions) would not work well in an online lecture format.

When I had to start to teach undergraduate classes online, I tried to carry out the zoom lectures like a normal lecture, where instead of asking students directly, I heavily used the chat function during the lectures. And what I experienced was quite unexpected. There was not less, but actually more student interaction. Students were very responsive to questions and problems that I posed during the lectures, apparently without fearing that their solution would be wrong. This was despite the fact that I asked the students to sign in with their real name, which was revealed during the chat.

When giving lectures online, the students also readily asked questions at the end of the lecture. This helped to immediately fill any gaps, clarify points or clear up misconceptions for everyone. In contrast, students in live lectures rarely ask questions, even when prompted to do so. In the live lecture setting, the students usually ask their questions AFTER the lecture, at which point the lecturer is unable to clarify any points for the whole class. Hence, based in my experience students seem to be less inhibited in the online setting. To make full use of this advantage, it would be a good idea to stop throughout the lecture and give students the opportunity to raise any questions. This would likely also increase the student engagement during online teaching.

Nonetheless, I also experienced a number of drawbacks to online teaching. When I had my in-person lectures during the first part of the semester, usually two thirds of the class would show up for the lecture, even though the lecture slot was early (8 am) and all lectures were recorded and available to students online. Notably, markedly less students (around one fifth of the class) attended the online zoom lectures (which were also recorded and uploaded after the live lecture). This was very surprising and suggests to me that one important driving force for students to attend lectures is the social aspect. Looking back to my own time as a student, meeting friends on campus and in the lecture theatre was indeed a major motivation for me to attend classes. In the absence of the social factor, it likely becomes more attractive for many students to view the recorded version. Here, the student can control the speed of the lecture, fast forward or stop the lecture or re-play certain parts.

However, I believe the tendency of students to watch recorded versions instead of live lectures is problematic, especially if the lecture style is problem-based and tries to promote analytical and critical thinking. One thing I have noticed over the past semester is that students are generally very good at choosing from possible solutions in problem-based multiple choice questions. However, the students often have great difficulties to propose their own solutions. Coming up with solutions requires logical reasoning skills and creative thinking skills, which can only be learned with practice. Hence, when I stop in my lectures to ask problem-based questions, I want the students to practice these reasoning and creative thinking skills. In contrast, when students watch recorded versions, they have the option to fast forward to save time (and probably do so to a large extent), which deprives them of the opportunity to practice problem solving.

Of course, the problem that many students do not attend live online lectures could be addressed by finding a way to encourage or mandate attendance of live online lectures. One could for instance include a quiz at the end of the lecture, which the students have to complete immediately and for which some participation marks can be awarded. However, I noted another major difference between in-person and online lectures at the end of the past semester. When I used to receive feedback from students, there are always students who comment that that they had a lot of fun during the lectures and were looking forward to the lectures slots. And this is in fact in line with one of my goals, which is to make the learning process enjoyable. At the end of the past semester, however, none of the students made a similar comment.

It is indeed my experience that it is more difficult to incorporate fun elements into online teaching. There may be a number of reasons for that. Although online platforms have a range of options to engage the audience (gallery view, polls, chat, breakout rooms, assigning tasks), these work only if the audience participates. In the online settings, the students may not participate because the social factor is absent and it is difficult to monitor the participation. It is also hard to get a visual response from the audience, which may discourage a lecturer to incorporate fun elements. For instance, if we show a video, it is easy to tell how the students react and relate to it in the lecture theatre. But while online, one can’t even be sure that the students are actually watching the video. The lack of visual response also discourages spontaneity. Furthermore, I believe that the general perception by students is that online lectures are information based and that they should be efficient. Hence, I feel more reluctant to incorporate “unnecessary” fun elements in this setting.

Finally, one major disadvantage of online learning is the greater difficulty to get to know the students. Since I have been teaching my undergraduate module alone this last semester, I decided and made a real effort to learn all students’ names (despite the fact that there were 148 students in the class). What I did is I first memorized all names by using the student-provided pictures. This may sound difficult, but it actually is not that hard and after a few days of occasional practice, I knew most student names. And then before each lecture, I walked through the lecture hall and tried to call out the student names. If I could not recognize students, I asked them for their name. It was indeed amazing to see how surprised students were if I recognized them! Since I also have a short introductory assignment (where the students share some of their career and personal goals), students were even more amazed if I could recall anything from what they have expressed.

Learning student names had the single most significant effect on my teaching this semester. It was a huge motivation booster for me. It allowed me to follow the progress of individual students, call out students in class by their name and made the emails I received so much more personal. It even made the marking of the final exam and the assignments more enjoyable, because I knew each student when checking their answers, which somehow makes marking a lot less mundane and more interesting.

It was somewhat fortunate that during the first half of the semester we had live lectures, so that by the time the classes moved online, I already knew the students. I am sure that learning and getting to know students online is possible, although it would definitely be more difficult and probably more time-consuming. But nonetheless, I strongly believe it is worth the effort. In fact, knowing the students’ names is even more important for online lectures, as this would likely help to increase student engagement and accountability.

What will the future of science teaching be like? It has been argued that teaching may be more effective if based on online lectures by world-leading experts with excellent teaching skills. However, what my experience over the past semester has suggested is that while knowledge can be efficiently imparted via online teaching, developing higher learning skills and making the learning an enjoyable and personal experience is more challenging. When not left with a choice, it is up to the individual lecturer to find ways to connect with the students and promote student engagement and active learning. In this process, we are all learners ourselves, and it will take an open mind and willingness to try new approaches to succeed.