Like many of you, I rushed online mid-March, scrambling to move my course into a virtual space while on the go and in the midst of a new, mysterious pandemic. The Summer Term has offered some more possibilities to get better prepared and to think in advance about how to transition online while taking a pedagogical approach that is similar to the one I use in person. While my goals and intentions are the same, the methods can look very different online. McLuhan\u2019s famous articulation that \u201cthe medium is the message,\u201d was never more accurate than in the new COVID-19 educational landscape. Here are some observations I have made so far accompanied with some suggestions (but no prescriptions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teaching in a time of uncertainty<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no nice way to say it: no one really knows what is going on\u2026Maybe some of you, like me, keep scrolling between different news outlets, trying to understand medical data, compare predictions about vaccines, or estimate the chances of economic depression. Maybe I\u2019m just trying to find reassurance, because at times it feels like the end of Western democracy is fast approaching… (while Western democracies are far from being ideal, I\u2019m not sure we have better alternatives). The last few months make one feel very vulnerable. Even being privileged (in my case, middle class, White Canadian living in the Greater Vancouver area) doesn\u2019t seem to give me enough certainty that I can protect my kids from the unknown. Many people feel the same under much more extreme conditions. As always, social positions like race, class, and gender play a huge part in one\u2019s lived-experiences. As Damian Barr succinctly tweeted:<\/a> \u201cWe are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm, some are in yachts and some have just the one oar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In such times productivity can act as a double-edged sword: It can be very challenging to stay focused and be productive (data already shows<\/a> that women academics\u2019 productivity has sharply dropped) but it can also act as an ultimate escape, being buried in work as a way to shield oneself from the world. Both tendencies are problematic: As teachers, family and community members, we don\u2019t have the privilege to freeze; we have people dependent on us. But if we keep on producing work (i.e., in our case, courses) as if nothing huge has happened, it\u2019s a sign that we are probably too disconnected from the suffering and the pain that so many people, including our students, experience nowadays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As promised in my preface, I have no prescriptions\u2026 but my suggestion is to stay connected with these feelings of uncertainty and vulnerability and let them be reflected in our teaching. We can listen to our students, bring the world into our online courses, and help our students navigate these uncertain times (we might discover that they help us just as much!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online learning has real potential to improve teaching (but also comes with big risks):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To be completely honest, I don\u2019t like online teaching. I much prefer going to class and interacting with students face to face. I like the process of entering a space with complete strangers and leaving it at the end of the term with a sense of community. It seems harder to go through this process online. But I do like teaching, and the main reason that I chose teaching as my career was to open spaces for dialogue, critical reflection, and potential transformation. For me, it\u2019s always beyond the content area. It\u2019s about the possibility to think together with our students about where they are positioned in this world (and why), and who they want to be (and how). <\/p>\n\n\n\n For that reason, I cannot just shove my courses online as a mere series of assignments or handouts, and I also cannot just say that I reject online learning, and that this is my academic freedom. Because to reject online learning at this time means to reject the accessibility and the one chance of success in higher education that many of our students have. And most importantly, I need to find ways in the online space to know my students and to love them. It\u2019s easier online to see our students as a sum of their submitted assignments. Grading might be easier\u2026 But if I don\u2019t see my students and if I don\u2019t love them, how can I educate them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I looked for frames to help me conceptualize my online teaching I came across this book: An Urgency of Teachers<\/a> that gave me the language I was looking for. It opens with a clear statement that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Digital technologies, like social media or collaborative writing platforms or MOOCs, have values coded into them in advance. Many tools are good<\/em> only insofar as they are used. And tools and platforms that do dictate too strongly how we might use them, or ones that remove our agency by too covertly reducing us and our work to commodified data, should be rooted out by a Critical Digital Pedagogy. Far too much work in educational technology starts with tools, when what we need to start with is humans. (Stommel & Morris, 2011)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n When I design my courses, I try to do it with humans, my students, in mind. Thinking about their worries, their dreams, and their uncertain future. I try to create spaces within my courses to get to know them, to let them have a voice, to care for them (and for them to care for each other). I want to make sure that my courses is not centered around technical discussions about assignments and submissions and deadlines, but rather around learning and engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to do this? Again, no easy prescriptions\u2026. but I\u2019m happy to share more and think together in our Intercultural Dialogue Corner, and Intercultural Workshops<\/a>. From the \u201cvirtual office\u201d hours I had in my courses so far, and from some of the interactions happening on my Moodle sites, it seems that many students are actually quite happy with online learning, and that the work that they do is no less (and in some cases better) than in face to face courses. Is it perfect? Definitely not! Do I still prefer face to face teaching? Definitely yes! But there is enough rationale for me to explore online teaching in a profound, creative, and critical way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n