Extra effort for teaching remotely in the fall?

In our July "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I have a question about preparing for teaching remotely in the fall: how much (extra) effort should I put into it?

I chose to run the classes asynchronously in the spring when we had to move everything online. I decide to run them synchronously in the fall. I feel that asynchronous online classes are not fair to students many of whom are expected to come back on campus (at least for now for my university) and to pay full or almost full tuition.

While I am learning about some really nice tools that help run classes synchronously, I have some worries and am wondering how much time and effort I should put into it. First, it seems to me that what we are facing is a pretty unique situation, and I am not sure whether we will encounter similar situations in the future (hopefully not!). And I am inclined to teach "real" online classes asynchronously to give students flexibilities. So, I am not sure if I will get another chance to teach remotely and synchronously in the future. Second, while I put a lot of time in it, I am not sure students will appreciate it. I read some articles and it seems that many students are disappointed about remote learning. Yes, I can probably design a really nice class and impress students, but is it really worth the time and effort?

I'll be very curious to hear what people think here, but for my own part I'm inclined to think it's best to keep things simple and as close as possible to how I teach in a face-to-face format. Let me explain why.

Paul Blaschko (Notre Dame), who as I understand it has a lot of experience in these matters, said something similar yesterday in a guest post at Daily Nous. Transitioning to distance learning is difficult on everyone: not just for instructors, but also for students. Whenever I've looked up "remote teaching pedagogy", most of the advice I've come across seems well-intentioned but hopelessly complex--suggesting all kinds of uses of new technologies, etc. Although I'm sure it's possible to do those kinds of things well, it is entirely unclear to me why any of it is necessary for teaching well at a distance, as well as why it's not likely to be a disaster for someone trying a lot of it for the first time.

Because I don't want to confuse myself or my students trying to do a bunch of stuff I have little experience with for the first time, my own plans for the fall are simple. Both of my fall courses meet for 2 hours twice a week. I usually spend about one-third of that time lecturing, another third having open class discussion, and the final third devoted to graded group assignments. My aim in the fall is to simply replicate this via Zoom--regardless of whether I am teaching a hybrid course (if my university still goes back to face-to-face, as it currently plans to do), or if the COVID pandemic necessitates to transitioning to an entirely online format. Basically, my plan is to lecture in the classroom and/or via Zoom for about 30 minutes, use about 30 minutes for open discussion, and then give students the second hour of the course to work on a group assignment via Zoom breakout sessions and Googledocs. This will not only give students 'face-to-face' time with me and with each other, but also replicate the kind of small-group work that I've found works so well in the classroom. Otherwise, my plan is to have most things (exams, term-papers, final presentations) be no different than a normal face-t0-face semester in the classroom. I did something similar--albeit asynchronously--this past spring, and my student evaluations were quite good: students by and large appreciated how well I replicated the in-class environment in an online environment. 

Of course, this is just me, everyone is different, and things could of course go badly with this approach in the fall. But, in general, my experience teaching over many years is that when I experiment with new things--particularly with new technology--a lot of the time I think they'll go well but they don't (usually for reasons that are difficult to foresee). As a result, whenever I make changes to my pedagogy, I usually do so in very incremental ways that build on what I've found works well for me and my students, rather than putting a lot of energy into 'rebuilding' things from the ground up. Long story short: I don't plan to spend a ton of time or energy altering my courses for the COVID pandemic, and my experience thus far (this past Spring) is that one doesn't need to in order to teach well remotely.

But these are just my thoughts and experience. What are yours? 

Comments

[Zoomer]

Marcus is absolutely correct: keep it simple. But I think you should not be too optimistic that this form of teaching is going away soon. It is worth investing enough time and energy into teaching effectively on such platforms as Zoom. The key is to learn the basic features on the system you are going to use. And keep lectures short. Use the discussion/chat forum. Stop, and allow the students to raise questions and answer each other in the chat function. Do everything you can to mimic the interactive nature of the real classroom.
If you can show you can teach in such a format, it may give you a clear advantage on the market in the next year (or so). That is just my prediction.

[Prof L]

Yes, I am also wondering about this. Our university has said things like, "WELL things were thrown together in the Spring, but in the fall you can expect super-duper fantastic PROFESSIONAL online courses!" and I'm just wondering what I could do to make it both "more professional" and better ... I'm coming up with a bit of a blank. Things went well in the transition, generally speaking, and students were fairly patient and understanding with the changes to the syllabus. But I don't know what our university is expecting us to do.

[Derek Bowman]

Prof L,

If your university made those promises, it is incumbent on them to provide you with the training and resources you need to follow through on it. Many universities have centers for "Teaching Excellence" or "Instructional Technology," or etc with resources for online and hybrid teaching.

Philosopher Harry Brighouse has provided a link to his school's guide to remote teaching, which he helped create: https://sites.google.com/wisc.edu/ls-remote-teaching-toolkit/

He also describes some good techniques he tried this past Spring here: https://crookedtimber.org/2020/05/13/reflections-on-moving-to-teaching-online/

Given all the things we say about the value of a liberal arts education in general, and philosophy in particular, one imagines that there ought to be all sorts of intelligent and creative thinkers to collaborate with in our departments and at our universities. If there aren't - or if the conditions of our work prevent us from learning from one another in those ways - that's a bigger indictment of the education we offer than any poorly run online class.