Now that many North American institutions are moving instruction online, I see a lot of discussion among my friends in academia about practical details. As many of you know, we have been teaching online since November. The switch last November was because of the deterioration in the situation on campuses, and then in late January or early February it was decided to stay online because of rising concerns about Covid-19.
My own experiences have been fairly positive. However I am teaching mid-size (20-30 students) classes in which students take turns presenting assigned readings and then there is discussion. I think this format is especially amenable to Zoom or other online tools.
I am curious to hear how other colleagues with larger lecture courses are faring. I welcome colleagues here or elsewhere in HK to chime in based on their experiences.
Before I continue, I would like to share some resources that HKUST is providing. We had an online session with representatives of a number of partner universities in March 2020 and the slides and video are available. Our Center for Education innovation has also prepared a very detailed FAQ with a lot of resources to help make the transition to online teaching.
Here are some of my thoughts on topics I see coming up fairly frequently in the feeds of others.
Can Zoom/my university internet handle the increased demand?
It should be able to. My experience has been that Zoom has been pretty rock solid. They operate in the mainland and they have been able to accommodate an increase in usage there in recent weeks that probably dwarfs what you may be seeing in the US.
As for the university internet, keep in mind that colleagues in science and engineering are routinely moving vast amounts of data, and students are probably already streaming Netflix or playing Counterstrike during your lectures, either of which probably are already a heavier burden on internet capacity than Zoom.
Will students still be able to use Zoom if their internet connection at home isn’t super high speed?
Probably. The students in my classes are here in HK and a variety of places in the mainland, with internet connections of varying degrees of quality, and so far it hasn’t been a problem. I don’t know all the technical details but I suspect Zoom requires less bandwidth.
How do I make sure students are paying attention?
Zoom can log participation, including the amount of time the Zoom window is ‘in focus’. We require all students to have their cameras turned on to get credit for attendance. If you’re lucky, some of your students will have cute dogs or cats sitting in their laps while they watch your lectures. Students can use the Virtual Background feature to replace the background with a photo.
What if students can’t find a quiet place?
This is a serious issue. As you may know, homes in HK are quite small, and some students may have trouble finding a place where there is no background noise. Of course they can mute their microphones and use Virtual Backgrounds but it is an issue. For my own students it seems like it has been manageable.
How do you handle group projects if students aren’t physically together?
Students should also be able to use Zoom or for that matter any number of tools to meet with each other. Canvas and I assume other course management tools have modules to let people sign-up and join groups and so forth and share materials with each other.
What do I need to do to convert my classes to online?
I think it depends on the format of your class.
In many cases, you can keep doing what you are already doing, except it is online, not in a classroom. I don’t think there is any reason to pre-record your lectures unless you want to change the format of your class and have students watch the lectures outside of class time so that class meetings can be devoted to discussion.
For the seminar classes I am teaching in which students post responses to the reading every week, and then discussion leaders summarize the readings and call on students to present their responses, transitioning to Zoom did not require any significant change.
Lecture classes also seem to transition fairly seamlessly. Colleagues can give the same lecture in Zoom or whatever application they are using as they would online.
What about exams?
Our own university has encouraged everyone to use take-home exams. My own classes this semester mainly involving writing and projects so I am not using exams. Proctoring exams would seem to be the hardest part to move online.