TITLE: Going Online, Three-Plus Weeks In
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: April 14, 2020  3:53 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 First the good news: after three more sessions, I am less despondent
 than I was
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2020-04.html#e2020-04-03T14_05_51.htm">
   after Week Two</A>.
 I have taken my own advice from
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2020-03.html#e2020-03-27T14_31_19.htm">
   Week One</A>
 and lowered expectations.  After teaching for so many years and
 developing a decent sense of my strengths and weaknesses in the
 classroom, this move took me out of my usual groove.  It was easy
 to forget in the rush of the moment not to expect perfection, and
 not being able to interact with students in the same way created
 different emotions about the class sessions.  Now that I have my
 balance back, things feel a bit more normal.

 Part of what changed things for me was watching the videos I made
 of our class sessions.  I quickly realized that these sessions are
 no worse than my usual classes!  It may be harder for students to
 pay attention to the video screen for seventy-five minutes in the
 same way they might pay attention in the classroom, but my actual
 presentation isn't all that different.  That was comforting, even
 as I saw that the videos aren't perfect.

 Another thing that comforted me: the problems with my Zoom sessions
 are largely the same as the problems with my classroom sessions.  I
 can fall into the habit of talking too much and too long unless I
 carefully design exercises and opportunities for students to take
 charge.  The reduced interaction channel magnifies this problem
 slightly, but it doesn't create any new problems in principle.  This,
 too, was comforting.

 For example, I notice that some in-class exercises work better than
 others.  I've always know this from my in-person course sessions,
 but our limited interaction bandwidth really exposes problems that
 are at the wrong level for where the students are at the moment
 (for me, usually too difficult, though occasionally too easy).  I
 am also remembering the value of the right hint at the right moment
 and the value of students interacting and sharing with one another.
 Improving on these elements of my remote course should result in
 corresponding improvements when we move back to campus.

 I have noticed one new problem: I tend to lose track of time more
 easily when working with the class in Zoom, which leads me to run
 short on time at the end of the period.  In the classroom, I glance
 at a big analog clock on the wall at the back of the room and use
 that to manage my time.  My laptop has a digital clock in the corner,
 but it doesn't seem to help me as much.  I think this is a function
 of two parameters:  First, the clock on my computer is less obtrusive,
 so I don't look at it as often.  Second, it is a digital clock.  I
 feel the geometry of analog time viscerally in a way that I don't
 with digital time.  Maybe I'm just old, or maybe we all experience
 analog clocks in a more physical way.

 I do think that watching my lectures can help me improve my teaching.
 After Week One, I wondered, "In what ways can going online, even for
 only a month and a half, improve my course and materials?"  How might
 this experience make me a better teacher or lead to better online
 materials?  I have often heard advice that I should record my lectures
 so that I could watch them with an experienced colleague, with an eye
 to identifying strengths to build on and weaknesses to improve on.
 Even without a colleague to help, this few weeks of recording gives me
 a library of sessions I can use for self-diagnosis and improvement.

 Maybe this experience will have a few positives to counterbalance its
 obvious negatives.
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