Online classes: synchronicity?

Welcome to Monday and Finals Week! As we're wrapping things up, I'm looking ahead to next semester and starting to design my new courses. (I also just found out that the book chapter I thought was due next month is actually due in January 2022, so my brain is letting that go for a bit.)

My Winter course and three of my Spring courses are listed as online (with no scheduled meeting times). My other Spring course is also online but has scheduled Tu/Th meetings. I've been getting lots of emails regarding both sessions.

Even though there's now a description of course types posted, it doesn't seem to be accomplishing much. And while I will, as usual, be sending out detailed emails before the semester starts, I still had complaints last semester. The primary concern that we weren't having live Zoom meetings, even though the courses were listed and described as asynchronous. I'm waiting to see how evals look for those courses, but I have concerns.

My asynchronous courses have recorded lectures (here's one on Minoan Crete, if you're bored!) which aren't always perfect but are a good way of making sure the students are getting more than just the textbook. 

I also started using VoiceThread for lectures this semester, which had one major plus and one BIG drawback. On the positive side, students can type or record questions or comments on particular slides -- I absolutely loved that, because it made the lecture more interactive even though it was still asynchronous. The main problem was that VT was not stable for a lot of students: there were some problems with login loops and other issues with the program freezing or loading very slowly. By the end of the semester I was exporting any VTs I recorded, and posting them on YouTube for students who couldn't get VT to work.

We can talk about other uses for VT, but at this point I wouldn't recommend it for longer lectures unless you have a backup.

Which brings us to next semester and online synchronous courses... I'm nervous. I'm not a fan of Zoom for many, many reasons, but it's what we have. This is a 300-level Ethics course, and it's supposed to be discussion based. I'm planning to make use of breakout rooms, though I felt students struggled with those this semester as well.

Are there things anyone tried that worked really well?
Things I should definitely avoid?

(This post brought to you by music from Friday night's dart game.)

-- Alyssa

Finishing Fall

In the first year of my PhD program I took my first online class. I was intending to write a dissertation about religious practices on the Internet, and the course promised to be incredibly useful. In 2000, not many people were yet publishing about research techniques specific to an online context, and the course was populated by grad students from a variety of disciplines.

Halfway through the course, the professor disappeared. The chair of the department assured us that we would be graded fairly on the papers we had already turned in (and we were), but the course simply ended. 

Years later, I found out this was a bit of a pattern in the course: the professor would start out engaged, but would gradually stop posting, stop grading, and stop responding. 

Though hopefully no one has reached the point of vanishing, the end of this semester has been rough on many of us -- professors and students alike. I've been teaching some of my classes online for about fifteen years, but moving all my classes online has been more than stressful. Many elements of this semester were abnormal for online teaching: normally no one would combine synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid classes while also flipping back and forth between on-campus and online settings! Many of us are also trying to juggle care for elderly parents, young children, or both.

As we finish the semester - and get ready for a similar, if possibly more planned? - Spring, I'm curious what your best coping techniques have been. I have an ever-changing wall of post-it notes to keep up with due dates and content, which has been helpful. I've also started playing darts again so that I can throw pointy things at my wall without fear of (much) damage.

Leave your ideas in the comments, or ask for specific suggestions!

Alyssa Beall
Teaching Assistant Professor
Religious Studies & Philosophy