The mean scores on the midterms are comparable to prior years, but attendance in the physical classroom has been decreasing and both Monday and Tuesday I was the only person in the physical classroom and I facilitated a discussion (a focus group if you will) about the diminishing physical presence. Every student in each section who was present contributed to the conversation. They seemed genuinely interested and open about the discussion.
There are a variety of factors that are playing into
students not coming to the physical classroom.
The factors vary from student to student and while for some students
there is an overriding factor and some tertiary factors, for others there are
multiple factors, different ones of which might come into play on any particular
day. I think there was a general
consensus that, for most of the students, all other things being equal, the
physical classroom is the optimal learning environment. The problem is that all other things are not
equal and the zoom classroom is an acceptable alternative – not optimal, but
passable (or better).
The factors for not coming that were articulated include:
·
Being in quarantine because of a roommate’s
illness.
·
Being ill (whether COVID related or not).
·
Being personally at high risk because of health
conditions and limiting contact.
·
Living with or regularly spending time with
others at risk – including parents and grandparents.
·
Living in high contact settings (e.g. dorms) and
not wanting to expose the class.
·
Having all online classes that make it hard to
commute between home and classroom.
·
Quality of the physical classroom interactions
being compromised by a much smaller class size – there isn’t the same buzz in
the classroom (and in the building) with masks and social distancing
contributing to the awkwardness of interaction (the latter was added by me and
there was some assent to it – I’m not sure how much that is a factor – but the
smaller class attendance was spontaneously brought up by the students – and there
are far fewer people in the building than usual – it feels like a morgue to me).
·
It being inconvenient to come to class on some
days for a variety of reasons (on both days when talking to the students it was
raining, though the weather was not mentioned as a contributor – waking up at
9:57 for a 10 am class was mentioned as a factor).
·
It being more convenient to come to class
virtually for a variety of predictable reasons – e.g. work schedules or only
having this one class on campus on the day when the class meets.
My summary impression is that the physical classroom, while
a better place in principal for synchronous learning, is, in the current
climate, an increasingly difficult option to choose for a variety of reasons as
the semester has worn on. Students are
still involved in the class as a virtual classroom, and the comforts (which
include everything from physical safety to convenience) outweigh the risks and
inconvenience of coming to class – especially as the qualities of the classroom
diminish as the number of people present there goes down.
All that said, the students want me to keep coming to the
in-person site so that it is an option for them when they want to opt in to it –
and on the class after this discussion two students were in the classroom with
me. In some ways it might be a better
class if we were all virtual than it being a missed classroom. It is hard for people on zoom to participate
in class than when people are in the classroom – which is a hard enough place
to participate – so the in class people become the people engaged in
conversation and the zoomers become wallpaper.
The students also noted that this class was easier for
students to engage in than students they were in with first year students. They were concerned about those students
because they were having to learn how to make use of a zoom class at the same
time that they were learning how to “do the college thing.”
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All of the reasons for choosing Zoom over coming to class in-person apply for my students too -- though there are also students who have gone virtual simply out of fear, with none of the other risk factors in play. That has been, to me, a perfectly valid reason, even if the danger in the classroom is very low. Facilitating a conversation that includes the people in the room and the people on Zoom has been a learning experience. There have been some lively and productive discussions (with participation even from students on Zoom who have their cameras off) and some duds. A lot of it depends on how well the technology in the room is working, and a lot depends on how successful I am translating what the students in the classroom say for the people on Zoom, since the people on Zoom often can't hear comments from anyone but me. Overall, it is interesting to see in-person attendance shrink and virtual attendance grow. With about 5 more weeks in the semester, I'm hoping the current proportions stay stable. (My upper-level classes have experienced much more shift to online attendance than has my first-year course. In that 100-level course, only 2 out o the 20 students have shifted to fully online. All the rest show up on person--during the weeks we're in-person, which is every other week--and they seem to really appreciate the physical proximity of other students.)
ReplyDeleteThanks Dan,
ReplyDeleteI had anticipated that the split classroom would be a challenge based on my experience of teaching at the institute. My experience of teaching to folks with cameras off and having to repeat what is said in the room for people online to hear it mirrors yours. This is a challenging but not impossible environment to teach in.
What I hear from people on our campus also mirrors your experience of the upper-level versus first year classes. I will be teaching some first-years in the spring - so we may have an opportunity to compare notes then, assuming we are still teaching in this format.