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Final live Zoom lecture just wrapped, 2 sections of intro to media studies w/60ish students in each section...and wow that was intense. Toughest semester ever. Spent summer designing the class to maximize interactivity & engaged modes of learning, minimalize lecture time...
...which, after 3 weeks, they basically let me know wasn't working for them. So early semester pivot to live 75-minute Zoom lectures--the mode of instruction I assumed they'd like the least ended up as the one they preferred the most when I surveyed them....
...scrapped a summer's worth of planning to spend 3 hours every day lecturing to 58 black squares. And despite repeated requests, those squares stayed black for the whole semester...
...still, student feedback seemed to be good--heard from them that they liked the material, liked the liveness of the lectures, and were content to just listen rather than do breakout discussions and have more interactive learning....
...discussions were like pulling teeth, but I get that: for a first year student, it's hard to talk in a class of 60 students, when you can't see them & don't know them...
....from my perspective: I didn't hate it, felt like I got better at bringing 'energy' to lectures via live Zoom, and it forced me to become a more focused/coherent lecturer, b/c I couldn't count on students to push sessions forward at all...
...so: I don't know that I ever want to do this again, but it wasn't the trainwreck I expected it to be when I switched formats. I think the liveness of the lecture pushed more engagement, even though it was mostly a one-way flow, than the pre-recorded ones....
...and a huge huge thanks to the 4 students out of 120 who kept their cameras on all semester, most days I was performing for an audience of 2.
Calling this a win is prob being too generous to myself, but it could've sucked more. Which in pandemic times...I'll take it.
Calling this a win is prob being too generous to myself, but it could've sucked more. Which in pandemic times...I'll take it.
