Many colleges now are talking distance learning for Fall 2020. The Chronicle of Higher Education is keeping tabs.
My own college, Marymount Manhattan College, is planning an on campus, in person return with social distancing and all the necessary precautions. I think that is the way to go. But I did not always.
In fact, when Marymount Manhattan faculty began discussing moving instruction online in early March, I thought my journalism courses would be the easiest to transition. Many newsrooms are almost all virtual using Slack to communicate and CMS platforms to edit and post. I thought I’d convert my class to this style of newsroom and we’d be up and running without a hitch. After seven weeks together, we could manage the rest of the semester interacting online. (never mind the health and safety benefits)
However, in survey after survey I am reading at the end of this semester, students prefer to be in the classroom. And not just because of the money they are paying for the college experience.
As we think about hybrid classes or distance learning again in the fall, we have to address the following issues.
1: Access to technology.
We have heard this time and again. Not everyone has great wifi. Not everyone has the hardware to support Zooming and Slacking and emailing at the same time. Not everyone can be virtually trained to use new techno tools at the drop of a hat. And the most important, not everyone has the money to pay for all of these things.
In the classroom, we have connected computers that place everyone on an level playing field. Only with this equality can you move forward with learning.
2: Desire for connection beyond the Internet wall.
As great as Zoom, or any of the platforms we are using, is at letting us “see” each other, it is not a shared experience. We are sitting alone in our own space watching disembodied torsos shift and sway. We are in different time zones, some just waking up to coffee, other eating lunch. We can see each other blink back a yawn or write something down, but we cannot feel each other’s energy. The Internet wall is thick.
College – for those who are able to and chose to attend – is a collective experience. It is a sharing of space that creates closeness. It is personal. We sit in the same classroom that is too cold some days, too hot on others. The fan never works quite right. We smell each others egg sandwiches and flavored coffees. We feel the energy of a communal laugh. We sit around the table in an edit meeting where we can all look at each other and respond.
What is the alternative to Zoom? The classroom. Of course all I do will look different in the fall. I won’t be able to bring in Greenpoint’s famous Peter Pan donuts or my Girl Scout cookies to share. I will be wearing a mask as will students. Classes with be smaller. They will be in larger spaces. But at least we will be living the college experience.
3: Prevent the Borg from taking over. Although before the pandemic, we were on our devices all the time, and in the classroom, I had to remind students to stop checking their Insta, now I cannot wait to get OFF my device. I have a feeling at least some students feel the same. The idea of working online, all the time is like being connected to the Borg, a massive techno brain for those of you who are not Trekkies, and losing individuality and thought process.
After two months of Zoom Univeristy – get link, paste password, log in, look into camera, end meeting, repeat – I saw the Borg taking over. I tried to stop it. I chose to make my usual in person three hour classes an hour and a half and assign more reading and writing. Other professors went the full three hours of lecture. Some of my students had nine hours of back to back of online learning.
Some are predicting the wave of the future is online learning with a tech giants like a Google allying with schools like MIT or Stanford to make this so.
I disagree. I believe the future of college education remains in the classroom. Online is a tool but it is not a replacement.
Am I anxious for Fall 2020? Sure. But I can’t want to see my students in Nugent Hall 556.
