COVID-19 has affected thousands of people worldwide. How it would affect schools and college campuses have been a worry since the beginning. When the U.S. went into lockdown in March 2020, high schools and college campuses were evacuated and everything was transferred online. Now imagine having to do that overnight. Professors at Cabrini University had to do just that.
“There was so much to learn in so little time!” Claire Smith, a Spanish professor, said.
Since the start of the pandemic in spring 2020, in order to slow the spread of the virus, colleges turned to virtual learning in order to keep classes going. Teachers were asked to leave their classrooms indefinitely, not knowing if or when they could come back. “Nobody knew how long the lockdown would last or the precise means by which the coronavirus was transmitted,” Smith said.
They then had to completely change the way they taught to make their learning experience 100 percent virtual in a matter of days. “It was necessary to field many e-mails from students battling technological or other issues,” Smith said. This was challenging because many teachers had never taught online courses before and weren’t familiar with the technology. Smith went through this particular problem. “ One day, I would be learning how to launch class discussion boards to help keep students connected. The next day I would be studying video tutorials on how to program online tests or create weekly task folders for students.”
While the time frame was short, teachers took the necessary precautions in order to finish out the spring semester and for future classes. Not only did teachers have to learn the unfamiliar technology but they also had to make accommodations to course work. “ We all had to adjust to the new reality, and that included making accommodations in content and assessments when necessary.” David Madway, Mathematics professor, said.
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Teachers all over have also been posed with the challenge of how to keep class engagement in an all-online course. Surveys have shown that teachers that work in all online environments have reported more student absences and more missing assignments than in-person classes. Studies have also shown that many classes are not proceeding at a normal pace. In the spring of 2020, classes were forced into all virtual learning halfway through the semester.
This caused many classes to either be sped up or put professors behind. Another main issue with online learning is that some courses are easily taught face-to-face. For example, science courses that involve laboratory procedures were a challenge initially. Because of all of the equipment and data collection required for these courses, it was hard for professors to transfer to all virtual in such a short amount of time. Thankfully now, professors have gotten the hang of things and started sending their students equipment where they would then have to record their experiments and send them in.
There are also other options such as virtual labs. While there are many challenges that come with virtual learning, Smith believes that it was also beneficial. “By the end of the academic year, many professors seemed proud of the many skills they had acquired. We feel more confident of our ability to teach remotely should future emergencies arise,” Smith said. Although there have been many obstacles concerning virtual learning, whether it be course work, network issues or miss communication, there have been benefits from it.
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Virtual learning has helped professors develop the skills they needed in order to teach in an online environment. It has also helped students in a way to be able to learn in a different setting and still succeed. Smith went on to share her thoughts about whether online was more difficult “I personally enjoy the classroom atmosphere more than teaching on Zoom,” Smith said. “Nevertheless, I am glad I learned how to use Zoom.”
There have been many obstacles that professors all over the U.S. faced in the past year of virtual learning. Students were also significantly affected by the change. Studies show that excessive screen time has been linked to anxiety and depression. Students also struggled with grasping the concepts of being taught online and not being able to develop vital communication skills like they would in face-to-face courses.
However, this virtual experience has given students the tools to be able to learn in an online environment and pick up different forms of communication skills. With it now being a year with the virtual learning experience, students and professors have now become more adapted to the virtual learning experience. Some students have even now preferred online courses over in-person classes. This extraordinary year has definitely been a roller coaster for many colleges all over the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Smith feels that these circumstances will help for the future even and although it was a negative thing that brought us online learning, there were also advantages to it. “Who would have thought ten or twenty years ago that a professor could call out verb conjugations through a ‘box’ at home and then hear all of her students’ voices from around the country – in sync – repeating those verbs in real-time! I felt like I had acquired a new superpower.”
