Are you happy teaching online?

[sinenomine]

I do miss teaching in person, but I'm fine to be teaching my full load online. I started teaching online in 2004 and have trained and mentored others, so I made the transition last March without issues. As others have said, the lack of a commute is great, and I certainly enjoying wearing sweatpants and slippers as I work!

[EdnaMode]

I don't like it at all. I teach engineering and engineering technology courses that are heavy with hands-on lab work, so when students cannot be in lab using equipment, they are not getting out of the courses what they should. As a colleague said, would you trust someone to drive a car if all they had ever done was watch videos of people driving and read the theory on road safety, how to shift gears, how to brake, and so on? Heck no! The change to online last spring was horrible as most of us were not prepared - yes, we could use the LMS, doing lectures on Zoom worked for the most part, but not being able to be in the labs made it very difficult to teach the content the students needed to learn. We did manage to have most of our lab courses have at least some in-person work last fall, same this spring. But is it enough? Am I happy with it? Are my colleagues happy with it? Generally no.

[marshwiggle]

I also do labs, and my own courses have a heavy lab component. Each course has been handled differently. (Everything is remote.) Some courses only use simulations for labs; others use a kit the students either purchased or had mailed to them.

While it's not the same as in-person, doing all of the labs asynchronously has had a lot of advantages over in-person, since students don't have the same scheduling or time constraints. And I really don't miss giving the same explanation a dozen times each week for different lab sections of the same course. I don't miss having to get up before dawn if there's been a snowstorm to shovel before I go to work. I like being able to run errands during the day.

Overall, the more time I work this way, the less eager I am to get back face-to-face, although there are some courses for which the in-person labs are probably better.

(Note: I'm not training in medicine, or running a nuclear reactor, so lives don't depend on the lab skills people get. Also, there are things that can be done in simulations that can't be done in-person, so there are actually some things that can be added to remote labs that wouldn't be part of in-person labs.)

[EdnaMode]

I also do labs, and my own courses have a heavy lab component. Each course has been handled differently. (Everything is remote.) Some courses only use simulations for labs; others use a kit the students either purchased or had mailed to them.

That may work for someone in say, EE, or EET, or Computer/Software engineering, but we can't supply students with impact hammers, CMM machines, Tinius Olsens, SEMs, and so on. Some of them may have 3D printers at home, but they can't print the same dog bone on multiple machines with different parameters and then test the specimens. They learn so much more doing it themselves, making the mistakes, interacting with the equipment. And that is one big selling point for our graduates, and the feedback we receive from their employers and our industrial advisory board, is that the students they hire as interns, for co-ops, and for full time work know how to actually use the equipment and have more than just an understanding of theory so that's why I feel we are not only failing our students, but their future employers. But for now, we do what we can.

[marshwiggle]

I also do labs, and my own courses have a heavy lab component. Each course has been handled differently. (Everything is remote.) Some courses only use simulations for labs; others use a kit the students either purchased or had mailed to them.

That may work for someone in say, EE, or EET, or Computer/Software engineering, but we can't supply students with impact hammers, CMM machines, Tinius Olsens, SEMs, and so on. Some of them may have 3D printers at home, but they can't print the same dog bone on multiple machines with different parameters and then test the specimens. They learn so much more doing it themselves, making the mistakes, interacting with the equipment. And that is one big selling point for our graduates, and the feedback we receive from their employers and our industrial advisory board, is that the students they hire as interns, for co-ops, and for full time work know how to actually use the equipment and have more than just an understanding of theory so that's why I feel we are not only failing our students, but their future employers. But for now, we do what we can.

I think we probably agree quite a bit. The point is to understand why we're having students do a particular lab exercise. Some of those "why"s require physical lab presence. In lots of disciplines, "because that's what we've been doing for years" is the main "why" for a disturbing number of things. Even for the simulations I use, 10 years ago there wouldn't have been anywhere close to the same capabilities as now. (And choosing the kit contents was definitely challenging; not being able to use the equipment in the lab is a real limitation, but having students spend more time trying to figure things out on their own versus just asking the TA had some advantages.)

[little bongo]

Nope.

[OneMoreYear]

Yes and No.

I love the chat feature in my synchronous classes. I get much more participation that way in required class nobody wants to take (Advanced Basketweaving Methods).  They are more willing to ask and answer questions in the chat than to raise their hands in in-person classes.

But, similar to the statements by EdnaMode (though an entirely different field), I'm also teaching a lab class that should not be taught online. In fact, this class is one of the courses which prohibits programs from offering an all online degree.  They are not getting the same experience no matter how innovative I'm trying to be. I think I'm doing the best I can with the resources at my disposal, but my students are missing out this year.

[ergative]

Like OneMoreYear, both and neither. I agree that there's more participation---especially in my baby intro class---when I have a friendly grad student collect questions through chat. When I taught that class in person people rarely had questions. Now the intermediate recipient who collates and reports them when I pause for question makes them bolder, and that's great.

For my technical classes, it's really convenient to be able to just post a link to a google doc and have them directly record their data from a little experiment. I can share files for them to download and run on their machines, which means things like gathering reaction times or accuracy rates across different conditions is really feasible, and then they can input their results in real time and we can see patterns emerge for the class. That would be much harder to do in a classroom. Also for the programming class: They can post their code commands directly in the chat window when we go over exercises and then there's no more of that awkward 'saying the code aloud' issue that comes when teaching coding in a classroom and sharing exercise solutions. Sharing screens also means we can point out exactly where the comma is missing, or see exactly what caused the error much more easily.

Online 24-hour exams, rather than in-person 2-hour exams are actually awesome! There's no issue with handwriting, and the students don't end up missing an exam because a train was late or something. They just need to download the exam when it's available and upload their solutions within 24 hours. I would be a bit fan of keeping this format even after we return to in-person teaching.

But the motivation is harder. Chatting with students is harder. Staring at a screen all day instead of using that teaching energy to stand up and deliver a lecture or demonstration is harder. Maintaining a mental separation between work and home is harder.

I'll probably import some of the tools I've been using to teach online into my classroom teaching when we go back, but there's no doubt in my mind that going back to in-person teaching will be a relief.

[ohnoes]

Yes.

It is more work, but I'm able to spend less time doing it because I don't have to commute or participate in mandatory fun.

[the_geneticist]

Yes and no.
I like that I am allowed to choose to work remotely to keep my students & myself safe(r) during the pandemic.  I like that I can spend more time in my gardens and with my cats.

No, I am not happy with the learning experience for my students.  Our students are very likely to be: first-to-college, Pell eligible, balancing work & school & family obligations.  They are unlikely to have reliable internet or own a computer that isn't shared with others in the household.  Many of them HATE online classes because they have to be so much more organized and responsible to not miss class/assignments/exams.  I know that in-person learning works better for the vast majority of our students.  They don't care about the "flexibility" of online learning.  They want to live on campus, make friends, join clubs, etc. and feel like they are part of the campus community. 

I want to be back to in-person teaching for my own selfish reasons too.  It's much less work for me, I miss my work friends, and ironically I get less interruptions working in my office than working from home.